Picture it: you're sitting there, character sheet out in front of you, ready to take on the onrushing hordes of evil when all of a sudden one of the players says, "BRB... gotta reboot." This scenario could very well take place at WebRPG, one of the more active, innovative role-playing websites I have seen.
As the announcements plastered all over both RPG Host and WebRPG proclaim, WebRPG is now officially a part of the UGO online empire, courtesy of RPG Host. What does this mean for you? To tell you the truth, probably nothing. What it comes down to is this: WebRPG has become the property of UGO, and RPG Host has earned the right to manage the site. Will there be changes? Absolutely. Will this be a cataclysmic event for either service? Not in the least. Naturally, WebRPG will go through more changes than RPG Host, but the majority of those will prove to be merely cosmetic.
RPG Host and WebRPG will be linked together in a number of ways, however. RPG Host will retain all of its content, and WebRPG will link here for things like the fellowship sites, contests, the newsletter and most importantly, the online hobby store. On the other hand, RPG Host will be linked to WebRPG in order to take advantage of their chat system, the highly active message boards and the trademark WebRPG Online gaming software. In addition, WebRPG's GMs will be given the opportunity to use web space at RPG Host to supplement their games.
While RPG Host is primarily dedicated to providing useful gaming resources and an inexpensive hobby store, WebRPG's forte is in facilitating interaction between gamers on a number of different levels. With the intertwining of these two totally different sites, gamers can expect to have the best of both worlds right at their fingertips. And because of this integration your favorite editor spent some time thoroughly scoping things out at WebRPG, and he has a lot to report.
Probably my favorite side of WebRPG is the Town Hall Forums. The message boards that make up the Town Hall are active, and there are a lot of them - over two hundred, in fact. Most are discussions about topics ranging from gaming ethics to the Ninjas and Super Spies RPG, but there is also a large section devoted to in-character interaction and play-by-post gaming. I found a great deal of the conversation in here to be intelligent and worthwhile. Granted, some of it bordered on moronic, but for the most part I have really enjoyed participating in some of these discussions. They certainly beat the nearly lifeless forums on RPG Host.
Another major hub of interaction for WebRPG regulars is a place called The Keep, WebRPG's real-time chat room. The interface itself is plain and not very user-friendly, but The Keep's problems only begin there. It is a place where nothing of any real value can be said to take place, unless you consider anarchy and blatant violations of a clearly posted Acceptable Use Policy to be constructive. In my many visits to The Keep I have found it to be little more than a gathering of bored, oversexed teenagers who type worse than my grandfather. The conversation within is neither intelligent or coherent, and although the Keepsters, as the regulars call themselves - (or dirtbags, as the magistrates call them) - claim it to be an in-character chat room, you can never actually tell for sure. Perhaps the problem is that people are welcome to bring in their characters from any game system and play that role within The Keep. Unfortunately, this role-playing seems to consist of barely-restrained cybersex and a lot of flaming of people who don't fit in with the regulars. I am a very objective person, but when I described The Keep to someone as "a dung heap lying in wait for the unwary," I don't think I was too far off base.
One of the biggest problems with The Keep seems to stem from an old and pointless conflict between the Keepsters and the magistrates. (The magistrates are the people who maintain order and get things done at WebRPG.) The Keepsters' attitude toward magistrates can be described as hostile at best, while the magistrates seem to take a position of arrogant, if reluctant, authority. When the Keepsters recently ran off the one magistrate who had gained their partial acceptance and was willing to minister to the needs of the chat room, another stepped in and made a genuine attempt to resolve the conflict. The Keepsters promptly spurned his efforts and flamed him mercilessly at nearly every turn. The result? The conversation thread in which all this took place has been deleted from the boards and absolutely nothing has changed. A sad state of affairs, to be sure. I say just shut the whole thing down for a while. Let the Keepsters bitch and complain all they want. In the meantime, The Keep can stay offline until the regulars have gone through a little attitude readjustment and the interface has been reconstructed to make it more user-friendly. And next time make it an out-of-character chat room.
On the other hand, when you have a system like WebRPG Online, why bother with a chat room at all? WebRPG Online is a design superior to any other that I have ever seen in this vein. This complex Java applet allows you to create, join and play in any role-playing game you like over the Internet in real time. The program itself has to be downloaded from WebRPG along with Java Runtime Environment 1.1.7B, although a Java Development Kit of the same version or newer will work, too. Once you've downloaded and installed these two pieces of software, you are ready to roll.
Logging in allows you to view a list of all the games currently in progress, along with the game's host, number of players, notes about the game and its status as either public or private. Once inside a game, you are basically looking at a chat screen where you can talk to the other people in the room, whisper, roll dice, etc. Yes, you can even roll dice. Dice rollers are becoming more and more common out on the net these days, but WebRPG Online has one incorporated right into it which puts the results on the screen. You can roll 3d6, d8+5, or any other combination of dice with bonuses and penalties. Other features of the system include map-making tools with miniatures and character sheets, all fully integrated into the system. The flexibility of this program is absolutely amazing.
Many of the games played with WebRPG Online are spur-of-the-moment types run by GMs who suddenly decide to do a game, and played by players of varying ability and typing skill. My first experience with the system came via a kindly GM who allowed me to sit in on his AD&D game which was just starting. This game had been pre-planned, and the players were recruited ahead of time. Since then, I have taken on the role of an NPC in this game and the group now meets once or twice a week to play. It is the GM's first attempt at using WebRPG to run a game, and like some other GMs with long-term games, he has set up a website to supplement the group's meetings. This is apparently a common practice for GMs running long-term games, as it gives the players more immediate access to reference material, GM instructions, etc. However, for the more commonly seen spur-of-the-moment games these things are unnecessary. Usually you come in, chat with the GM for a minute, upload a character sheet for the GM to see, and get started with a little hack and slash.
Granted, WebRPG Online isn't everybody's cup of tea. I still prefer PBEM and table games, but of all the real-time gaming systems I've seen on the net this one stands head and shoulders above the rest. For those considering using WebRPG for the first time, I highly reocmmend reading the online manual while you download the software and then running through the quick tutorial once you've logged one for the first time.
For the most part, I'm glad to see the convergence of WebRPG and RPG Host. Both sites have a lot to offer, and I spend at least a little time at each site everyday.
