I ran The Mystery of Maerlon's Tower as a hybrid game. My home group used to run hybrid pre-pandemic using only Zoom, a webcam, and a normal tabletop with terrain and minis so I had some experience. But for this session, I wanted to try out some new tools. Two players and I were in a room around a table together and three players joined virtually.
Vorpal Board
First, I started a trial for VorpalBoard, a service designed for streaming and hybrid play of board games and RPGs. It has a Zoom-like streaming service that can use an iOS device (via the VorpalBoard app) as an additional camera for terrain. It has basic functionality allowing players to zoom in when needed, and the quality of the video was good. After some quick testing before play, I was able to get it set up on game night with no issues beyond mic feedback issues from one (in-person) player. I think that was more of a local setup issue, and it feels like someone always has some kind of mic or audio issue every time we play online. Regardless, VorpalBoard was easy to use and accomplished what I was looking for. I went ahead and purchased an annual subscription for $60 (you can pay $10/month) as well. I hope to play more hybrid games this year, and the functionality you get is worth the $60 from my perspective. But if you are cost-conscious, you could probably get a similar experience with a webcam and a little bit more setup.
I used my iPad to stream as I did not want to dedicate my phone to the stream while we were playing. I mounted the iPad on this tripod. It worked fine to view the terrain and minis. I used a Jabra speakerphone to handle everyone communicating. I had used them in the past for work calls, but this was a big upgrade compared to prior hybrid experiences of just using external mics and speakers from another player's laptop. If you are going to play hybrid regularly, I think a Jabra is a great investment to make.
Terrain and Minis
I sat down a basic Pathfinder flip-mat to be my base layer of terrain. I bought one at Winter Fantasy last year because I needed a generic grid, and it's also been a great purchase. I used to use the Neoprene mats, but this one is just so much more portable. I'd definitely recommend it as the best base battle mat.
The centerpiece was the Dwarven Forge Watchtower Set. It is a nice set because towers come up a lot in DnD! If I have a critique of it for RPG play it's that the interior is pretty small, but it still worked well for multilevel combat. I purchased the Watchtower unpainted, and if you paint much at all, I would recommend that version over the painted one as it's quick and easy to paint. I think it took me less than four total hours to match the painted scheme, and I felt like that was worth saving $85 and I enjoyed the painting. To be clear, this isn't always the case with DF - the lava pieces in particular are a pain to paint and worth buying painted in my opinion.
I also added the dungeon bridge from Dwarven Forge as a fun piece to give the party a place for cover from the animated ballista as they approach. It's also an easy paint, though I believe I originally got mine painted. I put a texture mat from DF beneath to serve as a river.
The rest of the minis mostly came from my DDM collection - I'll just list them out with links to their minisgallery.com pages:
- Arcane Ballista - animated ballista
- Flaming Sphere - living burning hands
- Animated Statue - stone cursed
- Iron Cobra - clockwork iron cobra
- Mockingbeast - mimic (this one comes from Reaper Mini)
And that's it! Hopefully, someone else can find all the prep I did for this session helpful for their own game!
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