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

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.

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.