Virtual gaming table recommendations?

[tuftears]

As some of you may know, jordangreywolf ran the first Avatars campaign a couple years ago. It was fun, and great to get the gang back together.

Avatars was the most popular virtual reality game of the 2060s - a game in which children and adults would create their own avatars, imaginary friends that they could take on quests in a virtual world overlaid upon the real world. That changed in 2065, when a series of brutal murders culminated in a reality-shattering explosion in their California park on the eve of its grand opening, and Avatars was shut down for weeks. People told strange stories of holes opening up from reality into VR, of falling into the strange worlds of the Diadem, or being attacked by monsters that had somehow escaped into the modern world. But how much of it really happened? Only a few people know, and they're not telling.

Now I'm looking at running the follow-up for the group. But one thing that Greywolf did for the first campaign was to illustrate battles by providing JPGs with a map and players (and NPCs) placed on a grid on the map, giving everyone a good idea where exactly they were. That's something I'd like to do for this campaign as well, but it seems to me like there must be a better way than making maps in MS Paint, saving, and uploading them repeatedly.

A little Google-fu brought me here, a list of "virtual tables". I investigated a couple, but I'd like to know if anyone's tried any of these and what their opinions are.

Here's what I looked at:

RPGTonight. Web-based, hooking into standard forum software.

Pro: players wouldn't have to buy or download a client to use it.
Con: ugly interface, slow response.

RPTools. Required download or Java Webstart launch.

Pro: client responds quickly, looks pretty good
Con: drawing controls are primitive (freeform line, straight line, rectangle, oval)

I haven't yet verified if my players are going to be able to use RPTools yet, but it seems like there'd be a definite learning curve.

I'd definitely prefer that players don't have to pay for client software. It's almost tempting to implement a virtual table of my own... But having played with RPTools a bit, I can see there are a bunch of features that would be nice, yet would greatly increase the 'all you have to do is move pieces around a map, right?' implementation time.

So what about you guys, have any of you tried a virtual gaming table?

Comments

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

Have you thought about something like ustream or livestream?

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

You mean having a camera pointed at an actual map? Then players wouldn't be able to move their own units around. Something interactive would be nicest!

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

Oh I see, you want the players to be able to move their own pieces. I thought you wanted something where you could show the players a little bit of a map, then uncloak parts of it as they see it.

Hmm, I don't suppose pchat would really work. :/

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I did not know about that! It's an interesting idea. };)

I tested MapTool with one of my prospective players, I think it's doable but best to create the maps outside of the server and then insert them, rather than try to deal with its primitive-at-best drawing tools.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Hey, maybe I could help draw some generic maps. =) You can move markers around in MapTools, so you could "furnish" some quasi-generic rooms with markers to represent obstacles and other features.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

At first I thought that the intention of MapTool was that you could use these markers to build the entire map, but after a bit it seems clear that it prefers you to use a map you load in, and the markers are just to add on to a map later on.

Some ideas on generic maps might be handy... But given the setting, there are a lot of possible places people might go.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Well, now it makes me wish there was some sort of Flash or Java toy I could put on a web page (that I have access to), where I could flip between a library of JPEG "maps," and superimpose a few features on it, so even if I can't handle all the particulars of miniatures and the whole game mechanics, at the very least I could have an easier time of refreshing my map and telling people, "Look HERE to see the battle grid."

E.g., for the Big Battle in Avatars, I had to keep updating a JPEG via Photoshop and use FTP to send it. FTP kept timing out to Critter.net many times, making it extra-clunky to update ... and Photoshop isn't exactly customized for this sort of use (though at least I could scribble on the map directly to show when yet another part of the landscape had been blown up by the PCs).

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

That's what RPTroll did with the "Wizards & Warriors" freebie fantasy Savage Worlds adventure I did maps and figure flats for on the Pinnacle site. I'll have to see if I can dig up the old thread.

Here's an initial thread with some of the early token work.
Another MapTool thread.

Here's a link to RPTroll's blogspot blog, with a screenshot from the "Wizards & Warriors" MapTool treatment.

I'll see if I can dig up something else later. (Just making a quick morning check of LJ.)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

There's a Savage World campaign with setup macros... I will have to poke at it.