Online D&D (not D&D Online)

I've always really enjoyed playing tabletop RPGs. Most of all, I enjoy running them. You know, being the Dungeon Master, the Storyteller, or any other game-specific term for the guy who makes crap up and tries to kill the PCs? However, as it sometimes goes, the older my friends and I grew, the harder it became to find the time to come together to actually play. We all started spawning children and settling into careers (well, some of us, anyway) and those things tend to suck up a lot of time.

So I was very pleased when, while wandering around the internet, I found a program called MapTool at www.rptools.net. This small, simple, but powerful program is all you really need to play a game of your favorite tabletop RPG via the internet. Combine MapTool with your choice of VoIP service and you're practically all in the same room. Only, you can play in your undies without the awkwardness of doing so at a traditional gaming session.

Basically what MapTool does is it provides a grid (square or hex) which you can use to move your tokens around on. You can load a map image from just about any map generator, then lay the interactive grid over it and there you go. Now your map is ready to be used for play.

The program works just the way you think it should. One of the things that I always struggled with in my old traditional games is how to handle darkness. No matter the system, the whole process seemed really cumbersome and seemed to only slow the game down. But MapTool makes it simple. It allows you to designate any areas of the map which should be solid and that should block a character's view. So, from the player's screen, they'll be able to see that 5x5 pillar, but they'll never see the enemy standing behind it. It also makes it easy to determine line of sight.

There are also three other programs that are provided by the same site. One is DiceTool, which is an extremely versatile dice rolling program. The second is InitTool, which the GM can use to run the encounters and keep track of turn order, which can sometimes be complicated. There's also TokenTool, which provides a quick and easy way to create your own tokens for use with MapTool.

The best thing is all four of these great programs are completely free. You don't even have to register at the site. Just go to www.rptools.net, download the files, and you're ready to go.