Playing Pen-and-Paper RPGs Online with Friends?

MotorMachineMercenar wonders: "My friends and I have almost 200 years of combined pen-and-paper RPG experience. As my gaming group has drifted apart (moving to different cities and countries to pursue careers and love) our game time has diminished to just a few nights a year during vacations. We've toyed with the idea of playing online but never got far. Now, I'm not talking about MMORPGs, NWN or anything like that. Just regular, open-ended pen-and-paper RPGing with old friends, not restricted by computer game mechanics. So we'd like to recreate the good ol' tabletop experience as much as we can. We've thought about using Netmeeting (or similar) to communicate with voice and maybe video, to share maps, character sheets, etc. What about throwing dice securely so everyone or only the GM sees the results? Does Slashdot have other ideas or better tools? Has anyone done this successfully?"

Comments

IRC

[SiliconJesus]

I've personally done this a few times, and Eggdrop + IRC = Good Gaming Experience.

Re:IRC

[Lendrick]

One thing I've noticed about the IRC games I run (been doing this for about five years now), they tend to be a bit roleplaying-heavy. Turns out, it's easier for everyone to get into character because you're just seeing words on the screen, as opposed to looking at your friends. It makes the experience flow a lot more like a book.

Of course, one thing you give up using this method is the ability to conveniently draw maps for people. As some people mentioned further down, there are programs like OpenRPG which allow you to use a miniatures map and the like, but I've never had much luck getting those programs to work (people's connections kept dropping, for one thing).

The big downside, of course, is speed. Waiting for everyone to type can get a little slow. On the whole, though, it works fairly well.

Re:IRC

[SiliconJesus]

Building on your comment about maps, I only kept one for myself, unless it was an 'adventure item' Things of that nature (and riddles and runes) I kept in image files (.tiff / .jpg / whatever) and DCC'd as the party found them.

Generally speaking, you're right, they are slower, but also more 'in character.' The group I played with would be in two rooms #name_of_game and #name_of_game_ooc for any communication that had to be kept OOC. Then if someone missed a session, you could literally hand them the logs of the event and catch them back up.

Re:IRC

[BMonger]

Couldn't you use something like vIRC? I seem to remember that it was an IRC client where you could draw also. I suppose it'd help if you had a graphics tablet or something too... haven't used vIRC in a long time so I don't know what condition it's in.

Re:IRC

[Lendrick]

That's a very good point. There's also a mIRC plugin that acts as a group whiteboard, if I remember correctly. The reason that my group doesn't use any special client-specific features is that I run Linux, and my players run Windows. There aren't any cross-platform clients that have a whiteboard... or at least, none to my knowledge.

Re:IRC

[Anonymous Coward]

IRC is definitely the way to go, infact most of my "serious" role-playing has been via IRC. I feel awkward role-playing in front of people in real life. It's probably because I'm already horribly fake often in real life. =P

Re:IRC

[Reddog0176]

More specifically, take a look at magicstar.net irc, they cater to roleplaying groups and have built in dice rolling services. web: www.magicstar.net, and irc: irc.magicstar.net

Pure Text

[Lightwarrior]

I've had pretty good luck with pure text (like IRC), but it doesn't have the visual tools of netmeeting and its like.

I've got to ask... 200 years experience? Even with 10 people, that's 20 years / person. How many players are in your group?

-lw

Re:Pure Text

[Deraj DeZine]

Even with 10 people, that's 20 years / person

Or with 6,307,200,000 people it's 1 second / person. If you know how to manipulate numbers, it can really go either way.

Re:Pure Text

[Anonymous Coward]

ohh is that how numbers work? thank you.

Re:Pure Text

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you mister humor-deficiency!

Re:Pure Text

[anon*127.0.0.1]

I think when he says "200 years experience", he doesn't mean they've actually been playing for 200 years. It's not like a flight time figure, where 200 hours means they actually spent 200 hours in the cockpit. I think he just means that the total years elapsed since the first started playing for all of them combined adds up to 200.

Thats not so unreasonable... hell, I started playing in '77. Of course, I stopped in 82, but if I roll a 20-sider tomorrow, I can claim 28 years of experience.

tisk tisk

[nocomment]

YOu never tried sourceforge did you? ;-) I found this, I don't know it it's _exactlt_ what you are looking for but there's others. phprpg

Re:tisk tisk

[gabec]

deaddragon.com is a managed group of rpg players building on a common world.

The simplest answer is often the best one

[jmaatta]

Use IRC.

Several Good Options...

[Anonymous Coward]

WebRPG http://www.webrpg.com/
OpenRPG http://www.openrpg.com/

And many more. Just Google it!

WebRPG

[MoodyLoner]

Try http://www.webrpg.com/

Re:WebRPG

[MoodyLoner]

This is the first thing that came up when I used Google .

Re:WebRPG

[asamoth]

Does anyone know how it works now? I use to used this a few years ago and there was an issue with either the client or the java portion that would cause machines to lock up every hour or so.

OpenRPG

[stefanlasiewski]

http://www.openrpg.com/

Not super pretty, but very functional. A bit like an IRC client with a GUI map capability.

If you already have a group of players, this product is great.

Re:OpenRPG

[NearsightedBoy]

In addition, you might try using AIM chat. It has a built in dice roller that's not very intuitive, but it works. The format is //roll-dice[number]-sides[number], so typing //roll-dice4-sides10 would produce four random numbers between one and ten for all to see, for example.

