Markdoc
May 17th, '08, 07:53 AM
Well, we don't have our flying cars yet, but it looks like we are finally getting the videophones we were promised!
I'm in the US at the moment, on a three month sabbatical, which has distressed my gaming group a bit. So we decided to try gaming by Skype. We've done it twice now and it's worked a treat - based on the enthusiastic feedback, it's actually pretty close to a face to face gaming experience and we were able to play full sessions (which for us are about 5 hours).
What we did, rather than set up multiple connections, is gather the regular gaming group at our apartment in Copenhagen, which is our usual place for my game, put my wife's laptop at the end of the table where I normally sit (with video on full screen) and me hooked up from Maryland via my laptop. I had the video window minimised, and my notes up on the screen, so I could see both at one time - and a paper pad to one side for keeping notes and making sketches. Having all the players together so that they could talk to each other, (and see me via the video link) helped keep the atmosphere like a normal game. Having the video link also meant that I could hold sketches up to the monitor and say "It looks like this". We were able (last session) to conduct a big pirate battle with 6 PCs, 50+ NPCs, boarding actions, counter-boarding actions, spellcasting and counter-casting, all without problems and not significantly slower than a normal game.
In fact, it's been so successful, we're talking about setting up Skype for the two players who have difficulty making all sessions because of child-minding obligations.
Anyone else tried this? If so, what have your experiences been?
cheers, Mark
I'm in the US at the moment, on a three month sabbatical, which has distressed my gaming group a bit. So we decided to try gaming by Skype. We've done it twice now and it's worked a treat - based on the enthusiastic feedback, it's actually pretty close to a face to face gaming experience and we were able to play full sessions (which for us are about 5 hours).
What we did, rather than set up multiple connections, is gather the regular gaming group at our apartment in Copenhagen, which is our usual place for my game, put my wife's laptop at the end of the table where I normally sit (with video on full screen) and me hooked up from Maryland via my laptop. I had the video window minimised, and my notes up on the screen, so I could see both at one time - and a paper pad to one side for keeping notes and making sketches. Having all the players together so that they could talk to each other, (and see me via the video link) helped keep the atmosphere like a normal game. Having the video link also meant that I could hold sketches up to the monitor and say "It looks like this". We were able (last session) to conduct a big pirate battle with 6 PCs, 50+ NPCs, boarding actions, counter-boarding actions, spellcasting and counter-casting, all without problems and not significantly slower than a normal game.
In fact, it's been so successful, we're talking about setting up Skype for the two players who have difficulty making all sessions because of child-minding obligations.
Anyone else tried this? If so, what have your experiences been?
cheers, Mark