Innovate or Die: The Online Table

The amount of response we have received from the Innovate or Die articles has surprised and delighted me.  Comments have been plentiful and insightful, but there seems to be some confusion about my point.

Let me make something clear: I am not trying to replace the face-to-face tabletop experience with a digital one.  The in-person game will always be superior to the digital experience; players like to look their NPCs, and each other, in the eye.  However, life rarely respects my gaming habit these days.  As such, I would like tools that replicate the face-to-face experience online in order to get my fix.

Many of our dear readers have pointed to MapTools and Fantasy Grounds II as ways to get this done.  Wizards of the Coast currently has a virtual tabletop in development, but since I neither have a D&D Insider subscription, nor am I currently playing D&D, I’m not in a position to comment on it. In the future, it will at least be worth some study.  I’ve personally tried to use MapTools and Fantasy Grounds II and found the experience to be headache inducing.  The learning curve for these programs is steep, and leaves much to be desired.