Re:OpenRPG

[mwheeler01]

I frequent OpenRPG but beware the servers are very unstable. This project could use some coders who don't think Python is the greatest

Re:OpenRPG

[cataract]

Hear, hear! OpenRPG is definitely worth a try. I've used it a bunch with friends and it works great. Even if you don't use the mapping features, the die roller alone is worth it.

Re:OpenRPG

[Frnknstn]

Python IS the greatest. Python coders are not. The great thing about democracy is that everyone has a say. The worst thing about democracy is EVERYONE has a say.

OpenRPG

[NearsightedBoy]

You might try OpenRPG, designed specifically for this sort of thing. Written in Python, completely open source, and has plugins for a multitude of pnp systems from your standard DnD to Shadowrun, Storyteller, GURPS, etc.

Secure Dice Protocol

[vslashg]

I came up with a secure dice protocol, so that both the roller and the DM know that neither side is cheating. I am probably reinventing the wheel here, but ah well. The protocol to simulate a 6-sided die roll (it extends to any size):

1. DM's computer randomly sorts the numbers 1 through 6 and puts them in a comma separated list. After the list, there is a space and random salt characters, for instance:
1,4,3,5,6,2 AIQJCE

2. DM's computer generates the MD5 digest for this string and sends it over the wire to the player's computer.
adc4f4c66858ab4f5e1d03dc22bb92b3

3. Player's computer chooses a random number between 0 and 5 and sends that number back to the DM's computer.
3

4. That number is used as an index into the generated list, so in this case the player rolled a 5. The DM's computer sends that result over the wire, as well as the original string.

The player can verify that the list was generated before he picked his number by checking that the md5 digest of the string matches. The DM likewise knows the player didn't have the string when he chose the number, because it wasn't sent over the wire.

No algorithm is needed to generate private DM rolls; he can just roll them. Sure, he could fudge the numbers, but he could do that in pen-and-paper.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[oroshana]

Irony Games' Dice Server is pretty nice and supports PGP authentication.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[Mike Hawk]

Damn guy, what kind of jerk players did you have that you need such security just to roll for damage? Gaming builds social skills my ass.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of curiosity, what's to prevent the DM from sending an IM to the player telling him what number to say? :-)

Either you trust the DM or you don't. If you do, there's no need for a secure protocol. Just let the player tell his roll to the DM (and then the DM computes the table lookup) or let the DM do the roll himself.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[dR.fuZZo]

Damn guy, what kind of jerk players did you have that you need such security just to roll for damage?

You obviously haven't gamed with many people.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a quick and dirty "nonrefutable" protocol (true nonrefutability requires a third party), and it's pretty decent, especially if the salt is long (this is very short text you're checksumming/digesting). For a somewhat more secure variation, the client should set half the salt on request so the DM can't precompute it (at least not as quickly).

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[vslashg]

Out of curiosity, what's to prevent the DM from sending an IM to the player telling him what number to say? :-)

Nothing. Really, my idea here is that the DM can always cheat if he wants to. The players should never be able to cheat (certainly not with the networking tools), but the players do need to feel secure in the fact that their dice are fair.

I can't speak as much for role-playing-heavy D&D, but in hack and slash dungeon crawls, the dice rolls are a big part of the fun. Pen and paper would lose a lot if the DM always rolled for you behind the DM screen. "I attack the ogre." "Sorry, you miss." Under the real system, the players roll but don't know exactly what number they need. But a 2 or 3 is probably a miss, and an 18 or 19 is probably a hit. (And honestly, rolling a 15 or so and finding out you missed does a pretty good job of conveying the difficulty of an enemy to you. It's the kind of metagaming I approve of, since in "real life" you would realize "man, this is a tough critter to hit," but in a different way.)

You would tend to be suspicious that the DM was cheating if he rolled your dice for you. This principle applies in netplay as much as local pen-and-paper.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[Anonymous Coward]

Player's computer chooses a random number between 0 and 5 and sends that number back to the DM's computer.

It would probably be better to have every player generate a number, then add them mod 6. That would prevent the DM and a player from cheating together.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[einTier]

The last group I played with, once we got comfortable with each other (took playing together over a year or so) we finally started having gaming sessions with no dice.

We all knew about how hard certain tasks should be to accomplish, and how much damage certain creatures would do, and approximately what everyone's dice rolls would be over time, and we just went from there. The various GMs had been fudging rolls and target numbers for quite some time anyway, to get that magical mix of challenge and satisfaction.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[UberGeeb]

A simpler method if you're using IRC is to simply have the GM running a dice bot. Lots of them out there. Someone says "1d20" in the channel, and the dice bot automatically generates a number from 1-20.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[Anonymous Coward]

and approximately what everyone's dice rolls would be over time

Woah! Do I know you? That sounds like my last group! For example, everybody knows I cheat. Given a d20, I'll always roll an 18, 19 or 20, depending on my mood. It started saving a lot of time (especially the heated arguments) when they started giving me the benefit of the doubt and letting me say I got a 19 without rolling. ;-)

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[einTier]

Probably not. The way I always dealt with cheaters like you is to give an absurdly high target number, when someone else would have gotten something modest.

For instance, we always played Shadowrun, which uses a unique D6 system. Basically, you roll D6, and if you roll a six, you re-roll the dice and add the result to the original six. For instance, you could roll 1D6, and get a six. Then you reroll that dice and get another six. You reroll again, and get a 3. Your number is 15 (6 + 6 + 3). So, for someone I knew would cheat rolls, or just roll exceptionally well, I would set a target number of 10 when anyone else at the table would have recieved a five. This 'fudge factor' would change depending on how well they'd been rolling and how much I needed or wanted them to succeed or fail at the task at hand.

