Mixed Tabletop / Virtual Tabletop gaming

[ed_209a]

Does anyone have any experience with gaming where most of the players (and GM) are present in person, but one (or several) of the players are there virtually? I will be faced with this situation when I move away from my current group.

I am thinking about a pair of webcams and Skype for most of the interpersonal stuff, but I would also like something to let me see the maps and visual aids our GM makes. Something like a second overhead webcam and a second Skype channel?

Any thoughts?

[vicky_molokh]

IMHO switching to full-virtual will be smoother.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by ed_209a

Does anyone have any experience with gaming where most of the players (and GM) are present in person, but one (or several) of the players are there virtually? I will be faced with this situation when I move away from my current group.

I've done quite a bit of this with one remote player, occasionally two. We used cameras at first, but mostly we don't bother now - we found it didn't actually add very much. The software is SIP/RTP (Ekiga, SJPhone, etc.) and IRC rather than Skype, because it's cross-platform and open-source; in fact I run my own VoIP conferencing server, though this isn't essential to the process. Things I've learned:

• You need a special sort of microphone to cope well with a large group - "boundary layer microphone" is the usual term for it. It works best in the middle of a large flat space, roughly two feet square; I use the side of an old computer case.
• Players in the main group will need to learn a bit of speech discipline. Where in person it's often possible to separate people talking over each other, over a VoIP link this is less doable, and the remote player may get frustrated.
• The remote player needs to be using headphones, not a loudspeaker. This cuts out 90% of feedback/echo problems.

For non-voice communication, when I'm GMing, I keep an IRC window on a laptop and send private messages that way. We don't tend to be particularly heavy on maps and visual aids, though; if I've got prepared images to show, I put them on a web server in advance and send the remote player the URLs at the same time I show them to the local players.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Players in the main group will need to learn a bit of speech discipline.

I'm one of the in-person players in a military campaign run this way. Having an in-character hierarchy actually seems to help with speech discipline, since it's natural to not interrupt higher-ranked characters.

We don't tend to be particularly heavy on maps and visual aids, though

And we haven't ever used a tactical map that I can remember.

[Brandy]

I agree with RogerBW, above, having done this in the past (GMing for a single remote player and 3-5 local ones). The best solution we found for tactical situations was to change from having him listen to the entire group to having someone at the tabletop switch to a headset rig and talk to him one-on-one, keeping him updated with the changing tactical situation as things unfolded. That person would also relay his decisions and actions back to the group.

As far as maps and visual aids, if I didn't have it prepared ahead of time someone would just snap a quick picture of it and send it via email. A camera phone is probably good enough to do the job now.

[Agemegos]

I've done it a bit, or remotely GMed a group who were gathered gathered in meatspace. In fact, teleparticipating players have been an important part of out move back to the table over the last few years.

My method was to get either a large laptop or a 27" iMac, and stand it at one end of a dining-table so that the camera can see everyone gathered at the table. I try to get the telepresent player's image close to my eye level. I have wide-angle adapter lens from a camera that my mother borrowed and left in a hotel in Kenya: I'm trying to come up with a way to mount that in front of the built-in iView camera to give the telepresent players a more complete view of what everyone it doing. When the telepresent players needed a good look at a map or whatever, usually someone took a photo with a smartphone and sent it to them, but we dream of getting a flask stand out of someone's lab and using it to mount a spare webcam over the centre of the table.

I'm slightly deaf, so sound quality is an issue. The usual suspects have a room mic that they put on the table, but it's hard to isolate it there; I don't think it ends up working much better than the built-in mic in the computer. I'd like to get everyone onto lapel mics, but there doesn't seem to be an easy solution for mixing. What does turn out to be important is getting a VOIP service with a good codec and short latency. With our set-up and situation Google Chat ended up working best.

Results are satisfactory, but not yet at the point where having a telepresent player is without a significant overhead. It helps that our games are fairly free-wheeling and narrative and not especially tactical.