How Do You Use FG (Voice or Chat)?

[GM_BZK]

Google+ has Hangout. I tried it yesterday for gaming and was blown away by it. Around the same time, I take the dive to try out Fantasy Grounds and see a whole lot of potential here as well. My first thought is combine them some way, but then it occurs to me that this may be a time when two great tastes DON'T necessarily go great together.

So I figured I should ask the FG community: How do you use Fantasy Grounds? Do you use it alone with chat, combine it with voice/video, or forgo the chat entirely, and most importantly, why? This is not versus thread; I'm just trying to weigh my options and I'm interested how more experienced FG gamers go about it.

[Leonal]

I have two small groups of 2-3 people and we use Skype for voice exclusively. Text is used for hidden messages either through FG or Skype.

[Moon Wizard]

We use ventrilo for our games, and the chat for whispers.

Cheers,
JPG

[GunnarGreybeard]

I have always used the FG text chat. I usually run games with only a few players and that format seems to be adequate.

[DarkStar]

Text chat for the in-game stuff, may use voice chat for OOC, questions, etc. I personally don't like to use voice chat during the game. It feels a bit like playing over a phone which takes away the atmosphere of the game from me.

[GM_BZK]

For the people who do use voice, have you considered full video? My brief experience with Hangout was that it recreated the tabletop experience very well. I could certainly see using that for most communications while having FG minimized, then turning to it how we may turn to the table (like referencing a tactical map or for dice rolls) then minimizing again. I ask because this is one of the uses I'm considering. Is there something I'm overlooking? My primary concern is bandwidth, but I really have no idea.

I imagine using purely FG chat could really enhance the immersive experience. Does voice -- even for ooc stuff -- detract from that? I'm very eager to give this a try, although perhaps most skeptical due to pacing. The group needs to know the expectations going in. This is probably best suited for less tactical games with not as much meta-game mechanics.

Ultimately, I suppose the thing to do is to try it out. I'm just trying to identify any pitfalls. I previously tried Battlegrounds (an older version) and it wasn't a good experience. I prepped everything, tried it locally, and everything seemed fine, but during the actual game, it was rife with technical issues. I understand there is a newer version now.

[Moon Wizard]

My original attempt at remote tabletop gaming was about 6-7 years ago. I was using another tabletop software at the time, and I tried both Yahoo and Skype video chat.

I ended up switching to voice chat after running into bandwidth issues running both Yahoo and Skype video chat. From my basic research at the time, my understanding was that having a 5 people all interconnecting over video chat was essentially killing bandwidth (4x upstream for your face, 4x downstream for each of their faces). I looked into a server-based video conference solution at the time, but they were all business-class and very expensive.

Now, we move forward in time. The bandwidth available to most homes is somewhat better, and the video applications are a little smarter. In addition to Google+ Hangouts being a centralized server video conference, I thought I remembered reading that they had special algorithms to focus the stream on whomever was talking and reduce frame rate on those not talking/moving. I was also thinking about trying a Google+ Hangout for my game, but we just when on break for my game until end of the summer.

Cheers,
JPG

[wbcreighton]

I imagine using purely FG chat could really enhance the immersive experience. Does voice -- even for ooc stuff -- detract from that?

We use Skype for OOC discussions etc. The sessions tend to be periods of quiet text roleplaying followed by OOC discussion. I think without voice for OOC stuff the game would really bog down. Having played years of play-by-post games, the speed of FG and chat is refreshing. I would guess that voice only would be that much faster, but faster can also make things more difficult for the GM.

[Leonal]

On video:
I haven't considered full video due to some connection problems between me and one of my players. Also it would be another part of my screen that I couldn't use for FG (on a 17 inch now as my 22 inch broke..)

In the future it might be worth looking into, but not something we have even mentioned in our groups at the moment.

[CAPryde]

My games always use voice for OOC, rules discussions, long explanations/descriptions, and screwing around. We use chat for in-char, whispers, describing most actions, and so forth. I have a Ventrilo server, so my games always use that.