Who Plays Traveller

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Berg:
I've got NWN and there is work on a d20 Modern Module for it. The thing is it feels like a "roll-playing game" as opposed to Role, and it requires serious time in the programming department!

FWIW, my experience on NWN has been that the roleplaying aspect can be enhanced or muted by how the gameworld is setup. I've played in ones that have been at both extremes and in the middle.

However it DOES take a serious amount of geekiness to get a server up and running. I reviewed how to do it for myself, and without 3-4 committed IT guys I wouldn't bother even trying.

 

[parmasson]

Our group meets on an irregular basis whenever we get a chance. CT is our system of choice and the current campaign has been going for 1 ½ years. Recently we have been restricted to twice a month but when we are in full swing we will meet every week. Bear in mind that we also rotate games.

 

[Merxiless]

Yeah, note that to do NWN properly, to take full advantage of what it can do, you really need to be a C++ programmer.

It took me a year of coding, about 10 hours a day, by myself, before I opened my server 2 years ago.

Ran it 2 years, and it was just time for a change. SO I cam here to come back to my favorite game: Traveller.

The d20 modern port for NWN is kind of nice, but unless you know NWN inside out, it's a problem because you are basically reconfiguring how it uses files from the ground up.

There are 2 guys in the NWN community that use that d20 modern/ sci-fi port, and they both run excellent firefly / Traveller (flavor) servers.

 

[savage]

Thanks Everyone,
Sounds clear...play NWN for D&D/FR otherwise Grip or Klooge for Traveller.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Savage:
Thanks Everyone,
Sounds clear...play NWN for D&D/FR otherwise Grip or Klooge for Traveller.

Having used both Grip and Klooge, as the Referee for T20, I can say those two are probably your best two choices. Mostly the choice between those two depends on a couple of factors. The first, how much you want to be able to use graphics, sound and maps in your campaign, as opposed to just chat to run it. The second is if you want to use tile based maps or not. The third is expense. Grip is cheaper, especially if you are also buying the player licenses. (If your players are willing to come up with their own licenses then they aren't that much different in price.) But the most important decision is the referee's preference when it comes to game interface. I personally hate the tab flipping required with Grip. Others like the map on an entirely different screen than the chat and/or character sheet. So I second the recommendation that you take them for a spin before you buy. And not just look at the pretty pictures but put it through its paces. Play or lurk in a game that is already running and see for yourself how it flows. Once you think you have it down set it up and run a short session with it. (In Klooge that would be in Demo mode, which is very limited, in Grip that is during your trial period, hint don't install until you are ready to really put it through its paces.)

 

[savage]

Actually I did review the demos. I prefer mult-screen situations. However giving a demo a game a try might help.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Savage:
Actually I did review the demos. I prefer mult-screen situations. However giving a demo a game a try might help.

Actually I started with Grip for my first sessions. But the tab flipping drove me up the wall. The nice thing about Klooge is you can have multiple screens if you want, but you can also have the chat on your map, so you don't miss anything while you are looking at the map and/or positioning things.

When Refereeing a session I am set up as follows. I have the map taking up the majority of my screen. I have a chat window open below the map (about 6 or 7 lines visible.) On the left of the map is the campaign tree the overall small picture of the map and the stock tabs for sounds and macros. Across the top is the stock buttons for dice, coin flipping, combat start and map tools. Character/NPC sheets open, when they are needed open, as tabs behind the map. The dice panel, when required, opens up bottom center of the map. I find I don't open the character sheet or the dice panel much as most of the functions are accessible from the character's icon either on the map, the campaign tree or, for a PC, the list of players on the bottom of the screen. If I had two monitors or wanted to use smaller windows I could seperate various components. (For example put the map on one screen and the rest of the controls on another.)

The second headache I had was pausing the game for people to connect. During a typical three hour session I would lose, through the vagarieties of the Internet, Grip itself or a combination of factors, connection to someone at least three times per session.

But to each his/her own.

 

[savage]

That is true. We've kinda highjacked the "Who Plays Traveller" thread with Internet Traveller Games discussions. Perhaps we could get thread from Hunter just for these discussions.

Anyhow, I see positive & negative to all of the products. Although my Corridor Commonwealth campaign was FTF I used a laptop extensively for the entire event. It took a few slow sessions to get momentum but I think the transition to an application would not be overwelming.

