Video chat for Gaming?
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edemaitre
Explorer
Role-playing via teleconference
For the past six months or more, I've been using a combination of technologies so that remote role-players can participate in my games. On Tuesday nights, a guy in St. Louis uses Skype to videoconference into my face-to-face D&D3.5 campaign in the Boston area. Six to eight players sit around the table, and we have a laptop with speakers, microphone, and a webcam set up at one seat.
The good news is that this gamer is still able to participate in our sessions and is even able to see the battle mat and miniatures. The bad news is that bandwidth, crosstalk, and audio quality can diminish his enjoyment. We've had to be careful to reduce noise and side conversations, but for the most part, that has worked well.
On most Wednesdays, he and another friend in Brooklyn, New York, have used Skype or Yahoo chat for audioconferencing, and the "Fantasy Grounds" virtual tabletop for sessions in which I'm the Game Master. While the smaller team has had fewer communications problems than the Tuesday one described above, we've had more technical difficulties. While I like the die-rolling, character sheet, and tactical map in Fantasy Grounds, we've had problems with server/networking access, finding/sharing local copies of character records, and of course, last week's nationwide outage of Skype. Also, bandwidth and memory-allocation issues have led us to begin considering other virtual tabletops.
Thus, remote role-playing is a mixed bag. If everyone is courteous and committed, it can be fun. We've come a long way from text-only, asynchronous role-play by e-mail. The software to support online die rolling, character management, and tactical maps is continuing to evolve, and I hope that Wizards of the Coast's online initiative for "Dungeons & Dragons" Fourth Edition will aid that portion of my gaming groups. I'd be interested in comparing notes with other Game Masters who have experimented or successfully run games this way... Happy gaming!
For the past six months or more, I've been using a combination of technologies so that remote role-players can participate in my games. On Tuesday nights, a guy in St. Louis uses Skype to videoconference into my face-to-face D&D3.5 campaign in the Boston area. Six to eight players sit around the table, and we have a laptop with speakers, microphone, and a webcam set up at one seat.
The good news is that this gamer is still able to participate in our sessions and is even able to see the battle mat and miniatures. The bad news is that bandwidth, crosstalk, and audio quality can diminish his enjoyment. We've had to be careful to reduce noise and side conversations, but for the most part, that has worked well.
On most Wednesdays, he and another friend in Brooklyn, New York, have used Skype or Yahoo chat for audioconferencing, and the "Fantasy Grounds" virtual tabletop for sessions in which I'm the Game Master. While the smaller team has had fewer communications problems than the Tuesday one described above, we've had more technical difficulties. While I like the die-rolling, character sheet, and tactical map in Fantasy Grounds, we've had problems with server/networking access, finding/sharing local copies of character records, and of course, last week's nationwide outage of Skype. Also, bandwidth and memory-allocation issues have led us to begin considering other virtual tabletops.
Thus, remote role-playing is a mixed bag. If everyone is courteous and committed, it can be fun. We've come a long way from text-only, asynchronous role-play by e-mail. The software to support online die rolling, character management, and tactical maps is continuing to evolve, and I hope that Wizards of the Coast's online initiative for "Dungeons & Dragons" Fourth Edition will aid that portion of my gaming groups. I'd be interested in comparing notes with other Game Masters who have experimented or successfully run games this way... Happy gaming!
Raylis
First Post
Every other Friday I use msn and a webcam to play with my old group across the state. It's worked out fairly well and we haven't had too many problems. Someone will have to repeat something every now and then because of bandwith or lag or what have you. The only really hard part is seeing the combat map or other maps our DM draws, that more often then not requires the webcam to be moved.
But overall it's been a pretty good way to keep playing with them.
But overall it's been a pretty good way to keep playing with them.
WSmith
First Post
I have been interested in trying Skype as a conference or iChat with my iSight for video chat game but haven't found players. There are a few players from Dragonsfoot that have used Skype successfully. They have a lot of trust cause they use their on PC sheets at the desk, roll their own real dice, etc.
Michael Silverbane
Adventurer
I am currently running a campaign using Maptool and Skype.
The game seems to run a little bit slower than a face to face game, but not by a whole lot. Plus there are some pretty cool things that you can do with maptool that you couldn't do very well in a face to face game (invisible creatures, limited vision, etc.)
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silver
The game seems to run a little bit slower than a face to face game, but not by a whole lot. Plus there are some pretty cool things that you can do with maptool that you couldn't do very well in a face to face game (invisible creatures, limited vision, etc.)
Later
silver
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