After a while, we just put the dice away altogether. Granted, I always kept a few as GM (not all our GMs did) just for times when I didn't care or needed some randomness. But, essentially, you're looking at a diceless game. It made for good times.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[Alban]

Why not simply have the client send a random value to be used as an index in the DM's shuffled array of values?

ex for a d6 roll:

DM shuffles his array:
[ 6, 3, 2, 4, 1, 5 ]

Client generates a random roll:
3
and sends it over to the DM.

DM retrives the values at index 3:
4

You need to trust the DM, but that makes sense...

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[vslashg]

My point was that this method lets your players know that their dice are not rigged. A dicebot owned by the DM doesn't provide this assurance.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[Harassed]

Why not have the DM just do all the rolls and let (or not) the players know what the results are. Some of the best D&D games I played were done with no player dice rolling whatever. It makes for far better storytelling if the DM can frig the numbers every now and again in order to improve the story.

Re:Secure Dice Protocol

[Entropius]

But a 2 or 3 is probably a miss, and an 18 or 19 is probably a hit. (And honestly, rolling a 15 or so and finding out you missed does a pretty good job of conveying the difficulty of an enemy to you.

Had a wonderful moment like this in a now-defunct PnP campaign of mine (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil).

6th level party meets lone man, unarmored, with nothing but a staff. He's obviously in a miserable mood. After the party gnome taunts him, he drops a confusion spell on them and goes inside his shack. The dwarven cleric (who made his save), played by someone not-so-bright, gives chase while the rest of the party scoops up their marbles.

When he gets near the doorway, the old man comes out. The following exchange takes place:

Me: "The old man takes a swing at you with his staff."
Player: "Hah, the wizard's meleeing us... he must be desperate!"
Me: *rolls a 4 on the d20 to hit* Does, um, AC 20 hit you?
Player: *jaw drops slightly* "Uh, yeah... it does... uh, a wizard with an attack bonus of +16?"
Me: *rolls a 6 on d6 for quarterstaff damage* "Take 18 points damage."
Player: *jaw hits floor*

Turned out the "wizard" wasn't a wizard at all--he was a 7th level cleric, buffed to the gills, with confusion (normally wizard-only) as a domain spell. He wound up killing the party cleric, after said cleric was knocked down to 1 hp and didn't heal himself for some strange reason.

Macray's Keep

[oroshana]

I've been lurking on Macray's Keep for a while now. It seems to be a nice system so you might want to check it out.

Re:Macray's Keep

[kaleposhobios]

The Macray's Keep website will only accept browers that are (or show themselves as) Internet Explorer. I suggest avoiding the site until they are friendly to all, or even sending them a (kind) e-mail recommending that they accept other browsers.

Re:Macray's Keep

[iamsure]

Funny thing is, a few clicks in, and its fairly clear that they dont do anything that couldnt work on Mozilla or Konq.

Bizarre.

Re:Macray's Keep

[Mongoose Disciple]

Let's be honest... at the moment, writing letters asking web sites to support non-IE web browsers is about on the level of writing the producers of the movie of your choice asking them to release it on laserdisc or betamax.

Being compatible with the technology used by the vast majority of the population is good enough for almost everyone, be they business owner, charitable organization, or random web-site. Be happy when your alternative choice is supported, but don't be surprised or offended when it isn't.

I'd be surprised if 90%+ of even a geek community like gamers didn't use IE.

Re:Macray's Keep

[oroshana]

I didn't like the IE-only thing either. But it's a site that is nice, even the non-free features are rather cheap, and really, who doesn't have a secret wintel box sitting around somewhere. Don't be scared, nobody will find out. *wink*

Re:Macray's Keep

[ComputerSlicer23]

No, it's more like asking them to release VHS tapes that will play in both Sony, and Phillips VCR's. There is a standard for HTML. It's not terrible complex to build good looking sites that render in several of the latest browsers.

I'd be pissed if I bought a VHS tape that wouldn't play in my Sony VCR.

Kirby

Re:Macray's Keep

[Mongoose Disciple]

It's not terrible complex to build good looking sites that render in several of the latest browsers.

Having dealt with the nightmare that is cross-browser compatibility for several years (not implicitly part of my job, but I touch on it from time to time and people I've worked with do as well), I would strongly beg to differ on that.

Hell, it's not even trivial to write HTML that works and looks right in the last half a dozen releases of just Netscape without complicating the matter with other non-NS browsers.

Re:Macray's Keep

[Drakonite]

Having your page allow people to enter whether they are using your "tested" browser or not is trivial though. IMO it's just plain rude to lock out access to your page based on what browser is being used, especially as most pages that do this work perfectly in Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, or other browsers.

Re:Macray's Keep

[Rolgar]

Rondak's Portal on the other hand is about the same, but completely free (donations accepted) and alternative browser friendly. Macray's used to be free, and then Macray decided to charge for some of functions like dice rolling, chat rooms, and access to modifying the character sheets, at least for players.

Re:Macray's Keep

[ComputerSlicer23]

Sorry, my sister can manage to write HTML that can be viewed in everything from Netscape 3.0 thru a current version. It runs on Netscape and IE.

When she gets to use CSS and various other newer tools for sites they can essentially say buzz off if you don't use a current browser. She does with relative ease.

You can't convince me it's that hard. I've been to too many sites that look just fine in both.

