One of my players really doesn't like roleplaying with Google Wave. The way we currently do it is by entering a voice server and a wave. The voice server is for OOC; actions are described in the Wave. We tend to get distracted and stray offtopic in voice chat, and that combined with the fact that he isn't used to roleplaying with text really kills the immersion for this one player.

He suggests we still use the wave, but we vocally notify the GM of our characters' actions, as well, i.e. "I smash a window and climb in."

Have you guys ever run a game with voice/video chat, and what can I do to make it work out better?

Errrr first off Waves realtime capabilities, are kinda less then superb. Secondly have you tried reversing things and using voice chat to describe what your doing and roleplay in character and use the chat to handle dicerolls, out of character conversations and other stuff?

I've had good luck with IRC or OpenRPG and using Ventrillo for the voice portion, it's not perfect but it's the closest I've come to a real tabletop experience.

Hey sweet, your 1000th post was in my thread.

I like Google Wave because we can put a dicebot in it (for making rolls transparently) and we have a nice detailed record of everything. There are a few other reasons. But yes, the lag starts to become a problem after a while.

To add to Lurkers comments, as I have been in two games with him using Openrpg and Ventrilo, The chat features of Openrpg work well for OOC chatter and messages between GM and Players. This keeps The voice chat free for more direct game issues.

We use Skype, since it has both voice and chat and the call quality is good. Like Lurker suggests, almost everything we do is done with voice; text is used for combat helps (who has what initiative, etc.), off-topic chatter, and for "secret" conversations between players and GM. We also tend to put NPC names and other plot details into text as a reminder. Dice rolling is a matter of trust, and we've seen enough critical glitches that I think everyone's honest.

It seems like the real issue is being off-topic, but that's something you could also have at a table, and is ultimately up to the GM to control.

Do a lot of people play over the internet?

Some do, I run games that way occasionally for Shadowrun missions especially so people who don't have a local SRM GM can play the mods and hopefully spread the contagion further. It's like my own technomancer ghoul apocalypse.

Kazuhiro: I can see how the automatic note taking and logging would be attractive and I can't think of any way around that short of either actually taking notes, which I do even at my table top games, or recording and transcribing later. If you wanted to split the difference you could play the game via the voice chat and then keep a running log of events in a wave.

Example:

7PM: Zig and Zag head to the Big Rhino to try and gain access to the underground, Ena begins probing the office's matrix systems.

My group of players want to do the same thing, but how do you deal with dice rolls, is it possible to have dicebot on Skype chat, or do you run other service for dicebot ?

When we can't use the dicebot for some reason, we use Random.org.

We have 4 players + 1 GM. We use iTabletop for maps. It handles dice too, however it's audio ability is poor (everyone needs a headset). Of our players only 1 is usually remote. We use Skype for him to connect with both audio and video. The rest of us can be seen/heard from my living room as I have a computer connected to my entertainment system. It works really well for us. If we have to have multiple people remote (vacations and such) we switch to Skype for audio and iTabletop for video & game mechanics.

We use the trust system for dice rolls most of the time. If the GM is worried about we use iTabletop for the dice.

Dave

You can really get complex with online RP sims. I don't have enough time to code pieces and encounters and maps in special formats. I scan my maps (hand drawn or pc drawn) and use Screenmonkey Lite plus Skype.

SMLite allows you to reveal pieces of a map at a time, allow gm and player to put their icons down and move them, allows chat (secret and group), and has a dice roller that everyone can see.

Skype voice quality is very good.

That's about as close to the table top as I've found although nothing beats the real thing.

Mesh

I agree with your player. I think you'd be better off doing your RP/actions in voice chat, and doing OOC and rolls in the text. It's really easy to ignore some text on your screen or get lost in a spoken conversation, so it is best that the text is the unimportant stuff and the conversation is the important part.

I mean, the way you're doing it... imagine that you were playing around a table, and all talk was restricted to OOC stuff like how the mets are doing or whatever, and all in game related things had to be handled by passed notes. I think you can see that would be fairly silly.