Greetings

Has anyone come across a good way to play roleplaying games online?
I have found it increasingly hard to get players together (thanks
among other things to WoW). With everybody and there brother now being
online I hope that it would improve the situation if I could provide
them with a means of playing online..

anyone?

On Tue, 5 Mar 2007, thom_raindog wrote:

> Greetings
>
> Has anyone come across a good way to play roleplaying games online?
> I have found it increasingly hard to get players together (thanks
> among other things to WoW). With everybody and there brother now being
> online I hope that it would improve the situation if I could provide
> them with a means of playing online..

IRC is one option....all you need is a bot to do random dice rolls running 
on the channel and you have a text based online RPG play.

File transfer can be mediated by any number of instant messaging services 
(MSN, ICQ etc etc).

For the full visual effect webcams can be used, full audio is trivial by 
use of roger wilco, Teamspeak, Ventrilo etc sidestepping the usual 
limitation of text.

IRC bot for dice rolling and a voice ovver network software does most of 
it TBH as the players had their character sheets.

Battleboards are more difficult, though the DM can keep one by the desk 
and use it giving the players rough idea of the setup. Again a wireless 
webcam works wonders here.

On top of that you have a variety of MUSH alike systems, and forum based 
roleplaying games going on that are more systemless/freeform play

We did a DnD session about 6 years ago or so where we used broadband, 
webcam, microphone, IRC and some RPG software for character sheets 
(Familiar I think it was called) to do a session in one guys house with 
remote players. It worked fine. The proliferation of broadband connects 
will help this but even a 56k modem connect will run a voice over network 
and IRC based system



Tim
-- 
When playing rugby, its not the winning that counts, but the taking apart
ICQ: 5178568

Tim Fitzmaurice wrote:

>IRC is one option....all you need is a bot to do random dice rolls running 
>on the channel and you have a text based online RPG play.

If you don't have such a bot, I have source code for one...

Some people like openrpg and similar software, but I find it too
restrictive.

>File transfer can be mediated by any number of instant messaging services 
>(MSN, ICQ etc etc).

The difficulty is that you then need an account for your dice bot. :-)

R

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007, Roger Burton West wrote:

> Tim Fitzmaurice wrote:
>
>> IRC is one option....all you need is a bot to do random dice rolls running
>> on the channel and you have a text based online RPG play.
>
> If you don't have such a bot, I have source code for one...
>
> Some people like openrpg and similar software, but I find it too
> restrictive.
>
>> File transfer can be mediated by any number of instant messaging services
>> (MSN, ICQ etc etc).
>
> The difficulty is that you then need an account for your dice bot. :-)

We have used IM to transfer files, but the IRC separately for the dice 
bot - OK more windows but it worked.

Tim
-- 
When playing rugby, its not the winning that counts, but the taking apart
ICQ: 5178568

On 5 Mar 2007 23:10:37 -0800, "thom_raindog"  wrote:

>Greetings
>
>Has anyone come across a good way to play roleplaying games online?
>I have found it increasingly hard to get players together (thanks
>among other things to WoW). With everybody and there brother now being
>online I hope that it would improve the situation if I could provide
>them with a means of playing online..
>
>anyone?

I don't want to put to much of a downer on this but I found it hard to
get reliable players for online games.  People think nothing a missing a
session without telling the GM and they drop out of games without
telling you why.

It's much easier to get players for popular formats such as D&D 3.5e and
Exalted than it would be for minor games - which I tend to favour.

Have a look at openRPG:
<http://forums.rpghost.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=118>

In the end I just gave up looking for online games due to the lack of
commitment shown by most players and the rather informal way of playing
- it's more enjoyable to play table-top. I prefer the feedback you get
by being able to look at a player's face - there's far more to good RPG
than just exchanging words. I find online games severely deficient in
giving me emotional feedback from players and I prefer to game with
players who aren't afraid to use their emotions during play.