I've been to too many sites that are confused that, the web isn't desktop publishing, where what they see isn't only view way it could be rendered. Sites that do stupid things like assume a fixed font size. Like assuming that every one on the planet uses a 17" at 1024x768, or that no one could concieve of using a 256 color desktop. My favorites being the idiots who use a repeating graphic to acheive a border on the left hand side, that because I use a wide screen shows up twice and obscures the near the right edge.

cnn.com manages to render a decent looking page. Amazon renders a good looking page. eBay works fine. I write C++ that outputs HTML all the time, that has to work under both IE and Mozilla.

time.com renders a fine looking page. Lets see, sourceforge looks fine. Heck, even Microsoft.com looks pretty good. cox.net (my ISP) just flately refuses to use any broswer that isn't IE for some functionality, even though the functionality is trivially right under mozilla. Sorry, I'm not a web designer, but I understand that HTML is a Markup Language, not a by the pixel layout language. I realize that it isn't desktop publishing (which a graphic artists appear to not under stand).

I've got no issues with not supporting anything older then the last couple of releases of Mozilla and IE. If the real problem was that they we're following the standards and mozilla violated them, I'd have no problems with them not allowing it. However, in my experience, unless you work hard to use IE only features, Mozilla will render everything just fine, since the 1.0 days.

Kirby

Re:Macray's Keep

[Mongoose Disciple]

We could argue easy vs. not easy all day, and I'm not really interested in that. I'd like to share something you might not be aware of, however.

I've been to too many sites that are confused that, the web isn't desktop publishing, where what they see isn't only view way it could be rendered. Sites that do stupid things like assume a fixed font size. Like assuming that every one on the planet uses a 17" at 1024x768, or that no one could concieve of using a 256 color desktop.

I am not a graphic designer, but I can tell you that these kinds of things can't always be chalked up to graphic designer stupidity. A lot of the time, it's corporate stupidity.

If you're doing web-work for a brick-and-mortar corporation, they'll typically have an elaborate and terribly bureaucratic-reading style guide. You must use these fonts this size, pictures of our logo need a border of empty space precisely X pixels around them, etc. Not adhering to such a guide, stupid as it is, is not generally an option. Making something like this work in one specific browser is an exercise in hair-pulling and nitpicking, but it can be done. The more browsers you want to support, the more nightmarish it gets.

I've heard a lot of conversations with clients like that (and it's most of them) that go something like this:

Client: This web site looks great, it finally adheres to our requirements. But look, it looks all weird in Netscape! And it looks weird in different ways in these various versions of Netscape! Fix it!!

Web Dev Company: Sure, we can do that. It's going to take X amount of time and Y amount of money though.

Client: That's a lot of money. Wait, what percentage of our current web site visitors use IE?

WDC: 99%.

Client: Fuck those hippie bastards then. Can we just force them to use IE?

Re:Macray's Keep

[oroshana]

I suspect that some of the message boards and chat room stuff is ASP-ish. maybe. nevermind. 0;)

Re:Macray's Keep

[tfoudray]

I'd never heard of this, so I clicked your helpful link... only to read...

In order to enter Macray's Keep, you must be using Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 5.5 or higher). The system has determined that your browser has failed one or more of the afore mentioned criteria. The solution is to download (for free) latest version of Internet Explorer (its free).

nevermind, then.

I've done openRPG and WebRPG (the latter of which I left when it turned into a pay service -- it has since gone back to free, I believe).. but they are both
1) full of munchkins and powergamers and lamers and noobs. expect interuptions and idiocy abound.
2) unreliable, both the players (if you meet random people, expect literally 1/3 at most to show up to a specified gaming session) and the programs (servers/clients for both programs stall gaming sessions at least 2-3 times in a 4-6 hour session.)
3) as pointed out below, typing out a gaming session is pretty slow and a 4-6 hour gaming session means you don't really do a whole lot.

Sure, I liked them when I needed my fix, but you really cannot beat gaming in person. check your local gaming shops for bulletin boards and make new friends, even! sure, you and your old buddies can still get together, but that doesn't mean you have to limit your gaming to just with them!

The Answer's IRC

[Primis]

RPGing's been going on over IRC for years and years and years...

Do a quick search on most IRC networks and you should find channels dedicated to specific systems even. And of course, as GM you can always create a channel specifically for your game (and password protect it and/or make it invite-only if needed).

It's not perfect, but it is still better than any other system I see out there if you want to do PnP RPG's online.

-- Primis.

Programmer?

[john_is_war]

Wait... let me get this straight. You want some sort of program to help you with this? You're D&D geeks, why not just code your own?

Re:Programmer?

[EnglishTim]

> why not just code your own?

Maybe they'd rather be playing D&D?

No point in reinventing the wheel.

Netmeeting isn't bad...

[gothrus]

for a MS product. It allows you to share applications so everyone can see and use you die rolling program. You could also share any other D&D applications over it, allowing others to see your character sheet, maps, graphics, NPC generator, etc. Also you get a nice scratch pad to doodle on.

wow

[drDugan]

this so applies to me too.

I want to be able to GM a game with tools to help, and voice (like teamspeak) connections to the team.

maybe even have a library of images available to use to show what monsters, vistas, maps, treasures etc.

god I'm still a geek at heart.

RPG Suite

[NickFusion]

Here are three packages that really help capture the feel of a face-to-face game:

GnuDorrito: A XML snack-food tracking and emulation package.

OpenLate: A software package that keeps out-of-character chatter enable on a random timer to simulate people arriving late for the game.

