Hi,
has anybody played BE online and used some sort of a virtual tabletop as a help? If so, could you please share your experiences? I’m looking to try the game with a couple of friends, but unfortunately we don’t have the option of playing f2f as we live in different countries.
I ran BE on Infrno.net for a little while. The site’s kinda buggy, but it works alright. It’s basically videoconferencing with a shared white board and die roller. The nice thing is that the game table is stateful, so when you log in, everything will be right where you left it.
One thing I can say is, keep usin paper sheets for characters and whatnot. Maybe keep an online record for everyone to view, but use a regular character sheet for play and advancement tracking.
You shouldn’t need a VTT, just a shared graphic editor (virtual whiteboard) and chat with die-roller.
Audio-chat and text chat at the same time is better, but not essential.
Thanks for the replies guys! At the moment we’re using Skype and Google Docs (BW character sheet template is awesome). Some time ago I tried out Skype’s shared whiteboard but it was annoying/laggy/buggy at the time, and so I wanted to check out other solutions. I’ll see what Infrno.net looks like.
The problem with most of the VTT’s is that they’re focused on “minis-on-map” type play.
BE really could use counters on maps, but the problem is MAKING the map on the fly. Hence, shared whiteboard.
there are several, but I’ve not used them.
http://www.skrbl.com/
http://writeboard.com/
https://www.dabbleboard.com/ (has limited features in free version)
http://www.groupboard.com/ (5 user limit in free version)
Well, actually, I’ve played a bit with skrbl…
Fantasy Grounds has a really beautiful virtual tabletop platform. Not buggy at all! It’s mostly aimed towards running D&D 3.5, although some people have released custom plugins to run various systems. I don’t think BW or BE are supported officially, but you could still use the main functions of the program with no problems. Combines chat, die rolling, virtual whiteboard, image sharing, etc. Lots of extra features too.
Only problem is, it’s not free. But for something really beautiful and immersive, I wouldn’t mind shelling out a little money.
Give EpicTablea look. It is not tied to specific game systems. Instead, it focuses on wholly replicating your game table in the virtual space, so that whatever you can do on your game table at home you can do on EpicTable over the internet. The tabletops, maps, characters and handouts can be prepped as Private and then changed to Shared as needed throughout the session. Its roleplay-centric chat allows the use of personas, tone of voice and whispers. The dice roller supports complex dice mechanics without you needing to do any scripting; just set up your dice rolls and save for one-click use during the session.
It is still in development, but you can get a beta version to use. This what I am using with my current game group, which includes EpicTable’s creator. (I am Scot, playing Zahar.)
Koshkovich: if it can’t do scribbled maps on the fly, it won’t work for BE. And those are the ONLY kinds of maps needed. BE is a 0-Prep-per-session game. It needs a whiteboard, not minis-on-the table.
EpicTable tabletops can do scribbled maps on the fly. Share a tabletop, open the drawing tool, and you have a collaborative whiteboard.