Simple way to Play GURPS and other RPGs online

[Mateus]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Maptools works amazingly well. The only thing you need is a voice system.
My friends from college use it for our game group. We now live scattered all over the country (NY, NJ, IL, CO, CA). For voice We use skype.

Maptools is a great program. You can set the stats on the tokens so you don't need to keep looking them up. You can set it so only the GM sees the stats of the NPC's. You can set up individual macros for rolling. My knife swing dmage & my knife thr damage. You can set some macros so the player rolls & only the GM sees the result. Thats great for perception rolls, ect...

For anyone who's using google docs (or nothing), I urge you to checkout maptools.

But I cant do all the tech stuff that MP ask me to do to let players join my game (and my players have the same problem when trying to host a game).
Also I am not very good in scripintig (create macros, ect). And I really prefer to create my maps using ProFantasy softwares (so I dont need all the stuff that MP have to create maps, only the "links" and "filed of view" thing).
I am thinking in buying Fantasy Grounds 2, as it looks more "intuitive" and less "do everything youself".

[Tinman]

Well, figuring out the hosting can be a problem. They have some resorses on the net. Also, maptools is free! The macro are super easy. & they have online tutorial vids in a lot of langauages.

Also, after watching the tutorials, It was super easy for me to make basic maps. took a while to learn all the tricks, but it's realtivly easey. I know there are abunch of otheres here at the gurps forum who use it & Im sure we'd all try to help you out sa much as we can.

I'd look at the vidios & give it a shot first. It's free so you have nothing to loose.

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by Mateus

I am thinking in buying Fantasy Grounds 2, as it looks more "intuitive" and less "do everything youself".

I use Fantasy Grounds 2 with the latest GURPS rule set and it is a very sweet setup despite lacking the full GURPS framework.

The character sheet works and getting stuff in the software is easy. Make a jpeg and drag into the image folder of the campaign. Even has hexes now. And with Devan's top down tokens it looks pretty nice.

The technical side amounts to make sure that port 1802 is open if you are hosting.

It not free but for your money you get one of the best VTTs out there. They have a ulimate license which allows unlimited connection from unregistered clients. I bought mine for then and got a GM seat and four player license. Over time several of players converted to GMs themselves so a lack of seats never been an issue.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by robertsconley

The technical side amounts to make sure that port 1802 is open if you are hosting.

Setting up port forwarding on Fantasy Grounds involves the same steps though as setting it up for MapTool. I've noted on the other thread that if Mateus is having issues here it may be better to use iTabletop, with its central server (i.e. no set-up at all: just point your web browser at the URL *).

The choice is how much work you want to do in the system, of course. Fantasy Grounds is jaw-droppingly beautiful, and I love playing games using text chat with it, however I find it a lot quicker as a GM to set things up in iTabletop, because there I basically do what I would do for a face-to-face game. I get character sheets in PDF, copy a few pictures for handouts, and upload them to the server. The game session then runs very like a face-to-face game, with video and audio. With my own group we even roll real dice locally, without bothering with the built-in die roller (although the version linked to tokens works well).

Although I could do the same thing with Fantasy Grounds (and have done, using Skype for audio), the images can't be stretched full screen, and character sheets do need to be loaded into FG - you can't simply share existing PDFs.

So, for a game played using text chat I'd go with FG every time. If I want to use voice, I go with iTabletop (Battlegrounds works quite nicely with VOIP as well). The other big advantage of iTabletop is that because everything's on the server, everybody's downloading so things run more quickly - you as GM are never uploading large images to all the connected players. (Again Battlegrounds allows you to link to web-based files, and with FG you can distribute modules, but both these are fiddlier than iTabletop's simple "everything goes up to the server from the word go".)

Graham (Spyke)

* 'Installing' iTabletop involves a check that you have the latest version of Flash and Silverlight, and you will be taken to the install page for these if necessary. But there are no router or other settings to configure.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Graham

* 'Installing' iTabletop involves a check that you have the latest version of Flash and Silverlight, and you will be taken to the install page for these if necessary. But there are no router or other settings to configure.