Scatalyser: Reinterprets everyday text and adds the appropriate amount of scatalogical humor. There is a bug that keeps the Scatalyser from working in the presence of women.

Simple answer, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Suicide

Conference Call

[m_evanchik]

I used to DM friends over the phone when we couldn't get together. It worked pretty well.

Many phone companies offer unlimited cnference calling for a set fee. With an unlimited long distance plan, it may be worth looking into.

Re:Conference Call

[mzs]

Yeah we used to use the phone, but only for one extra player. The guy would play from work during his owl shift :) Anyway, the DM would just roll for him. There was no concern about honesty since he trusted the DM. (Also everyone else was there and could see the DM roll so that could have helped with the DM being honest.) For the stuff we played, we never saw maps. The DM would always explain what we were seeing.

Meet more people

[indros13]

The real issue is that you should try and meet local folks that game. I find that many former D&D types will come out of the woodwork when you admit that you still game at age __. I'd bet that you can pretty quickly assemble a local group, although probably not with 200 years experience. I don't think the idea of pencil/paper gaming online is bad, per se, just that there might be an easier way to game (and make new friends).

I did this once

[Vaevictis666]

...In a dungeon delve module.

Step 1: Scan the map.
Step 2: Load it up in a layer-enabled image editor (Gimp, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc)
Step 3: Make new layers based on room numbers (or one big one, but it's harder to erase)
Step 4: On the correct layer, black out the room in question. repeat for all rooms
Step 5: On a master layer, black out the rest of the map.

Now, as rooms are explored, either delete or make invisible the layer blocking the room, and export to a gif on a machine running a web server. Then I just notified the group (via irc, where everything was going on) that the map was updated, and they refreshed as often as necessary.

This has the added benefit of you both being able to see a "current" version of the map, and references locations by the same numbers used in the module.

Re:I did this once

[cybermace5]

That's pretty messy. Lots and lots of layers, slow update process. Why not simply make two versions of the map: covered and uncovered? Then slice it up into chunks and throw them into an HTML table. Simply replace an image to make it visible. You could set a META refresh so no one gets left behind.

Plus, this is very extensible with PHP and MySQL, so that you could use the same system for different maps, and even generate the HTML page from stored map chunks in a database, and set up a web-based interface for the administrator to uncover areas.

If you can't live with square chunks, it's always possible to use PHP to draw custom masks and then use convert to slap the mask on. The database would then hold coordinates for room corners...that could even be used to draw the map in the first place.

But the HTML table solution above is still very simple and much easier to update.

Translation

[andfarm]

My friends and I have almost 200 years of combined pen-and-paper RPG experience...
(Even the undead grow weary of Monopoly)

As my gaming group has drifted apart (moving to different cities and countries to pursue careers and love)
(...world domination and stuff...)

our game time has diminished to just a few nights a year during vacations.
(...when the moon is full and the stars are right...)

etc, etc

Do *not* try to type

[drmike0099]

I actually tried this a number of years ago (probably about 7 or 8 years now) with some friends of mine in the same situation as you are in, playing Earthdawn. We went through a couple of phases with this. For the first one, we used an IRC client. My friend who was maintaining the IRC server wrote a little bot that would do dice rolls for us, so you could type in "d20 + d6" and it would do the roll for you. In ED, it was steps, but that's not relevant.

This worked fairly well overall, but the pacing of the game was very slow, primarily due to all the typing necessary. I was the GM and was typing fast (I think I could do 60-70 wpm back then) and it still felt like the game crawled. That, and my wrists and hands were crippled by the end. It was fun, but it wasn't the same.

Then we tried using an internet video way of doing it. As you can imagine, the video 7-8 years ago wasn't great, although sadly it isn't that much worse than it is right now. We were all on academic networks so we have nice fat pipes. The chat one worked out pretty well, but then we added a couple of people from a mailing list who didn't have access, so we had to drop it and go back to typing. A few years later, I tried the old WebRPG, and it didn't really help the problem any, you still had to type it all in.

Based on that experience, I would say that there are a couple of things you would need in any application. First of all, you need to use some sort of voice chat, which is actually fairly easy to use these days (I would expect, although I haven't done it myself). If you don't use voice chat, then perhaps a voice recognition thing for the GM to cut down on typing. If all else fails, try and type up as many descriptions ahead of time so you can cut & paste them into the IRC. You will still be overwhelmed by ad hoc discussions, but this should help a bit.

The other thing you need is some sort of common workspace to do things in, primarily for rolling dice and a whiteboard for maps or stuff. We didn't have the whiteboard and did okay, but we were either outdoors or in very small dungeons, so it wasn't that necessary. I also drew up some maps and put them on my website to help the players out if they were really desperate. The rolling dice stuff could be handled by what I imagine are a lot of secure little apps to do this with. If you have IRC, write a bot.

IRC is also handy for secret messages where voice doesn't work, so I would recommend to use IRC at least for that. It also can work as a back-up system for people who have problems with the video, which we definitely had 7-8 years ago, and quite frequently at that. It's still worthwhile so you don't ruin a whole gaming session because someone can't get their microphone to work or something. You should do a dry run at least once ahead of your first planned session, and this will need almost as much time as a true session. It may not seem worthwhile, but you'd be surprised.

