Greetings all;

Here is the situation, I have a face-to-face gaming group that meets once a week or so, I have a friend of mine who lives 2,500 km away and wants to join our group via video-link.

Has anyone tried this method? If so, I would like to hear your thoughts on how it went.

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For what it's worth, that's the way I see it

Greetings George

Had a very similar situation to yours...three of us round a table in Oxford and one ex-player somewhere on the West coast of Japan.

Unfortunately, despite being able to hook up the sound and video via webcam so that we could see and hear pretty well, the thing just kept cutting out and we abandoned the whole thing after a couple of abortive occasions.

Maybe if you've got better technology ...

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"If you took away my paper, I would write on my heart. If you take away my ink, I'd write on the wind. It wouldn't be an ideal way to work"

Are there any other groups, GM, or players that have used some remote method for one or more players/GM in their games?

WHy I ask this question, is that a friend of mine who locate some distance way, has expressed an interest in join my local group. Thus far I see his incusion to the group as an asset and would like to know how this electronic method has worked.

I have heard of Skype for audio and MSN for video/audio, any coments?

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For what it's worth, that's the way I see it

There are groups out there that make this kind of thing work. I haven't tried it myself, but the discussion fora of sites that deal with software to help in this type of gaming, often have debates/advice on how to make it work. RPTools is such a site: http://rptools.net.

A combination of Maptools plus either Ventrilo or Skype is often recommended, but true remote face-to-face with filming of the game room and the remote participant has also been tried. Of course, hardware capabilities become very important, as does bandwith. In essense, big is needed, very big recommended.

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Harniac. That simple
I'm intolerant of intolerance. Intolerant people find that very hard to tolerate.

I think there are essentially two ways to handle this:

1) You have a audio-video link that shows the distant player the game room and the rest of the group the distant player. Play proceeds as 'normal' but with a screen occupying one seat... I have never played this way and have no idea how it would work.

2) Play switches to a 'virtual tabletop' on the PC which is used to share the battlemap, handouts, campaign maps, chat, die rolls and such like with the players. Voice link in addition is optional. Players can be remote or together in the same room or a mixture of these. I have played and run is such games and they can work fine; pace tends to slow down but IC play can be enhanced a great deal. The virtual mapping facilities can be used to give line of sight/fog of war effects that can add atmosphere and tension to the game. Some folk have trouble getting on with a text chat interface, some don't - voice is harder to control and not as involving but can help with the 'text averse'...

I use Battlegrounds RPG for (2); others (including Darth Tang, that I know of) are using MapTool (which I have tried out and is very good).

Hope that helps...

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Balesir
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- Eschew Obfuscation!

I've done this every session for three years now. One of my players is in North Carolina.

In the beginning, we used a different service but right now we use Sightspeed. There's a free version, but we each spring for the annual fee ($50 or so) which improves the service a bit. What you need:

- Sightspeed account on each end
- computer on each end. It's cross-platform, so Mac or PC makes no difference
- largish video monitor. I connect the laptop to a 27" TV and it's just fine
- a good camera and microphone. On my end, I use an Apple iSight which picks up sound even in the next room. In NC, the player does wear ear-buds, as he finds that easier
- broadband connection on both sides

If there are handouts or such I e-mail them - scanning if necessary - beforehand and let the player know when to open the file. We find it's a great way to get a remote player involved in the game.

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The Melderyn Campaign

I play D20 and Savage Worlds games regularly over the internet with a program called Fantasy Grounds its not free but I think its very slick.

They are primarily D20 focused but rulesets have been written for a number of other games: WFRP2 & WH40k (Fanbased) Savage Worlds & Castles & Crusades (Commercial). I find FG the most like a game table and I think I paid $40 for it 80 or 90 game hours ago. It has allowed me to play with people from all over the world and saved me a fortune in gas just reaching my nearby friends.

Of course its not the same as face to face but its pretty good. The thing I like about it is that after you buy the program you can play across the net without any help from the company, SmiteWorks.

http://forums.fantasygrounds.com

They have a demo.

I like RPTools, especially because its open source, but I find FG is just nicer with less out of game thinking. I'd recommend it loudly to anyone looking to do some long distance gaming.


On the other hand if you are just trying to allow one person to play long distance and everyone else is at the table, I think you have a more complicated problem. Cameras and microphones can show the outsider the data. Skype, or some other voice software, can reduce long distance charges. Unfortunately giving that long distance player equal representation at the table is really hard. I think games with long distance players are better done with everyone connecting with an internet terminal.


Sigurd.

It doesn't work

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Sure it does. Been doing it now for more than forty gaming sessions (which each last some ten hours). See my above post for how.

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The Melderyn Campaign

Does the annual fee (which is a $100 per seat if I read it right) actually improve the video chat quality/speed or does it just add the extra features listed on the web site. (I gotta admit that 4 way video conference looks pretty neat )

Cheers,

Ken

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Ken Snellings
CHMP Member
Fredericksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Sightspeed did recently double the fee, which we weren't thrilled about. Each of our subscriptions has since run out, so we're both on the free version, me for one session, my player for two. Admittedly small sample, but we haven't seen any difference so far. If we needed the (new) four-way feature we'd pick the paid version back up, but right now it's just the one player. Sightspeed updates several times a year, and there's been a dramatic improvement over the years in the quality of service.

Aural quality tends to be much better than visual. It's good enough that the remote player can take notes for the session writeup, hear conversations in the next room, and we have no more problems than a typical cell-phone conversation. Paradoxically, we find the aural works better if we have the settings intuitively reversed - he's in a noisy place (wearing ear-buds) and we're in a quiet place.

Video, OTOH, is less consistent. Colors are a bit washed, there's some pixelation, and occasionally it will pop out of full-screen to a reduced mode. It's a bit like an older VHS tape. I should note we both have cable internet - don't try this with less than DSL! Also, on my end, the server is an iSight camera attached to a 2003 Mac with a 867MHz G4 processor - performance would no doubt improve if a more modern machine were used. My player is using a roughly two-year old PC, not sure which brand.

In terms of the remote player's involvement, he's the party leader, which I think says it all. It does add to the banter. Some days we accuse the remote player of appearing "almost life-like" and threats of bodily injury to someone 1000 miles away ring a bit hollow.

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The Melderyn Campaign

Deleted posting that spammed the forum, trying to sell stuff.