Virtual tabletops

[dragon]

Seen several of these styles are out there and was wondering if anyone uses them and if so are they decent. Ones such as Fantasy Grounds.

Fantasy Grounds is an application acting as a virtual online gaming table primarily intended for pen and paper style narrative role playing games.
Fantasy Grounds is designed to perform many of the things you can do while playing at a conventional gaming table and move it online.
Run games as the gamemaster or take part as a player, the application provides all the necessary tools to communicate, manage information and perform tasks such as rolling the dice or creating drawings.

link


I also know D&D 4ed is supposed to have one online as well.

[Ryan Thunder]

Sounds interesting. I'd probably get it if I had a credit card, since there are a few games I've been itching to play with people that I don't get to see in person very often.

The physically modelled interactive dice seem a bit over the top... XD

[Joviwan]

Perfect opportunity to pimp out Maptools.

http://www.rptools.net
http://rptoolstutorials.net/

Aside from the fact that this software is free, it's VERY robust in what it can do, and as long as you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty trying to figure out how it works, you'll find Maptools to be rather rewarding. I haven't used their other offerings very much, but Maptool is definitely the big one, there.

[dragon]

My thing is I no longer have a group due to where I live so figured maybe this way can stioll get in a game once in awhile.

[Keevan_Colton]

The group I play with have used it quite a bit. We generally game where there are plenty of computers, and it allowed folk that couldnt be there in person to join in with the aid of a skype call on speakers and a copy of the client.

[Ariphaos]

OpenRPG seems to be slowly giving up the ghost - a pity : /

[Stark]

OpenRPG was probably built on the most arcane method of doing ANYTHING i've ever seen.

[Ariphaos]

Youtube runs on the same framework, Python is naturally a very attractive language to program in.

[CaiusWickersham]

Yeah, but they stopped trying to program Open a long time ago. I used to use Open constantly and it was nice in its heyday. Now I use MapTool. It allows for nicer maps overall and it got up to Open functionality fast.

[Stark]

Youtube runs on the same framework, Python is naturally a very attractive language to program in.

Not sure what this has to do with OpenRPG being outrageously arcane and poorly documented for what it was (which wasn't even that complex). Their approach was just bad; a chat program with a whiteboard pretty much has all the functionality anyone I've ever met used in OpenRPG.

[Ariphaos]

Not sure what this has to do with OpenRPG being outrageously arcane and poorly documented for what it was (which wasn't even that complex). Their approach was just bad; a chat program with a whiteboard pretty much has all the functionality anyone I've ever met used in OpenRPG.

OpenRPG was written in Python. The wxPython team broke compatibility on a regular basis, however, which pretty much doomed Open to obscurity. I'm not sure what's so arcane about it after you get it running, though.

It's also a character sheet handler, with limited programmability. Someone also wrote a miniatures game for it though it didn't have much success.

[AMT]

I prefer Open over Maptools and the like mainly because of the server listings allowing one to find new games or new groups that they wouldn't have otherwise.

Beyond that though, I have to agree about Open slowly dying as an obsolete beast, just like Webrpg did

[Joviwan]

Doesn't Maptool have a server browser? I've had people randomly join my games when I didn't password protect them, and I know I've seen server lists.

[Stark]

OpenRPG was written in Python. The wxPython team broke compatibility on a regular basis, however, which pretty much doomed Open to obscurity. I'm not sure what's so arcane about it after you get it running, though.

Heh. Needed more packages for install!

It's also a character sheet handler, with limited programmability. Someone also wrote a miniatures game for it though it didn't have much success.

Oh yeah that functionality nobody ever got working because it was massively opaque and not really that useful! That's what I mean when I say everyone just used it as chat + whiteboard; the rest wasn't worth the effort decoding from the awful UI, awful design, bizarre layouts and standards, etc.

I'm sure it was very useful for the guys that made it and their internet hangers-on, but it was impenetrable to pretty much everyone else.

[Ariphaos]

Doesn't Maptool have a server browser? I've had people randomly join my games when I didn't password protect them, and I know I've seen server lists.

It does, but no one seems to be running social servers or persistent games like in Open. Maptool seems to be centered around one server, one GM, one game at a time, rather than dozens. That's why OpenRPG isn't dead yet - people don't play Neo DBZ because they like DBZ, they play it because it's something to do with friends and meeting new people.

It's still more popular than every other virtual tabletop combined, as near as I can observe. OpenRPG has more public servers, more active posts in its GM/Player forums... over a hundred people are using OpenRPG at this exact moment. Which says a lot for its legacy, I think, considering how dead development is. The update server just went kaput, even.

Obviously, either Maptool will grow to support OpenRPG's social functions or something will supplant them both... either way.