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WELCOME TO RPGTONIGHT.COM!
RPGtonight is a free online "virtual tabletop" site that has everything you need to play pen and paper style role playing games on the internet with anyone anywhere in the world. It is not specific to any system - you can use it for virtually any type of tabletop style roleplaying game. Our features include die rollers, a display for maps and other images, map hide and reveal features ("fog of war") moveable miniatures (thumbnail images), sound effects, text chat, voice chat, customizable character sheets, a growing collection of maps, miniatures, and sounds, and online storage for your own images and sounds. There is nothing to download, you just sign on with your fellow gamers and play in your browser window. There is not, and never will be, any fee charged to individuals or non commercial entities to run their own games on this site. 
Try it out! See the links to instructions and game room creation under "Chat Style RPGs" in the left column. You must sign up to create a game room - click on "Signup form" near the top of the left column, under "Town Square." If you want to play a game, sign up and then check out the "players seeking games" and "GM seeking players" links. Don't be afraid to write a post of your own. If you have questions and suggestions about the virtual tabletop and its operation, or want to discuss the site, your game, or anything else game related with other players or Admins, please check out the Forums via the "text bulletin board" link to the left. Some people post more info about games they are seeking players for too. You can email us at: admin@rpgtonight.com ANNOUNCEMENTS 5/08/09: THE MAY RPGTONIGHT/CARTOGRAPHERS GUILD CONTEST PRIZE LIST HAS BEEN POSTED This is the second year that RPGtonight is sponsoring the May edition of the monthly mapmaking competition at the Cartographer's Guild. This month's mapmaking theme is titled "Cut to the Chase!" and involves making an original map of the scene of an exciting chase and running battle for miniatures on a real or virtual tabletop. For details, click on the contests link on the left side of this page. Prizes are offered for first, second, and third place winners. UPGRADING FORUM SOFTWARE - PLEASE READ Due to some unexpected glitches, we have not yet finished installing the updated version of the Forum sofware. When we do, probably later this week, the signup page and forum posting will be turned off for a short period of time, hopefully no more than 15 minutes or so. You will get a message to that effect if you try to sign in. If so, just come back a little later. This will not effect your ability to start or get into games. Some passwords will not get decoded and recoded properly when the new software version builds its updated database. During tests we have noted that this seems to happen when passwords include other than A-Z letter characters. If that happens to you, you will get an error message when you sign in saying that your old password was not recoded properly, and that you can get a new password by clicking on the "Lost my password" link, to have a new one sent to you. You will need the new password to enter games, too. UPLOAD SIZE LIMITS INCREASED Most upload size limits have been doubled. GM limits are now 1 meg for maps and graphics, and 50K for minis. Players limits are 500K for graphics and 50K for minis. Sound limits have not yet been increased, but will be. SEEKING RPG "TUTORS" We get a lot of people at this site who are new to RPGs, some of whom have never played at all and want to learn how. There also seem to be GMs here and there who like to teach new players how to play and some are really good at it - we've seen them in action during playtests and the old Satruday Night Rumble. If you are such a person we'd like to hear from you. One of the things we want to do for the resurrected Saturday Night Rumble is have at least one person on hand on at least a semi regular basis to run a one shot game exclusively for newbies, even if it's only one person. It also seems to help in such games if one of the players is experienced too. It doesn't have to be D&D, though of course that's the most popular system. I (Hound) will be starting a thread on this topic in the forums soon. RECOMMENDED READING We'd like to recommend that everyone check the "development diary" and "bug reports" section of the forums every once in a while. The former contains a running update on new features and minor tweaks, improvements, and bug fixes that don't necessariy show up here. The bug reports section contains not only user's reports of bugs, but updates on bugs that we catch and fix. LONGER OPEN GAMEROOMS At the suggestion of some GMs, we have decided to keep gamerooms open longer - for 3 1/2 days instead of the previous 12 hours, unless the GM closes them down by clicking the logout button. That will allow more time for players to go in and look at things or make rolls in "off hours" Without the GM having to constantly go in and reopen the gameroom. People can also play in more of a bulletin board fashion where people take actions at their leisure over the course of days and weeks. When the GM opens the gameroom it resets the clock. COLOR CODING FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS: New announcements that have been posted or changed within the last week or so are written in a reddish color like this one. Older sticky announcements are written in a darker brownish gray color. SATURDAY NIGHT RUMBLE: Just an update on what we're doing with the Saturday Night Rumble, which hasn't been around for the past several months. As announced earlier, we plan to change this to a weekly, featured site game session which will occur at least during the North American evening hours on Saturday, and eventually on Saturday afternoon for European gamers. Players will be able to sign up for these games in advance and either get pre gen characters or roll their own in advance. Novices are particularly encouraged. The Saturday Night Rumble is a weekly event where we encourage GMs and players to come in, get together, and do various