Last but not least, don't try and GM drunk. I tried that a couple of times, and it was fun for all involved, but a bit ridiculous... :)

You could try a message board

[Merkuri22]

I like to play over message boards. Play goes more slowly, but it's great for a group that can never seem to get online at the same time. There are plenty of dice rollers available online to use with these pages, or you could just have the DM do all the rolling. These are also great if you don't have a group and want to meet some folks to play with.

A couple boards I like:

Shadow of the Dragon

Planet AD&D's Play By Msg Board (If that last link is broken, just go to the main page and look for the link to their forums.)

Rolling dice...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a web site www.random.org that allows you roll as many dice as you want. It can be incorporated into applications. I play a game called Star Fleet Battles. It has been around close to 30 years as a "board game" (although very complex). Recently, a Java based application has been developed to allow players anywhere in the world to play the game on-line. You still need the original game for all the rules and such, but can now play anyone in the world. See www.sfbonline.com for more info and to contact the developer.

Loyal Citizens play online

[jmlyle]

If you like your RPG'ing a little odd, try Paranoia-LIVE

Wait!

[Torgo's Pizza]

If you play online, where are the chee-tos? Oh, can I have a Mountain Dew?

Re:Wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

"If there are any girls here on /., I want to doooo them!"

Re:Wait!

[cyrax777]

roll the dice to see if im getting drunk

Re:Wait!

[Crypt0pimP]

Damnit!
I remember the trailer you guys are talking about, but what was it for?

Does anyone have a copy?

Re:Wait!

[eudas]

fucking lame. that skit's been tired and played out for years.

eudas

Re:Wait!

[cyrax777]

the game Summoner they took the characters and had them playing a game of D&D

Play by email

[Unknown Kadath]

You didn't mention what games your group is interested in. For online play, my friends and I ditched the dice mechanics entirely and I started GMing a play by email game. It doesn't require the time commitment and scheduling of an IRC session, and tends to have a smoother and somewhat more leisurely feel. We take turns writing sections of narration, and we tend to back-channel a bunch so that the players can ask each other clarification questions, or speak to me as GM privately. The system we're using is Amber, which is already diceless, so that helped. I don't think PBEM would translate well to d20 games, since they're so stats and combat-intensive. PBEM may be more like collaborative writing than you're really looking for, but it's some of the coolest world-building I've ever done. If you have a mature group of players who are interested in story more than killin', you might give it a try.

-Carolyn

Here's a great OS character generator to use

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this for character generation-it's D20 compatible. mostly. and it's open source, needs java runtime to make it work

http://pcgen.sourceforge.net/01_news.php

the rest, we've handled via Yahoo chat of all things, and to get real creative, I've used paper 3D terrain, and a webcam, to show POV. Tho that's tough to do when the player party is in different places. I've used the "doodle" IMV on Yahoo for mapping.

Message boards

[Masami Eiri]

I paticipate in and GM around 10 RPGs through message boards. Of course, the people I'm with, I've never met in real life for the most part.

Instant Messenger

[magic]

We successfully used instant messenger and trusted each other for rolls in my group. The major problem was maps-- we e-mailed around an Excell spreadsheet and told each other our grid coordinates during combat.

We've also played with (almost) everyone in the same room, but running IM. This lets you have secret side conversations with each other and the DM without note passing.

Sometimes one player is at home and the others will give him a running discussion of what is going on.

-m

Sure, why not?

[BigZaphod]

My girlfriend does this all the time. It takes the form of a story that is authored by different people (from the POV of your character). She's part of 2 or 3 of these things (and one of them is Firefly-based :-). She seems to enjoy it. I haven't tried it yet myself. Honestly, it doesn't appeal much. But it must work ok. She's been doing it for a few years now.

GRIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Generic Roleplaying for Internet Players. This product allows you to share maps and data sets(character sheets). It supports "macros" to automate simple tasks. It has a chat server. They have some material ready to go. It is a PC product. The main player buys the server and the players get the client for free. They have an evaluation copy.
http://www.rpgrealms.com/Catalog/

Another company had a similar product based a web server. Can't rember the name. They were at GenCon Indy last year.

Also

[Apreche]

Use one of the programs suggested by other posters for your RPG elements. Then use something like TeamSpeak or Gnomeeting for audio/video conferencing. I've found that trying to use IRC doesn't give you the full effect. Also set up a shoutcast server for the background music.

Die Rolling Script

[Donor]

DiceChat is a perl script that combines secure die rolling with webchat so that players and GMs are kept honest and informed of other players' rolls. It's free software, help yourself.

Well, if you play Paranoia...

[ZorMonkey]

Its scope is pretty limited, but JParanoia works pretty well for Paranoia games. You could probably shoehorn other games into it, but that might be ugly. And if youre lucky, you might even get to beta test some new Paranoia XP rules.

www.valdier.com

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys have been doing this for years. The admin is a great resource and they are all pretty good people.

Re:Play by email, T20, Yahoo Groups

[DaRat]

I'm in a Traveller T20 PBEM game using Yahoo Groups. T20 is Traveller (the classic Traveller sci fi RPG) based on D20 rules, and running the game as a Yahoo Group works very well. One of the players has compiled and edited the posts into a "story hour" on the EnWorld forums: Tales of the Bray Keaven. The editing removes the rolls and out of character posts, but you can get a feel for how the game is being run.

Apache/webspace

[Gleapsite]

this is a nice simple idea,

get some webspace, and throw a nice little PHP uploader on it [pretty easy to make].

now you have an always on repository for your character sheets/maps/sketches/ whatever

adding a simple user namewould allow you [with a little more effort on the PHP] to upload to seperate folders for each person or separate folders for different types of things, or whatever.

as for communicating, there are tons of programs that'll do this and almost all allow whispering between people.

as for the rolling of the dice, i'm not quite sure how you'd do this to give you both the randomness [no cheating] and the privacy.

but the webspace is extremely useful when colaborating with other people online, and its also fairly cheap.