Both Flash and Silverlight? For heaven's sake, what are they trying to do? I sure hope it runs on Moonlight (Silverlight alternative from the makers of Mono).

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Both Flash and Silverlight? For heaven's sake, what are they trying to do? I sure hope it runs on Moonlight (Silverlight alternative from the makers of Mono).

Unfortunately not on Moonlight (which is a few versions of Silverlight behind).

I agree with you about Flash; I still don't understand that choice as the whole thing could have been done in Silverlight, and using Flash added one more dependency (it uses the standard Flash webcam functionality). However, in practice, if you have your system set to automatically update the Flash and Silverlight plug-ins it's all pretty seamless.

Silverlight made sense though at the time. The technology allows excellent handling and fast zooming of large images in the browser, cross-platform on Windows and Mac (though I hear what you're saying about Linux).

Graham

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Graham

Unfortunately not on Moonlight (which is a few versions of Silverlight behind).

I agree with you about Flash; I still don't understand that choice as the whole thing could have been done in Silverlight, and using Flash added one more dependency (it uses the standard Flash webcam functionality). However, in practice, if you have your system set to automatically update the Flash and Silverlight plug-ins it's all pretty seamless.

Silverlight made sense though at the time. The technology allows excellent handling and fast zooming of large images in the browser, cross-platform on Windows and Mac (though I hear what you're saying about Linux).

Graham

Well, I happen to be a linux user. I understand that Silverlight might have had some advantages when they started the project, but even then, I doubt there was anything you could do with one that you could not do with the other. If you're jumping into Silverlight, then it makes sense to jump in with both feet, and ditch Flash. However, pretending that Silverlight is cross platform is just fooling people. Silverlight runs well on Windows/IE. Recent versions also run decently on Windows/other browser. It works on mac, but last time I checked, there were compatibility issues, AND the releases were in no way simultaneous.

EDIT: Not to mention that you're going to have performance issues running both plugins at the same time, if your machine isn't very new. Flash alone already has this issue.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

It works on mac, but last time I checked, there were compatibility issues

The main problem at the moment for iTabletop seems to be the new whiteboard, which gives Silverlight plug-in errors on the Mac. However, apart from that it's pretty solid on the Mac. Fantasy Grounds, of course, needs some sort of virtual PC software to run on the Mac or Linux, which is a limitation for some people.

MapTool and Battlegrounds run fine on the Mac. What's the situation on Linux for those two?

Graham

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Graham

The main problem at the moment for iTabletop seems to be the new whiteboard, which gives Silverlight plug-in errors on the Mac. However, apart from that it's pretty solid on the Mac. Fantasy Grounds, of course, needs some sort of virtual PC software to run on the Mac or Linux, which is a limitation for some people.

MapTool and Battlegrounds run fine on the Mac. What's the situation on Linux for those two?

Graham

Maptool works perfectly. No idea on Battlegrounds though, as I don't use it.

EDIT: Battlegrounds doesn't claim to support Linux, and only works on PowerPC and Roseta enabled MacOS. This means that it won't run in MacOSX 10.7 or later (until Apple decides to re-enable Roseta, but I would not hold my breath on that). It is then probably less cross platform than iTabletop...

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Maptool works perfectly. No idea on Battlegrounds though, as I don't use it.

EDIT: Battlegrounds doesn't claim to support Linux, and only works on PowerPC and Roseta enabled MacOS. This means that it won't run in MacOSX 10.7 or later (until Apple decides to re-enable Roseta, but I would not hold my breath on that). It is then probably less cross platform than iTabletop...

Heruca, the developer of Battlegrounds, is a frequent visitor here, so could let us know. He develops on the Mac, so I wouldn't be surprised if an update wasn't on the cards if there is an issue.

Graham