things... A special chat window lets GMs, players, and admins talk to each other in real time via type. In the past, admins and members have given live tutorials on how to use the system, taught people the basics of D20 role playing and character generation, held a debugging session for a GM, ran a playtest, and just talked about gaming. As the site grows we hope to get enough GMs and players showing up to allow pickup games to be organized too. LIVING GAME PLAYTESTS: Living game playtesting will soon be shifting into a new phase, what we call an Alpha test. It will involve a limited number of GMs and players running their own sessions at times that are convenient to them, and it will involve players, GMs, and different parties interacting with one another; however they won't all be playing and interacting at the same time. Watch for more info. LIVING GAME INFO LINKS: We have a FAQ page that explains many things about the planned Living Game. You can read it here. You can view a low res map of the kingdom of Valterra here (779 X 1024 pixels), or a high res version here (1557 X 2047 pixels), and read a bit about its history here and its geography here. These maps and information will eventually be put into a section devoted the Living Game linked from the left column. Watch for the new Mormont town map! Most of it has shown up in sections in the onsite map collection, and we'll be posting more. ARTWORK: We will continue to need artwork for the Living Game. We will continue to require maps of small scale things like special buildings, manor houses, keeps, and other things outside the town. We will be contacting artists who have contacted us in the past, but welcome new talent. Different artists have different styles that might be best for different things, and want to establish working relationships with several. We pay for all artwork. If you would like us to have a look at your work please send links and info to admin@rpgtonight.com BACKUPS: In case anyone is wondering, we back up all games off site every week. Generally we do this on Suday evening, but sometimes it gets delayed into Monday. Game naming policy: This is just a request: If you are starting a new gameroom for purposes of just trying the system out or learning to use its features, please use the word "Test" as the first word in the game name. If you are starting a new gameroom to play a game orcampaign, even if at first you are only spending time learning to use the system, DON'T use the word "Test" as the first word of the name. This will just help us keep track of who's doing what. The different gamerooms will not be treated any diffrerently as far as deletion after 30 days of inactivity, and you are more than welcome to try features out to your heart's content. As always we are continuing to look for your feedback and any bug reports. Our philosophy on this site is one of continuous improvement. One of the advantages of doing this sort of thing on the web is that we can continually add features and improve functions without having to issue patches and new releases and all that. We have several additional graphics features and major improvements to the die roller. If you have any questions or comments please email us at: admin@rpgtonight.com The world's first online, REAL TIME, "living tabletop game" This game engine is part of a much larger, longer term project which involves the creation of an online tabletop style "living game" (for lack of a better term) - a giant online game featuring weekly sessions involving multiple GMs and potentially hundreds of players, all interacting with one another in a persistant world, the fate and history of which is determined by the character's actions. Think of it as a massively interactive living game, or maybe an MMORPG or MUD done table top style (i.e. with dice, miniatures, and maps) with the emphasis on role playing, and with all the action determined by players, GMs, and admins. We'll have more information about it as time progresses. The free game area will always be free even after the living game starts, but the living game itself will have a small monthly fee associated with it. This is a highly experimental concept that has never been tried before (at least not in the way that we are doing it). Therefore we can't predict at this point when we'll be ready to start something up. "Sometime in early 2008" is our goal at this point, with alpha level playtests involving multiple GM/player groups starting as soon as we get certain background information and maps prepared (this is a level beyond the small group tests we are currently running). - The Hound
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NEWS (5/05/09)
May RPGtonight / Cartographers Guild mapmaking contest has begun.
For details, just click the "contests" link on the left side of this page.
Saturday Night Rumble
The Saturday Night Rumble, will return soon with a weekly site game or games on Saturdays. See the central column for more information when it becomes available.
Playtesters Wanted
...For a unique new type of online game - a tabletop style, real time "living game" in a persistant world (see the middle column). Think of your weekly tabletop session on steroids, with hundreds of players and dozens of GMs. Drop us a line at admin@rpgtonight.com if you're interested. You do not have to sign a non disclosure form at this early stage in testing. We especially need more GMs!
May RPGtonight / Cartographers Guild mapmaking contest has begun.
For details, just click the "contests" link on the left side of this page.
Saturday Night Rumble
The Saturday Night Rumble, will return soon with a weekly site game or games on Saturdays. See the central column for more information when it becomes available.
Playtesters Wanted
...For a unique new type of online game - a tabletop style, real time "living game" in a persistant world (see the middle column). Think of your weekly tabletop session on steroids, with hundreds of players and dozens of GMs. Drop us a line at admin@rpgtonight.com if you're interested. You do not have to sign a non disclosure form at this early stage in testing. We especially need more GMs!