GMGen/PCGen

[HunterD]

Well, if you are using a D20 game system, recently a bunch of GM's tools have been added. The eventual goal of this is to allow better tabletop play, as well as networked play.

Currently, your best bet is using GMGen + PCGen + OpenRPG. PCGen allows you to create an electronic character for each player, GMGen can allow some control over combats, as well as giving the GM E character sheets for each person, OpenRPG will give you a minuature tabletop, as well as dice and such.

Devon Jones
GMGen Silverback (Benevolent Dictator)
PCGen Board of Directors

maps and what not.

[ssand]

As far as maps go and what not, the creator could scan them in, or create similar online ones and give them to everyone. That way everyone could view them for playing.

As for dice rolls, if they are private ones, the DM can do them on their side, otherwise use online sources for them. For example, using the last digit of a stock price, game scores, or articles to create the randomness.

Re:Play by email, T20, Yahoo Groups

[Unknown Kadath]

Traveller, huh? Man, is everything getting sucked into d20?

I'd actually be interested in seeing how the combat mechanics are resolved. The Amber system doesn't have any randomness to it, so my players just tell me what they want to do in terms of strategy and tactics ("I want to scare him into conceding by a display of superiority, so I will go completely aggressive, trying lots of blade beats and striking for every opening I see,") and I narrate combats between the PCs and those NPCs who are their equals or betters based on that. When the players clearly outclass their opponents, I let them narrate and stomp all over the poor doomed NPCs. This seems to work fairly well, but then, my players are mature and more interested in a story than in "winning" (and they know that I will mock them mercilessly in real life if they go all rules-lawyer on me.)

-Carolyn

Re:Play by email, T20, Yahoo Groups

[DaRat]

A firefight is close to being resolved right now, so if you're curious, you might check out the current group home: Travellogue2. In short, the players indicate character speech and actions and provide a set of die rolls. The Referee takes the actions and die rolls, determines success/failure, and then writes up a post summarizing what happened.

GRIP (www.rpgrealms.com)

[Keldrin]

Several years ago I used a tool called GRIP (Generic Roleplaying for Internet Players), a client/server deal that supports up to 8 players and one GM.

You can text chat, build and share character sheets and share images. If I recall it has some semblance of a mapping tool, a dice rolling engine, and some other stuff I didn't really use much. One of the nicer things I recall about it was there were several chat macros for dice rolls and other repetitve things which made for fairly expedient gameplay.

I believe it was at www.rpgrealms.com

Commerical Products

[gary_hackathorn]

I know of two commercial products that would help you out.

1. GRIP Generic Roleplaying for Internet Players $35 - $55(Traveller Content) http://www.rpgrealms.com/Catalog/grip.html

2. ScreenMonkey $35 http://www.nbos.com/products/screenmonkey/screenmo nkey.htm

Both products handle maps and text based chat. You can hide unexplored parts of the map in both systems. You can create encounter descriptions ahead of time. They both have dice rollers.

GRIP uses a proprietary client interface. You can download a copy of the client for free. ScreenMonkey is based on a web server and uses a web browser as the client.

They both have some type of custom automation. GRIP uses a markup like macro launguage. ScreenMonkey uses VBScript.

Both have evaluation versions available for download. Since both products act as a server you will need direct access to the server.

You can try them both out and see what you like.

Web RPG

[colk99]

I belive you might need webrpg to do this their site is here

RolePlay Online (rpol.net)

[ghostlibrary]

This one was recommended to me. I didn't really like Grip or WebRPG, and bare IRC wasn't quite enough. Your mileage may vary.
http://www.rpol.net/rpol/

Teamspeak

[NonSequor]

I've never done anything like this, but I imagine you could use something like Teamspeak alongside one of the many text based options.

Ventrilo

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what you might want to do as far as visual communication, but using a program called Ventrilo for voice can work nicely. It's small, simple, and offers extremely clear voice communication, providing that your microphone isn't a complete piece of crap.

another one...

[smorky]

here's yet another one some classmates of mine were working on for a school project. they called it the digital dungeon master i believe. never actually tried it myself but it looked pretty good from the presentations they did on it. it's done in Java so it should be cross platform. they were talking about open-sourcing it too but i don't know if they ever did or not. the source might be available if you search around their site too.

Original Intent

[yletelpmoc]

I think that the discussion has drifted form the original intent of the posting. If I'm reading the original posting right, the intent of this person is to keep in touch with his old friends in a live, flesh and blood manner while RPGing with them. The key here would be to recreate the whole, "your buddies sitting at the table and chit chatting while playing" feeling. To include those things like tone inflection in voice and goofy dances of victory and the such while not being in the same room. The IRC concepts don't seem to me to fit what this person's intent is. The key is personal interactions at a level that is not available (identically, nut substitutionally) in classic text or possibly even voice only methods as compared to being in the same room. After creating that basic atmosphere, then add on top of it things like dice rolling or map sharing that work well in the environment. I think that throughout the postings so far, all of these elements have been hit, but not necessarily in a manner that is a monolithic fully functional solution. Aspects discussed could be combined in a mostly workable pattern, but not readily deployable, or maybe so, but that's for discussion spawned from this to decide. Another issue is, as has been hit upon in previous posts, what's the bandwidth? That's the key to deciding the proper method. If there are a lot of people on, (Insert favorite deity here) forbid, dial-up, IRC may be the only viable choice... And so on for different bandwidth. I also get the impression that a setup supported by Microsoft OSes is a plus, but I think the solutions so far are compatible with this. Anyways, I'm just trying to steer a discussion over to what I believe was the original intent of the post, but feel free to disagree or not steer that way.

playbyweb

[Anonymous Coward]

www.playbyweb.com has a pretty good D&D section. You're able to make roles and keep them anonymous/DM only as well as pass notes amongst only certain players. The DM can also "fudge" his dice rolls :) It's a little difficult to set up at first, but a great overall site.

