Virtual table tops have been around for a while, with with WOTC's announcement of D&D insider they have hit the main stream.

Savage Worlds have just gone exclusive with one (and not the best from the opinions I have heard), so I though I would give a shout out to the one I think is the best, and certainly has the best options in development.

RpTools (www.rptools.net) have a product called MapTools which is a ambiguous Virtual Table Top (ambiguous meaning it can be used with any system). Trevor the lead developer has a strong voice in the forums and listens closely to the community during development (there is a new build with extra goodies most weeks).

There are 2 versions mentioned on the main page, currently v1.2b32 is the Finalized version and v1.3b14 (at the time of writing, but as I said there are regular updates) is the development version. I personally use the development version, but if you want something slightly more stable use the finalized version of 1.2.

Maptools can be used is several ways, purely as a virtual table top, used in face to face playing instead of floor plans and miniatures. It has an inbuilt dice roller if you choose to use it but it's not really necessary in this scenario.

Or it can be used to bring in players over the net, whether you have one friend who lives a long way away but would like to join in, or to run and entire game this way. Most people who run this way use either skype or Ventrillo for voice, and then use the build in chat system for notes or emotions.

The dice rolling system works, but currently isn't optimal for Shadowrun (you would have to tell it to give you the numbers of every dice rather than just successes and glitches) but there is a request in to change this in one of the upcoming builds.

I could spend lots of time here describing it, and saying what it can do, and miss vital elements. Go download it (as I said it's free) try the development build to see what's happening (it is pretty stable). If you need or want help and advise the forums are very active, and as I said - the developers spend a lot of time there and there are demos run if people ask (there is one today at 8am EST if anyone gets this quick enough). See what you think, it would be a shame to see Catalyst follow the same path as Savage Worlds has because people didn't know what else was out there.

Oh and did I mention, it's FREE!
RpTools Homepage (the home of MapTool)

Cweord
(Same name in the MT forums, feel free to look me up)

It looks nice, has some nice features and it's free... Nice. I still prefer Fantasy Grounds, thoug (unfortunatly, it's not free), but it has some better features, for example the dice rolling - animated, you can drag and roll them with your mouse
And it allows you to complete organize all the chars and npcs in the tool itself, including combat sheet, etc. Unfortunatly, the Shadowrun "ruleset" (contains the definitions for the design, the character sheets, etc.) isn't ready yet.

Maptools hasn't bothered that much with Eye Candy yet, as they want to get the actual tools working better first (there is a serious discussion about 3d at the moment though, probably not happening till V2)

and new formats are being worked on that will enable you to organize your characters and npcs in the tool it's self, as their tokens and with a bag so that you can keep any notes, maps or similar such items you may find during play.

The object with maptools is that you wont' require rule sets, you should be able to create what you need your self (and there is a properties box in tokens that can be altered to put in a stat sheet if you desire, and an image holder that will hold your character sheet so you can bring it up on screen).

Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect or gods gift to gamers yet! but I have never seen developers work so closely with the community before. If you want something put in a request, it may take some time (there is a long list of requests in) and quite possible may be in there already - but after community discussion it will evolve, and quite possibly in to something better than you originally though of.

Oh, you could also create the FG ruleset yourself, the format it open und well documented. I just don't have time for that, don't even have much time for my Dark Eye ruleset.

"The" perfect tool has unfortunatly not been written yet

and unfortunately never will be . . . .

Too many people want too many different things.

Though I do find Free to be a good start

hmm, java based. for ones thats a nice thing in my opinion.
i was worried that this would yet another windows only tool.

hmm, i wonder how this compares to openrpg...

Moved to the appropriate forum.

personally, i prefer it much more over open rpg, for a couple of reasons. first of all, its more streamlined, you can CREATE everything,r ight there in maptools. secondly, because it doesnt have the hosted servers of open, it doesnt develop the cliqueishness of open that i've come to... dislike...

I have been playing with this for the past few games and really like it. It's easy and works pretty well. The team developing seems to be moving quickly.

But it does need alot of work to support Shadow Run. Their scripting seems limited and the documentation is very behind.

Watch the video tutorials before you do anything.

Before I take a look, one question. Does it work for pbem or play by post type games? Meaning, as a gm, can i set up a map and leave it there, so whenever someone looks at it, they see what the current state is and then as the game progresses and I move people around, I can come back to it, move it and save it?

That sort of thing? None of my online games are live ones, so I wondered how these tools worked in that format...

I have left my map of for several days and had no problems with anyone getting at it. It does have an autosave feature so if there is a crash of some sort then your covered.

But at this point it relies on the GM to do a decent amount of the updating. This is good because it gives us alot of power over the table, but it could cause problems for the players as the map might not reveal everything they need automatically.

Then again... play by post probably requires alot of that anyways.

All in all, it should work just fine.

Well just starting out on Virtual Tabletop/online SR i've had a look at both Maptool and OpenRPG. Granted i've only spend about one evening with each one trying out the most basic features.
I like map tool in terms of interface and the Token support although there seems to be potentially a lot of work to modify all of this to support SR. The interface "feels" friendlier than OpenRPG.
Having said that, OpenRPG appear to me to be a lot stronger on the Chat front and dice roller. The map and game tree seems a little confusing to me just starting out.
Currently i'm still finding myself completely split between these two and IRc + a website to upload maps on - I guess its going to have to be trial and error
Anyway, just me 2 cents. Does anyone maintain a Shadowrun specific content repository for any of these systems? (e.g. it would be great to host a collection ofr SR token for Maptool)

I really like screen monkey, between that and team speak you can run a pretty good game over the web. Nothing fancy but all free.