Tips for Games with Both Local and Remote Players

[MNBlockHead]

I use RW for at-table games with everyone co-located. If I wanted to bring in a player who is remote, what are your recommendations?

My thought is that I would use Google Hangouts.

In good hangouts I would share the second screen (a plasma TV) that I use for the player view during the game.

I have a camera/mic that is made for my TV that I've used for skype and does a good job picking up sound from across the room. I've also used it for on-line trainings, plugged into my computer. So I'm pretty confident that video and audio will not be a problem.

My main issue is how to handle combat. I don't want to make the investment in money and (mostly) time to use something like Fantasy Grounds or Role20. Players will still be using physical dice and printed character sheets.

Also, I would like to minimize map management.

Is there a program that just gives me a map and allows me to move counters over it? On a screen?

Anyone else in this situation? What do you do?

[the_redbeard]

I've got friends that run whole game with google hangout and a white board app. That's generally old school/theater of the mind but using the white board for things hard to explain verbally.

I used to use just maptools and found it very easy. Of course I didn't use the dice roller or any macros, just placing maps and the visual blocking layer business for lighting.

[Bobifle]

Is there any chance that you can set up your web cam over the table ? That way you can keep it classic.

Otherwise, I think any vector drawing software could possibly display a map in a background and you can move objects around. And possibly share the desktop through skype with your remote buddy. Anyway this would need some testing beforehand.

Libreoffice has a drawing software, and it's free (windows and nx platofrms).

[AEIOU]

I really like d20pro. You can use anything from the suite of tools or ignore them all if you wish. I have one player screen at the table and remote players have their own. Since we are using the maps with images like traditional mini's, a wireless mouse makes movement simple and quick. I like that I can easily apply fog-of-war to the maps and reveal as we play. My players roll real dice while I find that combat goes much quicker for me electronically which lets me focus on story rather than crunch.

[JustinThomason]

I'd second MapTool, or a fork of it called Mote. They are both free, and cross-platform.

Although if time is an issue, it can get overly complex if you really want to dig into building your own framework (i.e., a bunch of preset macros that do lots of automated rules adjudication), but setting up a few basic damage tracking macros and the like isn't too hard. Further, out of the box it can handle really basic token movement along the lines of a battlemat without any real tweaking at all, and it comes with line of sight, dynamic lighting, and fog of war features out of the box.

There are actually lots of frameworks available from the community, but some of them are pretty complicated, and you can run into problems of underdeveloped or no longer developed frameworks that might need some work under the hood.

All that said, I've actually heard good things about Roll20 - it's supposed to be stupid easy to use and connect, and I believe there is a free tier if you don't care about some of the more advanced features like lighting and vision. It might be worth a look if you just want a very basic battlemat replacement.

Finally, I'm not sure about this capability in Hangouts, but I am pretty sure Skype allows you to share an application window with someone you're conferencing with - that should allow you to share the player's view window from Realm Works with your remote player if that's important.

[MNBlockHead]

I'm really just looking for a virtual battlemap. Dice rolls, calculations, etc. will all be old school. I'm running DnD 5e, so managing combat is not as onerous as other systems. I've looked into Fantasy Grounds, but the cost for the software and all the 5e DLC is too high for the limited use and I'm not looking forward to ANOTHER application with a high learning curve.

I can easily share a screen or application in Google Hangouts, so that's not an issue. I'll probably continue to use RW for showing maps and managing fog of war.

I'm just looking for a virtual battlemap. I'll try out Roll20, though I'm not sure I'll use it enough to justify the subscription.

I have maptools. If I can just load the map and tokens, and ignore all the other stuff, that is an option.

I've been playing around with 3D Virtual Tabletop Community on my iPhone. I like how easy it is to use as a simple digital battle map. You can even just take a photo with your camera and turn it into a battlemap. But adding another device into the mix is more complicated than I would like.

The camera I have, wouldn't be great for displaying the tabletop, but I may just try that and or just make the remote player rely on his imagination more.

[Parody]

I've played with d20Pro, though I haven't used it beyond that. Back in 2014 LWD's newsletter mentioned Hero Labs and Realm Works integration being part of their rewrite, though I don't believe that's come to anything yet.

[MNBlockHead]

Originally Posted by Parody

Back in 2014 LWD's newsletter mentioned Hero Labs and Realm Works integration being part of their rewrite, though I don't believe that's come to anything yet.

That would be cool and I would definitely consider Roll20 if that is the case.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

I'm just looking for a virtual battlemap. I'll try out Roll20, though I'm not sure I'll use it enough to justify the subscription.

Roll20 is free for basic use. The subscription is to help support adding features, and gets you a few perks.. but if all you want is the shared map, that's free (at least time I looked).

[Farling]

I've been looking at d20pro as a solution for a local VTT (which would work as a remote VTT too), since it can be used purely for revealing maps as they explore and moving tokens around the board (and handling their visibility). I have no wish to use their combat dice rolling.