Playing Pen-and-Paper RPGs Online with Friends?

[bigdruid]

This is a problem that cropped up with my last two gaming groups.

First one, half of us ended up on the other coast (some north, some south) and the second one, we used to drive 90 minutes to game sessions and do an overnight until the drive changed to 7 or 8 hours. We tried several times to either use GRIP or OpenRPG but it didn't work out.

I checked up on the PHPRPG Sourceforge project, unfortunately, it's kind of dusty, no activity to speak of since 2002.

Something I'd thought of, and may now be 'legal' with the advent of d20 and the OGL, is a MUD atmosphere with d20 mechanics hard-coded in and toolkits for the GM to do his or her thing in creating content, importing character sheets, etc.

Still have a lot of typing, of course, but the mechanics stuff would be taken care of.

Is there anything like this out there already? I'd be willing to pay something for that if it'd be good enough, but not sure if anyone else would.

They're called MU*'s

[DocUi]

MUSH, MUX and other things like this have the same abilities. One Mush site, www.ogrmush.com, offers embassies for many online games of many themes. (StarWars, World of Darkness, Amber, etc.)

One of the things they have is a full dice system, that allows you to do rolls public or private etc. You would have to create your own character sheets but there you have it. Just an option or two.

XBox Live?

[iainl]

For doing conference calls, if everyone has XBox Live then set up a chatroom on that - I find its a hell of a lot easier than trying to use NetMeeting, TeamSpeak or any of the other PC-based things.

If you have your Boxes near your PCs you can combine it with another solution as well, of course.

Klooge

[mudpyr8]

http://www.kloogeinc.com/werks/index.htm

I can't believe after all of these posts, no one has mentioned it.

I use this all the time. It works great for network play, but is also ideal for replacing your game table. We no longer use minis and just use this.

I have used all of the other products listed here (GRIP, WebRPG, OpenRPG, ScreenMonkey, Forums) and this is the best way to play.

It has great d20 support, as well as 2nd Edition AD&D. However, I use it for Savage Worlds, GURPS, and have been running Hero in it for over a year.

I cannot recommend this program enough. Version 2.0 is supposed to make it out by GenCon (I think) and will support fully GURPS, and many other systems.

I use OpenOffice to make my maps, but there are many map programs out there that work well. A new program coming is Dundjinni. The demo is great and I think this will be a wonderful tool.

Here's an okay shot of it in action at a local con.

I run both the client and server on my laptop with the client projected on the 15" LCD that faces the players. That way I can have my GM view and a player view. Works great!

Could Be A Really Good Thang!

[mono_indy]

Hey, this could be cool as hell. Let me know when you are ready for beta testers. Todays games, like Final Fantasy XI, are really great ... but the imagination thing can be so much more powerful. Kind of like the old text bases games like Wishbringer. That was awesome!

Temple of elemental evil should be cracked open..

[Destoo]

Temple of Elemental Evil should be cracked open as it is the closest thing to pen&paper I've seen so far.

That would be my solution for fight resolution only, other aspects of the game would require another interface.

Waving Hands / Spellcaster / Warlocks

[Dubber]

Best implementation of Waving Hands / Spellcaster I've seen. (and best of all is it's asynchronous)
RavenBlack's Warlocks (no referal credit given to me)

or if you want to give me credit for refering you: http://games.ravenblack.net/referred

True, this doesn't give you exactly what you've asked for, but I find this one of the best ways to ARP (asynchronously role play) with old friends.

We just released an application

[SavSoul]

We have been using an application I wrote some for a couple years that has pretty much everything asked for except for the voice communication for that we use ventrillio. I setup a site seeing there was a demand for such an app and released it under the GPL. There are a couple things missing but over the next few days they will be added in.

check it out at: http://soulcli.sarovar.org/

Combination Forum + Chat

[Maresi]

I we had basically the same problem, althoug our problem was not primary the spatial separation but a lack of common time.

So I have set up a web server with an bulletin board for the adventure (all the text parts) and a mofdified version of PHPopenchat (allowing the rolling of xdy, where x and y can be any number from nothing to 99 (if x=NULL then x=1; if y=NULL then y=6).
The main adventure (wich needs no dice rolling) is done in the Forum; critical scenes (mostly including fights, ...) are done via chat, and a transcript of the chat is transferred into the forum (GM's task).

This has several advantages:
In a forum, In-Character, direct and indirect speech, thougths and so on are strictly seperated and therefore the gameflow has improved (at least, there are no misunderstandings if something is ic or ooc) . Real ooc is handled via Private Messages (pm), and therefore dont disturb the adventure anymore.
The chat was necessary since i saw no way to make the forum tamper-resistant and a forum doesnt allow the neccesary speed (for a fight; fights via the forum are real nasty things, lasting up to weeks!).