Has anyone ever tried to play Infinity remotely, with a friend who isn't in your house/location? I wonder how to make this happen. I live in an area where I can't find other players and I'd like to figure out how to play with people who live in other places. I'd like to discuss ideas of how to make this work.
Thank you. I didn't mention it but I am aware of TTS. I tried it about two years ago and it was in it's infancy and I found it too cumbersome to work for what I wanted. I recognize that this might be a good option for some people so that link above is a good idea. However, I'm looking for a way to play remotely without using TTS or a "simulator". Id like to be able to play the tabletop game with actual minis....remotely. If anyone has ideas or thoughts let me know.
Measuring discrepancies are likely to make playing with two copies of the table not feasible. People have played board based games through the mail for ages, but those have discrete movement positions, not "The model is a fraction of an inch to the left of where it would be able to see your model." Not to mention that if you sit down and buy the sort of scenery that would get you two identical tables feasibly, and then decide to play with standees instead of buying (and painting) the same two armies twice. If you're going to try playing by video conferencing, that leaves a few problems: - The player on the remote end has a terrible view of the table, and has to rely on the other player to move their camera around. - Potential trust issues get worse. I've tried playing Privateer Press's Iron Kingdoms RPG remotely when the group wanted to use miniatures on the table. That won't work for a game like Infinity.
I agree that both players would have to agree to sacrifice precise measuring for the benefit of expanding the available player pool. I'm sure I'm not the only guy who likes the game but can't find local players. So I'd like to discuss proactive ideas on how to make it work. I imagine that if I found a trustworthy, friendly player, we could play by aiming a webcam on the game table. If it was my table, at my house, I could place the other players figures on the table where he wanted to deploy them and then I'd move them for him. Naturally, this would work best with a like-minded friendly player who would agree to be flexible with line of sight and AROs and such (if it's a close call, let the active player go ahead). It might go like this," please move my guy on the left up around the corner. He can move 4 inches, will he reach the edge of that objective? No? hmmmm. In that case, I'll double move up and come into base to base contact with the objective. Will your sniper have line of sight for an ARO? Yes? Alright. I knew it was close. What range are we at? Oh, that's long range for me. I knew it was close to long range but oh well!" I think if we did it like that it could work quite well! Another helpful idea would be to use letter/number inch marks on the table edge to communicate locations. "Please move my guy near G22 up four inches toward K22. Ok, try to keep him as close to the wall as possible so hopefully your guy at A15 won't have line of sight. Thanks"
As a matter of technicality, the movement that you've described isn't legal for Infinity. The exchange "Will he reach the edge of that objective? No?" isn't permitted. What you would have to do instead is: Mark out or describe to the other player the path that you want to move the model along. You basically have to point out and say "I'm going to use my move to go to that objective" and then decide whether you're going to stay there are continue on to somewhere else. Once you've committed to the entire path, that's when you'd measure to see how far you got. If the entire path is within your movement range, you don't keep going; if the entire path is too long, you stop short where ever you ran out of movement. If you were playing a game like Malifaux or Warmachine where you're allowed to pre-measure, what you described would be reasonable. But for Infinity, any uncertainty concerning the distances is the same as the normal uncertainty you'd have looking at the table locally. ---- Really, the obstacles you have to overcome are basically: 1. Being able to see the table. 2. Communicating where you want things to go (where you'd have to take a very forgiving interpretation of note about checking line of sight before committing to actions); or spending a lot of time coordinating the two tables. If you've got visible inch marks on the table, you're playing Infinity with pre-measuring. Did you want an authentic game of Infinity or not?
