Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Skype Help Needed

   So my buddy Jim has moved 600 miles to the frozen north of Texas (okay, so not so frozen this time of year.) My sons want to continue to game with their godfather (yup, just like the movie). I want to continue to game with my best friend. But a ten plus hour commute just isn't frequently going to be in the cards.

  Tell me about Skype. Will it do what I think it will do for us? I have a large flatscreen that can be used as a monitor on the wall in the game room (helpful when playing ZULU as background while painting, etc.). I have two laptops with integrated webcams and a third computer that could be moved to attach to the TV if needed. I have an older digital camera that shoots video and I think can be setup as a live web camera. We also have three smart phones (one iPhone and two Droids - we are a mixed family, you see...). Almost fitting the Droids should be involved, since we play Star Wars RPG.

   So, can we do this for free via Skype? I would prefer if we could all have our faces individually on his screen, and maybe an additional camera on the field of play. Do I need to get another webcam? Help the techno-challenged gamer!

3 comments:

Harry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Harry said...

I've had good luck using the video chat part of google plus. I think it would do what you need. I once had a chat from here in LA to London, with almost no lag.

Good luck!
Harry

Karitas said...

I used to use (and crerate rulessets and tokens for) a program called "Fantasy Grounds"

it's basically chat, a dice rolling area and an area where you can display maps and move character tokens around.. i used it for DND and for CoC and it worked really well.. add in voip or skype to that and you're playing your RPG online :)