Running a Game Online?

[Jelloslime]

I've been considering running a Ravenloft campaign with 3.0 rules online with a group of friends over something like AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) or the like. I would, naturally, prefer to run a game in meat-space, but most of my friends here that game simply aren't into anything beyond hack-and-slash, which I am sick to death of and find a massive bore to DM, and play, though it is worth it if only for the color commentary you can only get at gaming tables.

If anyone has ever, or has even thought of running a campaign, rules and all, online, would they care to share any advice, or tips? The people I would be introducing to this would likely be all D&D newbies in general, and completely unfamiliar with Ravenloft, but text RP junkies, and great storytellers.

[alhoon]

There are a lot of free online RPG tables. Use them.

At first it will take time to learn them, and you may feel frustrated. After 3-4 hours it will be OK though. They enhance the experience.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Time to plug Maptool again...


Try Maptool.



that is all.



Character creation may be tough for complete D&D newbies without doing it in person. You might want to just point them at the race and class sections of the SRD, ask them for character concepts, and then make the characters for them.

[brass]

Could I suggest Skype, they now have conferencing, quite reliable and free. We have one of our number over in the UK for the foreseeable, so Skype has let him in on our current game.

[Intrepid]

While not as live as things such as AIM or Skype I have found both play by email games and play by post games to be quite nice specially for games that tend to lend themselves more to story than numbers (such as Ravenloft). The one problem with both these modes of playing is that they can often get quite slow and have an unfortunate tendency to die before really getting somewhere.

[alhoon]

I still think an online table with Skype to talk is the best solution.

We had such a game and it was like tabletop, with less hassle with dice since the computer took care of that, doing the math.