PDA

View Full Version : DM Help Only one player abroad, help to set up



Blackstorm
2017-06-24, 07:48 AM
So, the situation is pretty simple: we're about to start a campaign, but one of the player is abroad for work until october. So we are thinking of using roll20, but there are similar or alternatives things that could help us?
The basics:
1) all but one players around the table
2) just 1 portable pc, no double monitor

What we need:
Basically a way to see the char sheet, a diceroller online, and a way to show the battle map to the player online.

There's some way other roll20? the thing is, we have only one monitor. I'm checking if we can got a second, but I need a backup plan.

The Extinguisher
2017-06-24, 09:29 AM
Im in this situation. I recently moved across the country and still play with my regular group. Basically what we do is just set up a phone on google hangouts pointing towards the game table. they can see and hear me, and i can see and hear them.

and as long as you trust them enough not to make things up you dont need to worry about a dice roller or an online character sheet.

solidork
2017-06-24, 11:36 AM
I've been the only remote player in a group that otherwise meets face to face for about two years now. It was a little iffy until we got an actual webcam on a tripod and hooked it up to something with a decently sized screen. We had issues just trying to use a phone/tablet camera. I personally like to use Roll20 to store my character information and as a dice roller, even though no one else uses it.

BWR
2017-06-25, 03:08 AM
We use Skype, a webcam, ororkos (http://Orokos.com/roll/)and the GM keeping a copy of the character sheet in a text file and updating it at the same time as the player.
This has been sufficient for 6 months, and we have no reason to believe it won't work well enough in the future.

Geddy2112
2017-06-25, 04:13 PM
My table has a player who is infrequent and we just Skype them in. Or discord or google hangouts whatever works for you. He just sends his character sheet to the dm at each level. Never has a problem

bulbaquil
2017-06-25, 06:04 PM
My current group has 4 in-person players (including the GMs; we swap between two games weekly) and 2 remote players.

Our setup is my laptop, a TV screen, and an HDMI cable connecting the two. A conference-call microphone is set up in the middle of the table. We use Roll20 even for the in-person attendees' characters (i.e. the battle map is full digital, not analog, though the physical attendees of course still roll physical dice).

However, that's two monitors - if you are in a one-monitor-only situation, you'll probably want to somehow mount a webcam to point straight down at your physical battlemap and run a video chat via Skype or whatever video-chat client you prefer. If you trust the remote player, no need to worry about dice rollers or character sheets - if you desire such and don't want to use Roll20 for them, rolz.org (for dice rolling) and Mythweavers or wherever the remote player wants to put their character sheet would work just as well.