Tips for Games with Both Local and Remote Players

[Chemlak]

I play entirely online due to player separation, and I GM using Roll20 as a VTT (I've never subscribed to it), Skype for voice chat (Roll20s integrated voice/video chat hates my computer), Skype for screen sharing RW player view. Dropbox holds the PC portfolio for Hero Lab, which everyone can access, but only I update (players send me updated portfolios when things change).

It took a while to get used to, but it works really well.

[MNBlockHead]

I keep forgetting about d20pro...everytime it is mentioned I read/hear it as Roll20. I'll look at d20pro again. Whatever helps me take an existing image from a RW topic and display as a battlemap and move digital token around will be what I go with.

One other thing, do any of these VTT products allow you to just draw on blank battlemap. For many minor encounters I just draw on a vinyl battlemap using wet-erase markers. Would be nice to be able to do this digitally.

[Sleepwalk]

In the campaign I run, which has 6 PCs, we're almost always all there at the same location, but there have been a couple sessions where I've had one of the players join remotely when they couldn't be there in person. I use RW as the main source for mapping. During the session, I'll have player view up on a projector (which is connected as a second monitor) in the room. If players are exploring an area, but there's no combat, then I'll just have them describe to me where they are going and what they are doing. Based on that, I'll reveal portions of the map in RW so they can see it on the projector. If combat starts, then I'll draw the combat area on a wet-erase combat mat (we use this one), and we'll use minis to resolve combat. Some players just use normal paper character sheets, some run theirs out of hero lab on laptops.

When we've run sessions where one player was remote, we just setup a webcam and had the remote player join us using skype, and basically ran things as normal. Outside of combat, I just pointed the webcam at the projector so he could see the maps there. During combat, I would just point the webcam at the battle map. We setup a mini for the remote player's character as usual, and on his turn, he'd tell us where he wanted to move, and what he wanted to do, and other players would move his mini around based on that. If I wanted to get fancier, I could have shared the monitor with player view on it rather than point the webcam at the projector screen, but that worked well enough. Moving the webcam and mini for the remote player was delegated to players at the table.

[Rabulias]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

One other thing, do any of these VTT products allow you to just draw on blank battlemap. For many minor encounters I just draw on a vinyl battlemap using wet-erase markers. Would be nice to be able to do this digitally.

Roll20 allows that. Search the Roll20 help wiki for "Drawing Tools" for more details about what they offer.

[MNBlockHead]

Originally Posted by Rabulias

Roll20 allows that. Search the Roll20 help wiki for "Drawing Tools" for more details about what they offer.

Thanks, will do.

[MNBlockHead]

Sleepwalk, your situation and setup is exactly like mine. I'll see if the current Webcam I have for my TV can point at and pick up the battlemap with enough detail to make your approach work. I can test using a second computer at home to be the "remote player". If that works, that is certainly the easiest approach.

[AEIOU]

The KS update for d20pro backers today was pretty spiffy. The beta looks to be developing nicely. Tablet interface, board and card game support, and a pretty new look. Dynamic shadows were shown in the alpha but are not available yet. Couple that with HL support and the possibility of RW support....

[Dark Lord Galen]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

I keep forgetting about d20pro...everytime it is mentioned I read/hear it as Roll20. I'll look at d20pro again. Whatever helps me take an existing image from a RW topic and display as a battlemap and move digital token around will be what I go with.

One other thing, do any of these VTT products allow you to just draw on blank battlemap. For many minor encounters I just draw on a vinyl battlemap using wet-erase markers. Would be nice to be able to do this digitally.

To Add to what AEIOU has noted... I too am a Kickstarter backer for D20Pro (ie MageHand now) and have found it the most useful versus learning curve compared to Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, Maptool, and Battlegrounds.

Combined with the ability to import Herolab into the stats tabs of the tokens (which I really don't utilize other than spot checks for Skills and Saves etc) it still picks up the PC image and converts that to a token. Though this is not a perfect import in custom cases, losing track of special character types, or custom skills, it is great for simply creating multiple maps with fog of war and tokens (u can create these as well) I find it useful.

Further, I too have two young men logging on remotely when they were stationed overseas. We found it superior to placing a camera over top the table for the following reasons.
1> the camera had a difficult time seeing the minis and details of the map versus the amount of lighting you apply.
2> by utilizing a dedicated IP address (assigned by you the DM)your players can logon anywhere they have an internet connection and See the same detail (less mini's (I would duplicate with tokens under mini's as a placeholder)) as the other table based players.

The response and game prep are also nice since multiple maps can be preopened by the DM and are then simply a click away.
This leaves your camera to OOC moments for your players to have "face time" for questions, etc. We set up an old 15" monitor to put our guys on at the end of the table... it was almost like having them there, except they ate less pizza!

Downside...
As AEIOU noted there is not a dynamic Fog of War (yet) so you have to mask as you wish to reveal, and that takes some prep time, but is not very cumbersome.
There is a $ cost, and although it isn't substantial it is to be considered. For the DM the cost is $30 (includes two guest slots) for the players logging into a DM session wishing to have their own license the cost is $10.


I utilize one of my "player" slots as the display for my tables (assigning it a separate IP) so I know EXACTLY what is displayed remotely because it is the same as at the table. (see my what does your table look like post for details).

For me it was a good $50 well spent, and the possibilities for combining with HL and RW makes it all the more tempting.

D20Pro info http://d20pro.com/dl/Download_Win.php#faq

My Two Coppers
DLG

[MNBlockHead]

AEIOU and DLG, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences. I'll play with both approaches. I think that a VTT would be a better experience for the remote player for sure, but I don't want that to be at the expense of my local players. But that just means I need to make time to learn, test, and become comfortable with the new software. I went a number of game sessions before using player view in RW because I didn't want fiddling with technology to distract from the game play.

I will definitely make time in the near future to check out d20pro, but Roll20 seems to make more sense for right now. For what I need, Roll20 is free.

If d20pro does end up integrating with RW, then I'll definitely check it out more seriously. HeroLab integration is not useful to me, however, as I run a DnD 5e campaign.