D&D tabletop online?

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with this type of thing? Any forums that go for this (and yes I have googled it).

Just curious to see everybody's opinions on different websites, and to make sure that I totally don't to one with bad DM's, bad design etc.

Its just I want to try this, because ive been interested in it for some time. So yeah, any help at all actually would be appreciated

@AbsolutHysteria: There are certainly ways to do it, but most are really really clunky. I'd love to see someone make a really solid, USER FRIENDLY bit of software, but most are horribly clunky and ugly and hard to use without a ton of tutorials. The other alternative, forums, isn't something I've gone after, but I doubt it's a great way to do it.

I ran a short thang with a few friends over skype after weeks of trying to find software that would work, and it went pretty poorly. My suggestion? Find people to play with, get webcams, dice, and have the DM's cam just show the map stuff. Or better yet, just play in person if you can. It's about a thousand times better.

Unless anyone can prove me wrong. It bums me out that there isn't something as well made as the Magic: The Gathering stuff for playing online DnD from Wizards of the Coast yet. It's obviously where the genre wants to go, and with voice or even better video chat, it's pretty close to playing in person.

http://roll20.net/ Works fantastic. And the app can be booted up right in Google+ hangouts. Try this. It is damn near perfect for a GM that wants to put the work into it. (Or DM...)

Its just really hard, cause I live in australia in sydney, and there are like no d&d stores close to me

I heard that Virtual daivve is supposed to be great once you've got enough people, its just more the meeting people that willing to play (hopefully within my time zone)

Yeah I'm curious about this too. I run across people every now and then that run games but whenever I ask about it they're not really interested in adding new members.

http://www.inkarnate.com

@HH: Still in beta though :(

@AbsolutHysteria: yeah, but looks promising. i'm not understanding why wizards of the coast aren't funding these guys.

Fantasy Grounds looks to be pretty sweet, though you do have to pay for it. They're currently in the Steam Greenlight, so maybe an upcoming sale once they're officially on Steam maybe?

roll20.net is a good free tool, there is also tabletop forge, and maptools in the free range. In my experience the stuff you need to pay for isn't much better, or better at all.

In terms of finding players, the forums for each of these products are usually one way to find players, as well as the official boards for whatever game your aiming to run. (d&d, pathfinder, etc).

I'm surprised there isn't a proper good version of this. I would be interested in this too because I'll never be able to find anyone around me to try the physical version.

Still seems to me, that this is the best one http://www.socalled.org/vd/, However , RP tools looks fine. Still, would prefer to find some cool DM's (Like Syrg Sapphire, with a sense of humour http://blip.tv/syrg). Anywho, still deciding between all the tools- any help is still appreciated

Also, prefer D&D 4- less stats, more roleplay it seems or Pathfinder. BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA

Yes, I know I'm necroing this thread but this site popped up www.roll20.net. It's pretty damn awesome if you can get a group going. It's all fancy and HTML5. Looks pretty snazzy and does pretty much everything you need to get any tabletop game (even card games and monopoly if you really wanted to put that together) going.

Maybe we can get a GB group going or something? I dunno.

I use Roll20 and skype to play with a friend. It's not perfect, but it's one of the best going and allows you to play some D&D.

Need to double check with my friend, but we could use another one or two people to join us. We are playing 4e and we are playing in our own custom world that's kind of based off forgotten realms. It's mostly just me DMing and making up shit as I go along. It's pretty laid back, but we like to take the story seriously and not just run off doing stupid random stuff. We have no patience or desire for Rules lawyers and while we try to follow the rules in the books if we can't find a good answer to a question after googling for 2-3 min I just make a DM ruling and we stick with that.

We mostly just play when we feel like it since it's just the two of us, but if we could get a couple more we could set times.

So I Kickstarted Tabletop Forge which became roll20. So I'm interested in trying them.

Let's play. I call Fighter. Wait no, Paladin. Paladin subclasses into Fighter. I like to be the melee guy.

As someone who's never played a tabletop RPG and would like to, I really wish someone'd make an awesome program for this.

This. I've used it in the States to play with friends in London. Works great.

Well if anyone's got some space and the timezones work out (I'm in Syd, Aus +11GMT) then I'd be happy to join up. Other than that if we wanna get GB game going that would be pretty awesome.

http://www.dragonstrove.com/catalog.

@crusader8463: I would be down to play with you guys, I've had some experience in the past with it but it's been awhile and I haven't looked at anything from 4th edition.