Gaming on while travelling

[Lone Pathfinder]

Hi all,

I run my FG games on my home computer. I only DM one game with friends. But I will be travelling for work frequently and so I wanted to know if there is a way I can run my games on my laptop while travelling and on my home PC while at home without forking out for another full license.

[Talyn]

My entire job is traveling. I'm in hotels more than I'm home. And therein lies the rub: you don't have the ability to port forward at a hotel. I haven't tried a VPN solution yet, and maybe it's just me, but the ones like Hamachi where if I use it, all my players have to use it too? Not gonna happen; I'm not inconveniencing everyone else. Someday if I end up with a commercial VPN account and players don't have to do anything special, maybe I'll sing a different tune.

I can be a player just fine, though, because that doesn't involve putting FG into server-mode and looking for incoming connections.

Not saying it can't be done, just that there are obstacles to overcome on the networking side of things.

[Nylanfs]

1) Get a VPN (PureVPN seems to be popular)
2) Install FG on Laptop
3) Copy campaign folder from desktop to laptop
4) Play! (After testing port forwarding from VPN)
5) When home copy campaign folder back to desktop

[LordEntrails]

No need for a second license. FG can be loaded and used by one person on more than one computer, just not at the same time. I used to move my campaign data between computers, but now I just use my laptop all the time. When I'm in a hotel I use Hamachi, my players had no problem installing or using it.

But, if you don't like that, you can use PureVPN (many on here do), or you can get a private server for $15-20/year (one of the community immortals has posted instructions on how to set this up).

[Trenloe]

Easily done, as mentioned above. Copy the campaign data from your home PC to your laptop (don't use a cloud sync application on the live data as this can cause corruption). Then get a commercial VPN account - PureVPN with a static IP address works well. Once setup just connect the VPN before starting FG and your players don't know the difference.

[Andraax]

Some routers support a VPN. Mine is one of those. When I travel, I VPN to my router, which then makes my laptop seem as if it's on my home network. I can host a game remotely as if I was at home - my players don't have to do anything special. (All I have to do is connect the VPN and make sure the port forward is pointed correctly, and it's just as if I was sitting at home. I can even access all of my private network services that are not published outside of my network as if I was at home.) No third party services required - I use OpenVPN software which is open source licensing.

[JeffKnight]

Aye, I have a VPN server hosted in a Chicago data center, so I am able to give out 1 address to all my players that will never change, and then just use iptables to forward to either my laptop or my desktop.