MU Podcast 028 - Digital Cthulhu

Scriven · Post by **Scriven** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:53 am

I'll throw "Fantasy Grounds" into the mix of available virtual tabletops -- simply for the sake of completeness. It's a remarkably feature-rich, visually beautiful and sports a number of supported rulesets including CoC/BRP, D20/OGL, Savage Worlds and others. The animated 3D dice are remarkably lifelike. On the downside -- it's not free, but costs somewhere between $24 and $40 for a player or GM license. It's not browser-based, so you need to install a client. But perhaps the most awkward aspect is the fact that you have to monkey with your router settings when hosting a game.

I've played a game or two through Fantasy Grounds, and liked the interface -- it's very elegant and versatile. But on the whole I thought that the D20 plugin for Google Hangouts gave me everything I really needed with a lot less hassle. Others may have better and more complete observations to share about the product.

http://www.fantasygrounds.com/

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 6:34 am

Cheers on the Anniversary! Keep up the hard work fellas.

PirateLawyer · Post by **PirateLawyer** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 3:52 pm

I'm glad to hear Atomic-Age Cthulhu has good material in it. I was surprised to listen and find that the review consisted mainly of spoiler-free opinions about how good the scenarios were and didn't address the issue that I (and lots of others) have with the layout and presentation of the book. I mean, when I first perused the book in my local game shop I refused to buy it because I was so irritated by the look of the material. Needless to say that is an uncommon and serious failing in a book. YMMV.

EddyPo · Post by **EddyPo** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 7:00 pm

Great job on the side topic. You all really took off with idea and have given us a lot of things to look into for our online gaming. Thanks much!

trevlix · Post by **trevlix** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:29 am

Great show again! Loved it all, especially the bloopers at the end.

I've run Call of Cthulhu with Roll20. Its a great program (that runs on top of Google Hangouts), but there is alot of prep work in there if you want to utilize the maps. It seems like alot of work to me, although there are some Call of Cthulhu tokens and images already in it. Has anyone created and used maps within Roll20?

WitchDoctor · Post by **WitchDoctor** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:31 am

Congratulations on the anniversary.

This is the podcast that got me back into Cthulhu---err, Cthulhu-ism. Loved the game back in the 80s (although didn't play as much as I wished) and was happy to find such an enthusiastic community still going on.

Here's to another year or two-thousand. Good stuff and keep it up.

Gladius · Post by **Gladius** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 3:59 pm

Re: Syrinscape - sounds like a major tech reboot (read - delay)
http://youtu.be/ihxSt_YgsOk

1d4cast_James · Post by **1d4cast_James** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 8:03 pm

Great show as always!

It was very interesting to hear about how you go about recording your shows. Dan, what model of your mixer do you use? Are you hooked up to a desktop with a "line in" jack or does it work with the laptop's "mic" jack?

I really can't sing enough praises for Mumble! best VOIP client i've found. I also gave Ventrilo a try and hated it.

At 1d4cast, we have been using Mumble for almost 2 years. We only use Skype for interviews as it's easier on the interviewee.

Seriously though, besides the configuration wizard being a bit weird (I always set a push-to-talk key, usually Right Ctrl) for first time users, it really does have superior sound to Skype and built in recording! Being a l=Linux guy, I was able to set up a server at my house fairly easily. It really doesn't require much hardware-wise. Every once in a while (i mean a while) someone will drop and can't get back in the call, unlike Skype were we seem to someone every other minute.

For Skype (when I have to use it), I use either Skype call recorder for Linux (in most distro repos) or MP3 call recorder for Windows.

As for internet gaming, before virtual game tables got popular on the internet, we used IRC (great dice bots but the typing can be a pain... especially for Exalted games) or skype with Gametable. Nowadays, I have fallen in love with Roll20.net, especially since I backed the tabletop forge kickstarter and got some extra perks after the developer scrapped using the Google+ Hangout API and joined the Roll20 team. I tried out Google+ Hangout, and while the sound quality is AMAZING and the ability to record sessions to Youtube is awesome, I still prefer Roll20.

I think that is enough ranting for now. Can't wait for the next show to drop!

Post by **Keeper Dan** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 8:41 pm

Re: Syrinscape- I'm willing to wait if they make it as easy as possible to make and share new soundscapes. I can see making up several for specific environments or scenarios and putting them up in our downloads section.

My mixer is a Behringer 1202 FX, and I connect it to my main PC with a Behringer UF0202 to go from the mixer to USB. I'm going to try to attach a graphic of my mixer setup for those interested.

halforc80 · Post by **halforc80** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 11:36 am

Just wanted to throw my hat in the ring with regards to online gaming and sound effects. I currently use Softrope, which is free soundboard software that seems to be perpetually stuck in beta. It doesn't come with any of it's own sounds, so you have to go searching for stuff to download or buy some foley cds, but it does allow for layering of sound files, random playing, etc, and lists everything as 'Scenes' on the front page.

I use it with Skype, playing through the Stereo Mix feature of Windows 7, so the players can hear both my voice and whatever sounds I'm playing through Softrope. Works pretty well so far!