I’ve been looking around for software to run an online game, mostly focusing on video conferencing software. My efforts haven’t been all that fruitful though, every time I find something that looks suitable, it turns out to need a monthly fee to unlock essential features (such as supporting more then three people in the call).

So, since I think a few people are actually reading this blog now (thanks to RPG Bloggers), I thought I’d ask the community.

I think voice support is essential, as is support for at least five people. Video would be nice. A whiteboard, file sharing and dice rolling would be bonuses. I’d like to avoid paying money, but would be less annoyed by a one-off fee then something recurring. That said, if something is good and has a monthly fee, don’t be afraid to mention it.

What can you recommend? (Comments below please!). Thanks!

“I need to set up a Wiki or something”, said Jim, “D&D dungeon crawls are simple enough, but in Traveller there’s a lot more information to keep track of.”

I managed to resist for a whole three hours before I pushed aside the project I was working on (I’d hit a speed bump, and was looking for an excuse to procrastinate, that’s the joy of personal projects with no deadlines).

So, a system to track information about a Traveller campaign. Clearly, a subsector or two is going to be a key point of this, so we’ll have to represent that somehow (yes, let’s run directly to the output for the system). There’s a lovely standard map for these, so producing something similar shouldn’t be too difficult.

By trade, I’m a web developer, and two hours ago I knew next to nothing about dynamically producing graphics (so all systems were equal as far as learning enough to get going was concerned). The standard subsector map lends itself to vector formats, so SVG was the logical choice.

An hour later, and I’ve picked out enough from the specification to write a Perl script to generate an 8×10 hex grid with coordinates. You’ll need a browser capable of rendering SVG (which is pretty much anything except Microsoft Internet Explorer (which is years behind its competitors in everything but market share)) or a stand-alone program such as Inkscape.

I have plans for this (which include a nice database and lots of JavaScript), some of which might even make it to fruitition. I’m not holding out hope of finding a great deal of time for those plans, so I’ll publish what I do have (including the source code) and hope that you find it useful.

As far as I can tell (any errors are my own, feel free to send me corrections), the time line went something like this:

It all started last night during a game of 4e when the resident Dwarf Fighter swung his warhammer at a goblin and hit the wall instead. (Or, in mechanical terms, when Jim rolled a 1). It wasn’t surprising that he was a little unhappy about this, and exclaimed:

Stupid short things

… which I found amusing enough to repeat in public.

Despite the lack of context, someone enjoyed it enough to respond, and then had an idea.

@chattydm Did you see what @dorward said? Could you not oh great DM come up with a twitteresque world for us to game in?

… and after a little more discussion — he does. I’ll be watching with interest.

(On an entirely seperate note, this is my inaugural post to RPG Bloggers, so thanks for welcoming me to the community!)

Amazon have just released their new eBook reader, and it isn’t as good as one might hope.

It costs a (relative) fortune and is heavily laden down with DRM, an issue which Mark covers in some detail (including some nice references to a couple of works of SF – see, I said it would be on topic for this blog).

I’ve been reading eBooks, on and off, for several years. Previously on my trusty old Palm OS machines, and more recently on a Nokia 770. My main source of material has been the Baen Free Library, which has a hefty collection of sci-fi and fantasy.

Giving away books doesn’t sound like a way to make much money, but having read a couple of eBooks, I promptly went out and bought as much of the two series they were from in paperback as I could. Another one I ordered for a friend one Christmas.

They might not have made money directly, but they made plenty indirectly, and they didn’t need DRM to do it.

If you want an eBook reader, then I encourage you to get yourself a Nokie 770, which can be found for under £100 these days, (or one of its successors) and pull some content down from Bean. 1632 makes a good starting point.

If you aren’t interested in eBooks, then you might want to get hold of a paperback copy of 1632 – it is a very good book.