Connections dropping sounds like Grip's weak point that could use an enhancement.

 

[Berg]

The funny thing for GRiP is in iPC (players module), you can seperate the map and character sheet into seperate windows, but in iGM (GM's Mod

) you can only "Flip" to the adventure editor and the NPC editor with short-cuts. It has listed in the manual a shortcut (ctrl + G) to flip to the map, but it apparently wasn't implemented

 

[Merxiless]

I personally am a fan of openRPG, but the community there has gone down hill over the years.

If GRiP was less buggy, I'd probably use it more.

 

[daltoncalford]

I have been extensivly testing/customizing/editing screen monkey.

The issue is, I am a programmer. I have been using Zeeks mods for screenmonkey and I like the package for the following reasons.

1.) I have created different character sheets in for different games since the program allows for html sheets that contain all the players data. Attributes can be created/modified/deleted/queried/used in roll mechanics with ease.

2.) The use of ajax techniques allows for transparent icons and fully manipulative maps by the players.

3.) The players only need a web browser -no need for a client application.

4.) Die rolls can be modified as needed - I have 4 varieties of T&T rolls, Traveller rolls and runequest rolls.

5.) You can have multiple tabs with different maps so that you can have the party split up and the chats are limited to the room the players are in - making it easy for dm'ing.

6.) You can send handouts to the players via chat commands and they either come up as pop-ups or as new tabs.

There is alot more needed in the program, but, I have been very busy over the past few weeks.

best regards

Dalton

 

[Flynn]

Dalton,

Have you found a way to handle the inability of ScreenMonkey to handle alternate size categories, such as Large creatures that take up 2x2 or Huge which take up 3x3?

Just curious,
Flynn

 

[Berg]

These FREE tools are coming along nicely/rapidly

RPTools

Check them out...

 

[soloprobe]

I've been playing since 1981. The group I'm with now meets Monthly...

 

[Maladominus]

Originally posted by Merxiless:
I personally am a fan of openRPG, but the community there has gone down hill over the years.

If GRiP was less buggy, I'd probably use it more.

*sigh* If only GRIP were made open-source.... it could (in theory) be updated by fans/users and upgraded into a solid, stable, more modern, and feature-filled RPGing software. But that's just a pipe dream, I guess.

 

[daltoncalford]

Originally posted by Flynn:
Dalton,

Have you found a way to handle the inability of ScreenMonkey to handle alternate size categories, such as Large creatures that take up 2x2 or Huge which take up 3x3?

Just curious,
Flynn

The code now handles a background bitmap that is NOT transfered back and forth between client and server. The icons can be of any size without difficulty and when you move them, you only post the position change back to the server. This stops all that annoying flickering and the problem with transparent icons - it also is done with layers so it uses the latest ajax code.

No more problems with icon size.

You can have players who are viewing different maps (referred to as rooms) and they only see messages from others in the same room or broadcast messages.

So, the default nbos stuff is alot different from what is being used by most players.

I like the popup character sheet that holds all the players current stats as well as keeping notes between sessions (the players can leave themselves messages for later review).

best regards

Dalton

 

[Berg]

Mr Dalton, Could you post some screen shots of these new features that you talk about? Very interesting...

 

[daltoncalford]

MR!!!
MR????

WHO DARES REFER TO ME AS MISTER?

Just plan old Dalton.

Screen shots, well, it just looks like a browser with multiple tabs, each with different web pages that show what I want to the players.

It is not easy to represent via screen shots, but, it is easy to use.

Screen monkey is just a AJAX style application with a chat screen for feedback to and from the players. Everything typed in the chat is parsed by vbscripts. You can tell the vbscript to look for specific commands such as SENDDOC combatrules.htm fred which will cause a popup window or tab (depending upon the browser and it's settings) to show up on the players browser who logged in as fred.

I am too busy tonight, but, I may setup a sample session next weekend depending on time. I am playing a game on Sunday so I am formating the last of the game info into html. I am posting some of the rules and stuff into the IMTU section here.

best regards

Dalton

 

[Ptah]

Originally posted by Dalton:
MR!!!
MR????

WHO DARES REFER TO ME AS MISTER?

Correct. It should be Sir Dalton, Knight of the Realm.

 

[Voidstar]

Still running a not-so-simple pencil and paper games on friday nights. Just this last week, and trying a new area of space for a new universe.

Voidstar