Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm going to be running a 4th edition Darksun game for my emigrant gaming buddies using Google Hangouts (which is really cool) and a virtual tabletop program. But I'm undecided on which one to get.
D'n'D Tabletop is tailored to running 4th edition games, and comes with lots of D'n'D specific content, which is cool. However, it's in beta, I'm not sure about how it's going to be supported, or how long we'll have to wait to get invited to participate once we get our subscription. Also the subscription is time limited.
Fantasy Grounds is more open ended, which means I could use it for running other games too, which is actually a plus since I like a variety of systems. It's much cheaper in the long run, and we get to keep it forever rather than paying a monthly fee. It's also an established brand. No 4th ed specific content though.
Any experience with either program, Dakkanauts? Any strong opinions or information I'm missing?
Any experience with running a game entirely via internet would be appreciated too.

I've played around with the VTT, as I'm a DDI subscriber, and so far, I've been impressed by it. It certainly has a lot of promise, and now, it can import characters directly from the character builder, and monsters directly from the monster builder. If I had a group where everybody was a DDI subscriber, I'd do a VTT game.

Never played with any other similar program, though.

I ran a campaign that lasted about 6 months or so using "Map Tool" a similar sort of virtual tabletop software.

It works pretty well, assuming your players don't hit weird connection issues or you don't forget the all important "Save" when making changes.

I'm not sure what features the two programs you use have, but one of the best things I could do in map tool to save time was to go through the player's character sheets and make macros of all their abilities and put those macros on their character tokens.

Generally, one thing that is very nice is that I could make *Far* better maps than I could on a real tabletop. The community generated a lot of resources for textures and object clip art that really made things "pop" visually.


I could put monsters and visual effects etc on the board and "Hidden" and trigger them whenever players walked into those zones. Also being able switch maps quickly allowed me to switch town maps very easily.

Thanks for the recommendations guys!
Map tool looks extremely promising! I tried the Fantasy Grounds demo and was not really that impressed. Lots of clicking around and stuff. I think it would suit a more organised GM better...

Da Boss wrote:Thanks for the recommendations guys!
Map tool looks extremely promising! I tried the Fantasy Grounds demo and was not really that impressed. Lots of clicking around and stuff. I think it would suit a more organised GM better...

It's quite nice, though the interface can be a bit unintuitive when you're first starting. Once you get a hold of it though, some of the fancier features are quite nice. One of my favorites was the LOS blocking tools. By limiting player view to their token, and using the light source options you can really get a feel of exploration out of the indoor environments. Even outdoors doing things like having the trunks of trees of block LoS can make for some interesting gameplay.

Granted I was running my session in a setting with a lot of old-growth trees with massive trunks, but still.

Do you guys have links to any of these sights? A few of my friends and I have been talking about getting together to start up role-playing again, but struggle to find the time needed. If we could all do it online, it would be a lot more flexible and convenient for us.

No problem.
I think the best chat option for it is Google Hangouts, hands down. You just need to be on Google +. If you need an invite pm me and I will sort you out.
Map Tools
http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=maptool

Fantasy Grounds
http://www.fantasygrounds.com/

D'n'D Insider
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/tools.aspx

Thanks for the links and info. I will forward it to my friends to see what they think. Is the D'n'D one the only one that requires a subscription or $? Thanks again.

boogeyman wrote:Thanks for the links and info. I will forward it to my friends to see what they think. Is the D'n'D one the only one that requires a subscription or $? Thanks again.

Map Tool is totally free, I don't know about the others. I'd fiddle around with it a bit before showing it to anyone though. It can be a bit unimpressive on it's own but if you make up a nice map and some character tokens it seems a lot more impressive.

If you're using Map Tools check out the video tutorials, they're fantastic.

I'm looking for a good 'virtual tabletop' too - but with a catch!

I'm looking for one to use for a 1E AD&D campaign.

We'll probably end up using some generic 'whiteboard' online connectivity software along with some chat program as well.

I was mildly intrigued by "Fantasy Ground" as I think there is a AD&D/OSRIC 'module' for it, but who knows?

Alph: Maptool seems pretty open to adaptation, I daresay there's an AD&D module for it out there somewhere. Have a look at it, it's a free download so it's no skin off your teeth if you don't like it. I'm really happy with it I have to say (big thanks, Chongara).

I thought Fantasy Grounds was a little clunky and unintuitive, to be honest. Too much style overwhelming functionality. (Like, they use an axe as their "close the window" symbol, which is dumb. It should always be an X!)

Maptools lends itself to 'virtual meetings' online?

Does it have a chat feature, or do you need to run something like Skype too?

Alpharius wrote:Maptools lends itself to 'virtual meetings' online?

Does it have a chat feature, or do you need to run something like Skype too?

It has a chat feature, it's fairly basic but everyone can communicate clearly. It has features like in-line dice roll so you can type something in like

"Greetings! I am Manmuscle McBigsword stand aside weakling! I roll for intimidate 3d44+12!"

and it'll convert that into "Greetings! I am Manmuscle McBigsword stand aside weakling! I roll for intimidate 109 (43,31,35 +12)".

You can also do little emote commands like

/me winks at the the burly man tending the bar -> "Manmuscle McBigsword winks at the burly man tending the bar".

However you're not really going to get things like voice chat, muting/unmuting people at will, picture-in-chat etc..

It has a basic chat feature like Chongara said, but it's not that resource heavy. I would really suggest giving Google Hangouts on Google + a look- I joined Google + for this function and it is really really cool. It does group chat smoothy and intuitively, with video, voice and text.
Running that in parallel with Maptool will not challenge any but the most resource strapped computers.

I will say, if you download maptool, you should go to the video tutorials advertised and watch them. They explain how to use it really really well.

Is Google + open to all now?

If you want an invite I will send you one.

PM sent!