lordkylethebold asked you:
Lately I've been hearing a lot about Online Tools and Programs to help the budding DM reach a larger audience, specifically through forums, or online media like Steam. With a possibility of one of these programs being Greenlit for Steam, is there anything you can share with those of us who don't have a lot of friends in the same town about some of these kinds of options?
[Sorry about the weird formatting. Missing E and new Tumblr eat asks, apparently.]
The tool you're speaking about is articy:draft correct? I'm incredibly excited for that to be greenlit, as it might be the first of its kind for exactly what it allows GMs to do with non-linear storytelling over the internet. The possibilities are awesome.
With that being said, I've (fortunately) never had the problem of finding players locally to play games with. Oddly enough, as soon as I decided to be a DM/GM, people made themselves known.
However, because I absolutely hate leaving questions unanswered, I've been doing some crowdsourcing among friends of mine that have used online tools, and how they work!
As far as recreating the tabletop setting online, my good friend and longtime follower cm22 recommended RPTools. It allows for map building, placing tiles, and creating an environment for players to inhabit that you would also be able to manipulate. It's designed well, and works well.
A combination of something like this and Skype or AIM, some chat service, would probably do the best for trying to really recreate what it's like at a table online. You could even do a Google Hangout and get video/voice involved, depending on your comfort level.
Forums are a different kind of beast. Depending on the forum, the set-up, and the structuring, each one is its own microcosm. Gaia Online has a good reference for seemingly endless possibilities.
Roleplaying forums, in my small experience, tend to be more free-form, more about asynchronous creative writing and the interactions between characters. For this, I reference my good friend Mikallen, who is involved with moderating a roleplaying forum based on the Pokemon universe. (That can be found here.)
Depending on the setting or the type, there may be fuzzy rules set based upon what characters could feasibly do. For others, the rules may be strictly enforced by whoever is "running" the game or moderating the forum. It really depends on what you find and whether or not it fits for you.
I'm sorry I couldn't answer your question more personally. Again, I've never really had experience with these tools, because I've never had to use them. I hope this has helped at all!
