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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?"
I've personally done this a few times, and Eggdrop + IRC = Good Gaming Experience.
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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
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
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
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
WebRPG http://www.webrpg.com/
OpenRPG http://www.openrpg.com/
And many more. Just Google it!
Try http://www.webrpg.com/
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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.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
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.
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.
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.
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.
> why not just code your own?
Maybe they'd rather be playing D&D?
No point in reinventing the wheel.
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.
What were you expecting?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
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.
(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
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
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...
If you like your RPG'ing a little odd, try Paranoia-LIVE
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If you play online, where are the chee-tos? Oh, can I have a Mountain Dew?
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
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
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.
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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.
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.
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/
A.
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!