[D&D] Live Streaming a Game

nimrod108

I am doing something at least I find interesting. I am streaming a D&D game via ustream. I am doing this because I have players joining me from out of town via Skype and because there are a few people from a few locations so the 1:1 video chat of Skype didn't work. So ustream it is. Hopefully it will work. If you are interested in watching, check out my blog post for details.

http://bnunes.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/delve-night-v09-beta/

Have any of you done something like this?

Hahnsoo1

Honestly, I can't remember the last time that I played a Pen and Paper RPG at an actual table with poker chips (what we used for tokens) and a dry erase board (for drawing terrain). Oh wait, it was at Gen Con a couple years ago, never mind. :-P

For the past 4 or 5 years, I've been gaming exclusively online, but even before then, we were using Laptops and virtual tabletops because it takes a lot less time and effort to set up than an actual board and minis. Less tactile sensation, of course, but I don't think we miss the setup time. With MapTools, everything is drag and drop. Need a new map? Drag and drop a picture. Need a new token? Drag and drop a token. Need an army of 50 mooks? Select a token, copy once, and paste 50 times. And for complicated Dice rolls (we play Earthdawn), everything is macro'ed, so it's just one simple button press for any roll.

Right now, I play every Sunday with a regular group. One of them lives on the West Coast, and two of them live in Indiana. I and my sig other live in California. We use MapTools and Ventrilo, and it works great. The only thing that we don't do is broadcast it. I suppose we could... we've had other acquaintances join in on occasion, actually, just to observe.

nimrod108

Most of the time most of my players are at my table. This is why I like the idea of the web cam. Those at the table get an 'at the table' experience and those who can't join us physically get to still play.

Again this is the first time I have done this so it might all go so completely wrong. But hey! You don't know if you don't try right.

I like the idea of streaming for two reasons. One it lets me get one webcam to multiple people (something that Skype doesn't do) and two, people who have no idea what D&D is can have a look from the comfort of their own homes. If I could find a good way to use MapTools for the people who are playing at my table I think I may go that route sometime but for now we enjoy kicking in ol' skool.

I have to admit I was inspired by this PA post (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/2/2/) It gave me the idea that something like this might actually work!

Figgy

Well, it does nothing for randoms who might want to watch, since there is no sound.

All you see is an awkward angle of the table and the occasional hand doing something.

nimrod108

All in all things went well for the players involved. Sorry to anyone who just joined by ustream. I wasn't able to run the sound without feedback. I will look into it further for next time. I think this is something we can do again. I think we all had fun. Unfortunalty I didnt get to kill anyone. They had two healers which made it hard to do massive carnage.