Virtual Tabletops for SR 4E, Real life VT's to play SR? Results of Catalyst's polling? Options

[Interested Noob]

Good morning again to the community!

Thanks again for all the help I received yesterday (asking about premade campaigns to get started).

Last night I started exploring the possibility of using a virtual tabletop to run a SR 4E game. Doing some web searches I found a lot of instances where someone else had considered the idea, or experimented, or jury rigged something together that seemed to work (whereupon they promptly stopped posting about it vanished).

I might be asking for the world, but I'm wondering if there is a platform that is well supported, either by the publisher of said VT, or by a dedicated fan base.

Has anyone had any particularly good experiences with a VT they care to tell about?

*************
On a related note, during my web searches, I found a Catalyst Gaming Labs post-Shadowrun Missions survey, where one of the questions was "Would you have liked to have seen virtual tabletop support for running SR?" Did anything come of that? Or, has been there any thought to allowing a company like Fantasy Grounds II, or Digital Adventures to create an electronic rule set for use with SR? Similiar to what Pinnacle has done with Savage Worlds.

One of my problems is that I'm not much of a programmer (if at all), so I'd be delighted to hear about system that was commercially supported.


Thanks in advance for your feedback and discussion!

[Irian]

Just curious: What is a "virtual tabletop"? Do you mean something like Fantasy Grounds? An online gaming table? Or a tabletop game? I'm confused (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Interested Noob]

Just curious: What is a "virtual tabletop"? Do you mean something like Fantasy Grounds? An online gaming table? Or a tabletop game? I'm confused (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Fantasy Grounds II (the new version) or Fantasy Grounds would be a perfect example of what I mean. There are also Battlegrounds, Kloogewerks, etc...

Fantasy Grounds is a commercial product. OpenRPG is an open source one...

Yes, an online gaming table. Like WOTC alledges they are creating for D&D 4E.

[Interested Noob]

Here is the survey that I was referring to, check out the last question.

I am just pointing to that to indicate that there was at least one point some thought about it.

[Irian]

Ah. Hm, I know a bunch of (german) people who use Fantasy Grounds (and other tools) to play online (mainly by Teamspeak, FG, Maptools, etc. are just used for handouts, characters, etc.). Unfortunatly, the Shadowrun ruleset for FGII wasn't ready when I last had a look.

Personally, I coded some of the functionalities into my own GM-Tool, not for online gaming, but for using with a projector...

[Crusher Bob]

MapTool seems to have provisions for sr4 dice rolls some discussion here. Of course, so does OpenRPG...

I'll say that adapting maptool for DnD 4th has been pretty easy. The ability to chance the token stats, add custom token states, etc means that I don't have to wait for someone else to come up with all this stuff. So I'd assume that doing a SR4 version should be pretty simple.

[Nightwalker450]

I'm going to put in my word for Battlegrounds.

There are a lot of features, the dice roller can be set up through macros for shadowrun (fairly simple once you set a few up).
The developer of this has been working on it for nearly 2 years, and is still the primary person you'll get a response from on the forums if you have a question. He also helps in the searching out of free icons, maps, objects etc for use with the tool.

The only downside of this is that its not free (at least for no longer than 45 minutes at a time.. demo)
GM clients are $32
Player clients are $16
There are also floating licenses for players, which the GM gets and players without licenses can use those.

Patches/Upgrades are free, but when he does a version change (from 1.x to 2.0) there will be a small fee to upgrade.


I'd at least recommend checking this out, I think you'll find it worth the investment.

[Drogos]

We're using ScreenMonkey. We like it thus far. A little mod to the dice roller and it works just fine. Also an active group of people working to get it to SR4 compatability.

:Edit: And for the price of $40, it's not really expensive (and only the GM buys the program).

[Interested Noob]

I'm going to put in my word for Battlegrounds.

There are a lot of features, the dice roller can be set up through macros for shadowrun (fairly simple once you set a few up).
The developer of this has been working on it for nearly 2 years, and is still the primary person you'll get a response from on the forums if you have a question. He also helps in the searching out of free icons, maps, objects etc for use with the tool.

The only downside of this is that its not free (at least for no longer than 45 minutes at a time.. demo)
GM clients are $32
Player clients are $16
There are also floating licenses for players, which the GM gets and players without licenses can use those.

Patches/Upgrades are free, but when he does a version change (from 1.x to 2.0) there will be a small fee to upgrade.

I'd at least recommend checking this out, I think you'll find it worth the investment.

