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

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

In MapTools, last I checked (and this was a couple of years ago), the GM has an option to set "fog of war" (I believe it's actually called that) for the map, and to selectively designate segments that he can "reveal," piece by piece. You can even set it up so that when people move their minis, they've got a limited range of visibility (due to light sources, etc.) around their minis, which is dynamically updated for them each time they move. It sounds like the sort of thing that could work for a GM who has time to set up his mega-dungeon ahead of time, but for doing things more "on the fly," I'd probably rely more upon treating the whole table as "dark" and just lighting up X radius around the player. Sure, this might result in seeing things through a thin wall that the PC shouldn't "see," but a little roleplaying is in order. ;)

It would be nice if there was some sort of a modular tool, so you could plug in cavern segments and such. MapTools might actually support that sort of thing (as it let me import maps and markers) but you'd need to have those "modules" to start with.

Now, how I handle it in my tabletop settings is that I have map tiles - physical segments of the layout - that I don't put down until it's time for the PCs to either see them, or to at least be aware of them. Sometimes I'll put down a map tile that represents an area (because it's a house, so the players should be able to guess at the rough dimensions of the house) but I won't put down minis or object representations until the door is opened and PCs can see inside. "Map tiles" in this case are sometimes flat pieces of paper or cardstock with printed details, or they might be die-cut segments (ala Advanced HeroQuest, Descent Journeys in the Dark, or Doom the Board Game), or they might be custom 3D creations using Hirst Arts "Castle Molds" plaster blocks or sculpted insulation foam board - depending upon how elaborate I'm going with it. By keeping my "map tiles" segmented, I can reveal them bit by bit ... but I also increase the chance for reuse, because I can mix and match the pieces.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good strategy... if this can be applied to whichever virtual table we wind up using!