"thom_raindog"  wrote in message 
news:1173165032.383809.179430@q40g2000cwq.googlegroups.com...
> Greetings
>
> Has anyone come across a good way to play roleplaying games online?
> I have found it increasingly hard to get players together (thanks
> among other things to WoW). With everybody and there brother now being
> online I hope that it would improve the situation if I could provide
> them with a means of playing online..
>
> anyone?
>

-I used ot run a campaign for years online, problems come when folk have too 
different time zones, that sucks
-I have my own web site so hosted maps etc
-we used a forum so we could chat and keep track of things
-we used OPENRPG to play but there's other programs, one looks very good, 
forget name, it costs to buy it, advertised in dragon magazine

:)

On Tue, 5 Mar 2007, thom_raindog wrote:

> Greetings
>
> Has anyone come across a good way to play roleplaying games online?
> I have found it increasingly hard to get players together (thanks
> among other things to WoW). With everybody and there brother now being
> online I hope that it would improve the situation if I could provide
> them with a means of playing online..

IRC is one option....all you need is a bot to do random dice rolls running 
on the channel and you have a text based online RPG play.

File transfer can be mediated by any number of instant messaging services 
(MSN, ICQ etc etc).

For the full visual effect webcams can be used, full audio is trivial by 
use of roger wilco, Teamspeak, Ventrilo etc sidestepping the usual 
limitation of text.

IRC bot for dice rolling and a voice ovver network software does most of 
it TBH as the players had their character sheets.

Battleboards are more difficult, though the DM can keep one by the desk 
and use it giving the players rough idea of the setup. Again a wireless 
webcam works wonders here.

On top of that you have a variety of MUSH alike systems, and forum based 
roleplaying games going on that are more systemless/freeform play

We did a DnD session about 6 years ago or so where we used broadband, 
webcam, microphone, IRC and some RPG software for character sheets 
(Familiar I think it was called) to do a session in one guys house with 
remote players. It worked fine. The proliferation of broadband connects 
will help this but even a 56k modem connect will run a voice over network 
and IRC based system



Tim
-- 
When playing rugby, its not the winning that counts, but the taking apart
ICQ: 5178568

Tim Fitzmaurice wrote:

>IRC is one option....all you need is a bot to do random dice rolls running 
>on the channel and you have a text based online RPG play.

If you don't have such a bot, I have source code for one...

Some people like openrpg and similar software, but I find it too
restrictive.

>File transfer can be mediated by any number of instant messaging services 
>(MSN, ICQ etc etc).

The difficulty is that you then need an account for your dice bot. :-)

R

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007, Roger Burton West wrote:

> Tim Fitzmaurice wrote:
>
>> IRC is one option....all you need is a bot to do random dice rolls running
>> on the channel and you have a text based online RPG play.
>
> If you don't have such a bot, I have source code for one...
>
> Some people like openrpg and similar software, but I find it too
> restrictive.
>
>> File transfer can be mediated by any number of instant messaging services
>> (MSN, ICQ etc etc).
>
> The difficulty is that you then need an account for your dice bot. :-)

We have used IM to transfer files, but the IRC separately for the dice 
bot - OK more windows but it worked.

Tim
-- 
When playing rugby, its not the winning that counts, but the taking apart
ICQ: 5178568

On 5 Mar 2007 23:10:37 -0800, "thom_raindog"  wrote:

>Greetings
>
>Has anyone come across a good way to play roleplaying games online?
>I have found it increasingly hard to get players together (thanks
>among other things to WoW). With everybody and there brother now being
>online I hope that it would improve the situation if I could provide
>them with a means of playing online..
>
>anyone?

I don't want to put to much of a downer on this but I found it hard to
get reliable players for online games.  People think nothing a missing a
session without telling the GM and they drop out of games without
telling you why.

It's much easier to get players for popular formats such as D&D 3.5e and
Exalted than it would be for minor games - which I tend to favour.

Have a look at openRPG:
<http://forums.rpghost.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=118>

In the end I just gave up looking for online games due to the lack of
commitment shown by most players and the rather informal way of playing
- it's more enjoyable to play table-top. I prefer the feedback you get
by being able to look at a player's face - there's far more to good RPG
than just exchanging words. I find online games severely deficient in
giving me emotional feedback from players and I prefer to game with
players who aren't afraid to use their emotions during play.