Maptools/Skype listen in

[astralplaydoh]

If it wouldn't interrupt your game. Would it be possible to let others join in on the Skype or Maptools sessions. Maybe you could mute everyone but your players, same with Maptools. It would be interesting to hear/see the game as it's being ran.

Just a request/suggestion.

[STGGrant]

Alternatively, maybe you could stream it with justin.tv or the like. Adding a bunch of people to the Skype call will result in capacity problems pretty quickly, but streaming is (in very general terms) a "read-only" broadcast, and from the streaming host rather than you. You send data to the streaming site (e.g. justin.tv, twitch.tv, etc.), and they redistribute that to everyone watching. Much easier on the hosts' connections.

[zircher]

Good call and a number of those services also have a chat room open for spectators to comment in.
--
TAZ

[sbonner]

Live commentary from the peanut gallery could get a little distracting.

Since I work Wednesday evenings, I am just hoping that if, for some reason, they do make it public, they do so in a recorded format so I can watch later.

I don't expect it to be public or recorded, though. FTB hasn't been a live play podcast up to now.

[Johann]

I don't expect it to be public or recorded, though. FTB hasn't been a live play podcast up to now.

You are correct. I can say with some degree of certainty that this will not be recorded, nor will it be public. The reasoning is the same as it has always been with FtB and the response to Actual Play recordings:

1) We would find it awkward, and this is something we're doing for fun.

2) It wouldn't actually help anyone understand our play styles better, because we wouldn't be ourselves if we knew a thousand people were listening.

2b) This is a specific problem here, as one of the reasons this concept started was for the hosts that don't regularly game with each other to better understand each other's gaming styles. We can't do that realistically if we all have our "game faces" on because the podcast listeners can hear us.

The viewable discussion forum was about as close to AP as we were all willing to get, so it was sort of a "meet you in the middle" (insert Pat and Chris "meat in the middle" remark here) for the listeners that want us to do AP recordings.

[John]

My thoughts are the same as Johann's. To one degree or another we would turn it into a show instead of a game and that's not really what we're looking to do.

[Chris]

insert... "meat in the middle"

Awesome

[Kazzell]

Point a: live play sounds cool but not for this group

Point 2: lol "insert meat"

Point red: whats maptools?

[zircher]

Maptools is a free suite of java based tools for a shared gaming table, it also can do chat, dice, and other goodness.
--
TAZ