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[puddinlover]

In short I'm looking to collect the thoughts from TIG members on whether or not the below idea would be able to charge for subscriptions.

In a nutshell I was thinking about creating a 'interactive chat room' which would be a hub for all sorts of 'paper' style games online.  Basically I would provide standard things like dice and character sheets all in the same interface of the chat.

Of course there is A LOT more to it but that boils it down well for starters.  I'm seriously considering pursing some form of a browser based 'mmorpg' and I thought instead of moving forward why not move backward?  Is there a market for this kind of thing or is it pretty much dead?  Has this already been done before?  Would YOU pay for something like this?  Do you know anyone that would pay for this?

[increpare]

Have you checked out what's out there already? (irc bots, specialized roleplaying chatrooms/forums, MUDs/&c.)

[george]

If you're talking about a virtual tabletop web application, there are a few competitors in this field already. FantasyGrounds and OpenRPG come to mind immediately -- I think one is free and the other not, can't recall. No reason you couldn't make something better than what they have.

And as increpare mentioned, there already are basic versions of what you're talking about with IRC and muds (mushes to be specific usually have virtual tabletop setups, there are at least three out there but I can't think of their names). Usually with IRC the dice services are provided by a bot.

Anyway, the point being if you want to have a commercial service you'll need to do better than a basic chatroom + dice.

[ragnor]

As a pen&paper rpg player i won't advise to make that kind of software. Yes there are some stuff as irc bots, forum software or some advanced programs as openrpg (open source) or fantasy grounds (commercial) but i as a player and a dm can say that they are not good platforms to play pen&paper rpg. It must be played face to face. With out seeing your friends, hearing them and even rolling dice it would be an imcomplete experience. Besides that as a DM, i find that writing all the stuff is killing me, i had to play npcs, describe surroundings and narrate the consequences of players actions. That is too much writing for one guy. You could raise the bar by using voice and vision thru webcams and microphones but i don't think that would be enough.

But if you really want to do that, all you have do is, an interactive chat room, dice roller, something to keep character sheets and another thing to visualize battleground. Thats all.

Ok, there are some people paying for this but that is a very small market. Choice is yours.

[Aik]

An an IRC player, I disagree with you a million billion times over (yes - that many). Text-play and tabletop play are just extremely different experiences - but tabletop isn't *better*. I find IRC play to have a lot sharper focus on the fiction - the physical split between OOC and IC talk, and having many people 'talking' simultaneously allows you to flesh things out in a way that would be tedious if we had to wait for long winded descriptions face to face. I like tabletop too - body language and such is all very useful - but to just dismiss text based play as an 'incomplete experience' is bullshit.

[nihilocrat]

There used to be a program/service called WebRPG. It basically did anything you might want to do for a pen-and-paper RPG: character sheets, tilesets and maps, dice rollers, and a means to customize these quite extensively for use with any system. It was free, but I can't seem to find it anymore.

Apparently, they decided to start charging a monthly fee.

Oh, and there's apparently something like it called OpenRPG

[bateleur]

Based on my experience of the form I'd say that launching just for-pay software won't work well at all. You'd do better to launch something free with a paid upgrade available. If your software is good then a lot of users will be using it 10+ hours per week, so are unlikely to mind a modest upgrade fee.

But if you're at all serious about this don't just ask here, ask on communities who actually do lots of IRC roleplaying. In particular, ask about the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the existing solutions.

[Alec S.]

I've used openRPG.  Generally when I use it, we also use Skype for voice chat to go along with it.  I think that something like that but with a more streamlined interface, better matchmaking system, and built in voice chat could be worthwhile.

One thing is, games are hard enough to organize without having to get everyone to pay.  You should only charge for the DM client, and release the player client for free, or else you'll get very few groups where everyone is willing to buy the software online.

[puddinlover]

What great advice guys!
Ya I will definitely make 'basic player' status FREE and charge either subscription for higher memberships or do micro-payments for various things like private games.

I want to do this in flash since it seems like a viable option with most people having it and flash player 9 with AS3 is pretty slick.  The only thing would be various costs for the socket software and hosting ect... Which leads me into my next question - Should I make a public beta available once I get the basics done to start building a community (since this is a very community driven game) or should I wait until I have most things done?   I would like to have feedback from the start so I can build what people want.