It does seem to have some good points to it. One of them being that it doesn't try to bite off more than it can chew. By getting the die roller right, it leaves the rules up to the GM, and just handles the visual interface. It does seem well supported too.

[Aaron]

When I was at Origins, I heard a lot of talk about virtual tabletop for SR4 from people wearing Catalyst shirts. I also heard the names of people that get regular paychecks from Catalyst in connection to the topic in question, so I'm guessing Good Things approach.

More I can't really say, except that if it does happen, I'd be willing to run a monthly Missions game via the Internet for people who find themselves bereft of gaming groups.

[dionysus]

More I can't really say, except that if it does happen, I'd be willing to run a monthly Missions game via the Internet for people who find themselves bereft of gaming groups.

Um....dibs on a spot in that....

[Murrdox]

My friends and I play a weekly Shadowrun game over Skype.

One of the things I actually LIKE about Shadowrun is that the combat is so cinematic that you don't often need to have a battlemap. It plays well over the internet, as opposed to D&D, where it is always extremely important to know exactly where every single creature is, and what the movement paths are, etc.

A few sessions ago we had a rather large combat for the first time since we started playing SR4, and we used an online tool for the first time to sort of keep track of where everyone was.

We actually used Google Spreadsheets. It's pretty ridiculously easy. It takes a few seconds to setup the sheet to look like a grid, and then you just draw your map, and put colored dots in for the various characters. It's VERY abstract, but that's all we needed it for, was something to keep general track of where people were. It works well. You can collaborate live on the sheet, which means everyone is logged into it. As soon as one person makes a change, everyone sees it.

I might check out Battlegrounds though, sounds interesting.

[Caine Hazen]

...if it does happen, I'd be willing to run a monthly Missions game via the Internet for people who find themselves bereft of gaming groups.

You know you want us back at your table (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Bull]

You know you want us back at your table (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Why, so he can put you at a deadly wound and knock me unconscious again? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Aaron]

Ack.

Caine Hazen:
Any time. I love a challenge.

Bull:
When you spend a few IPs charging a street samurai, you tend to take damage. When you spend a few IPs charging three street samurai, you tend to fall down. Although you did manage to slice one in half, which was pretty damn heroic. And Mr. Hazen's rigger leaped out of his cocoon and vehicle and into SMG fire (and my player-hating dice coming up with nine hits didn't help him), so I have no sympathy for you. =i)

[Cardul]

Maybe a Virtual Tabletop is going to be with Holostreets?

[RunnerPaul]

Maybe a Virtual Tabletop is going to be with Holostreets?

If it is, then I won't be able to use my laptop for it after all, because I'll be too busy playing Duke Nukem Forever on it, while listening to Guns-n-Roses' Chinese Democracy.

[Jrayjoker]

I have been playing around a bit with Gametable. You can make your own minis and terrain "pods" rather simply. You have to call/IM/email people the domain and password to all connect, but in 15 minutes of tinkering I had usable map for an 8 person combat and found a bunch of tiles online that I imported with ease. Also, the die rolling macro is very simple, but functional. Also, also, you can choose no grid, square grid, or hex grid and vary the scale.

Our D&D GM will be test driving it this weekend with his laptop and a projector.

[ThePolo]

If it is, then I won't be able to use my laptop for it after all, because I'll be too busy playing Duke Nukem Forever on it, while listening to Guns-n-Roses' Chinese Democracy.

You, my friend, win at the internet.

[Moon-Hawk]

We're using ScreenMonkey. We like it thus far. A little mod to the dice roller and it works just fine. Also an active group of people working to get it to SR4 compatability.

:Edit: And for the price of $40, it's not really expensive (and only the GM buys the program).

I just used screenmonkey for the first time this past weekend. It is very nice that only the GM buys or installs anything. We didn't use the $40 version, we used the free version to test it out, which means you can't set things up ahead of time and save them.
Overall I liked it. My only complaint was that sometimes, when multiple people were trying to move at once, the constant refreshing got troublesome, but as long as everyone was taking turns reasonably it worked fine.

[Cardul]

If it is, then I won't be able to use my laptop for it after all, because I'll be too busy playing Duke Nukem Forever on it, while listening to Guns-n-Roses' Chinese Democracy.

Holostreets will probably be out before those two...neither of them has the official website for the company saying "Coming 2008" on the front page. If you don't believe me, go and check www.catalystgamelabs.com
It CLEARLY says Holostreets is "Coming 2008"