Hello everyone,
I have the following question: Do you regularly play via internet? Any experience with VTT (Virtual Table Top) to play FFG Star Wars?
I usually play using D1-C3 (SWRPG Web Dice Roller), Google sheets (for the GM notes and Character Sheets) and Hangouts (for voice and video). But since Hangouts doesn't work that well and we are currently using 3 different platforms, I was looking to work with fewer applications.
Thanks for your answers. All knowledge is welcome!
Edited by RithuanA pal of mine keeps suggesting we try using Tabletop Simulator (via Steam) which has worked nicely for X-Wing but I have no experience with it personally.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=588262975
I'm currently involved in 3 separate games being played over Discord. Discord takes care of the audio chat and text interface, and has a version of the D1-C3 bot that can handle all in-game rolls, and manage low level character information (things like your wound/strain levels vs your threshold, your credit count, destiny pool, crit rolls, etc). I also use Google Drive as a repository of any maps/character sheets/info I need during play, and provide links to the documents through the Discord chat interface. I find it works really well.
I use Fantasy Grounds. I like it fine but since it's not an official ruleset you have to keep your books handy.
27 minutes ago, Archlyte said:I use Fantasy Grounds. I like it fine but since it's not an official ruleset you have to keep your books handy.
We are about to start using Fantasy Grounds as well. If you're handy with XML, you can enter in new information (talents, species, gear, etc) as it comes out. It is a pain in the rear to do, but they kept the info light to avoid copyright issues.
I would use roll20.net
We use it for pathfinder and star trek adventures
31 minutes ago, OriginalDomingo said:We are about to start using Fantasy Grounds as well. If you're handy with XML, you can enter in new information (talents, species, gear, etc) as it comes out. It is a pain in the rear to do, but they kept the info light to avoid copyright issues.
I wouldn't say I'm handy with XML, but I was able to fill in that stuff on my copy of the Ruleset. I'm glad to see someone else using Fantasy Grounds
Are you on their forums under the same name?
15 minutes ago, Archlyte said:I wouldn't say I'm handy with XML, but I was able to fill in that stuff on my copy of the Ruleset. I'm glad to see someone else using Fantasy Grounds
No. I haven't been on their forum yet.
Roll20 has a lot of really nice features, although one person has to pay to get the full thing. It’s nice because:
There’s plenty of other features like notes, handouts, voice chat, and dynamic lighting, but I don’t really use them. Discord is still the best for voice chat. If you’re willing to pay for it, I would definitely recommend Roll20.
We gave the video chat in Discord a try in conjunction with D1C3 and it worked pretty well, but our situation is atypical in that it's a bunch of people around a table and a couple remote players. We found that we were lacking a quick sketch tool and while character sheets would be nice, we each maintain our own and it didn't cause problems. The quality and reliability of Discord video chat was better than Hangouts and Skype in my experience, having used both for several years for this purpose.
I've used roll20, fantasygrounds, tabletop simulator, and a host of other solutions and I haven't found the right fit for our table.
Roll20 + Owen Mead's Dice Roller + Hangouts = best
I've been running my EotE games in Roll20 for years, works very well. You do have to shell out for the API access to get the full experience, but that's a pretty negligible amount of money, especially if you get the whole group to split it (10 bucks per month for the level of access you need). Otherwise you can pretty easily use it in conjunction with any other EotE friendly dice roller.
Edited by Tom Cruise4 hours ago, BrickSteelhead said:Roll20 + Owen Mead's Dice Roller + Hangouts = best
We did this for a while (sans roll20) but we found, over and over, that Hangouts was killing our call after 30 minutes, pretty much on the dot. We're all savvy technical workers so we're certain we can't blame out computers or internet, and the fact that this happened consistently across a couple months is what forced our hand. We did a fair bit of troubleshooting of course, as is our way.
For what it's worth, we use Hangouts too, and have had problems, but nothing like the call dying at the 30 minute mark. Mainly, it's been bad audio, freezing, and such, and not that regular. We've chalked it up to bad Internet connections, either for individuals (for example, bad wiring in the neighborhood, as evidenced by neighbors driving over the little wiring pylons & knocking them over) or somewhere in Google. Those irregular issues (they don't happen every time, or at a regular interval) is bad enough; every 30 minutes would drive us crazy!
Oh, another frequently annoying event: Windows 10 deciding that this is the time to download a whole bunch of updates.
Just now, coyote6 said:For what it's worth, we use Hangouts too, and have had problems, but nothing like the call dying at the 30 minute mark. Mainly, it's been bad audio, freezing, and such, and not that regular. We've chalked it up to bad Internet connections, either for individuals (for example, bad wiring in the neighborhood, as evidenced by neighbors driving over the little wiring pylons & knocking them over) or somewhere in Google. Those irregular issues (they don't happen every time, or at a regular interval) is bad enough; every 30 minutes would drive us crazy!
Oh, another frequently annoying event: Windows 10 deciding that this is the time to download a whole bunch of updates.
I'm the first to blame my internet, believe me. But over the course of a few weeks we were able to prove it was in fact hangouts, since skype/lync/etc were having no issues at the same time. We'd been using skype successfully since, but imagine my surprise with the quality of Discord's offering there. Hangouts wasn't always that way - in fact we'd used it successfully for years with nary a problem. The error probably corrected itself by now, but we've moved on. It was rather nice to be able to refill my beer every 30 minutes, so it wasn't all bad.
3 hours ago, themensch said:I'm the first to blame my internet, believe me. But over the course of a few weeks we were able to prove it was in fact hangouts, since skype/lync/etc were having no issues at the same time. We'd been using skype successfully since, but imagine my surprise with the quality of Discord's offering there. Hangouts wasn't always that way - in fact we'd used it successfully for years with nary a problem. The error probably corrected itself by now, but we've moved on. It was rather nice to be able to refill my beer every 30 minutes, so it wasn't all bad.
Would you say Discord is superior to Skype? My group is four in person with two playing remotely and Skype is OK, but it can be kind of wonky at times.
7 minutes ago, sonovabith said:Would you say Discord is superior to Skype? My group is four in person with two playing remotely and Skype is OK, but it can be kind of wonky at times.
Jury's still out on that - I only have the one session to report on. Video and audio quality were in fact superior to what we normally have, but one test is hardly exhaustive. Discord did decide to update in the middle of our call, without asking mind you, but miraculously it didn't drop the call.
I've found Discord's quality to be much better than Skype's in terms of audio (never really used video, so I can't speak on that). And the UI is MUCH better than Skype, Skype's UI is a laggy mess and seems to be much more prone to technical issues, whereas Discord seems very easy to navigate and rarely gives me any trouble unless my internet is dropping out.
Thanks, for all the replies. Since I'm not looking to pay for any service right now (Fantasy ground or Roll20), I will keep my tidy google sheets for Character sheets. I'll follow the suggestion to migrate dice and audio to Discord.
Does Discord chat keep a log of the written comments and dice rolled?
You could always use orokos for your dice roller. It logs everything.
5 hours ago, Rithuan said:Does Discord chat keep a log of the written comments and dice rolled?
Not indefinitely.