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

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

[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.