Mage Wars Skypified

[Twilight Seraph]

So has anyone given it a run to try to run a Mage Wars game via Skype?  Just wondering if anyone's had an issues trying to do so (since a majority of my game friends are several states away at the moment).  I've done it with MTG and Sentinels of the Multiverse, so figured I'd ask about it here and if anyone would like to give it a run.

[SpacerGal]

I think if you could rig your camera up Eye of Judgement style (yeah, remember that one from the early days of Eye Toy?) it could work. Magic and Sentinels are a little easier because there are no spatial relationships between the playing pieces, whereas in MW, your friend would probably need to have a copy of your 'book put together or proxied to make the logistics flow "more smoothly." I'm sure you could manage without actually placing opponent cards out on your board and just playing based on the Skype image, but my head has a hard time wrapping around looking at one thing and making moves where those other things don't exist. Just my two cents, though. And I totally feel you, most of my gamer friends live across the country, so if you do get it working, let me know how!  

[sviftrup]

I don't think it is nessesary to have the opponnents deck made in advance.
Simply have all cards aside in proper order. Like type and then name.

When ever a card is played, that need to stay on board you simply find it and put it down.
If the card is instant, just seeing it on skype should be enough.
For hidden enchantments, simply put a placeholder facedown until revealed.

If you don't have enough copies of a card. you could use a placeholder sleave with a note on. However this might give away whats in your deck. (perhaps put the placeholder in your spellbook off camera instead)


I haven't tried it, but it seems doable.

[Twilight Seraph]

I actually use the Eye of Judgment for my Sentinels games.  I tend to be in charge of Villains while another who has the same contraption controls the Environment (3 decks on one camera just makes things a bit to small, especially for Heroes like Unity and such), and things work fine.

And I would agree a placeholder would work fine.  Asking for your opponents Spell book might just take away the surprise of it all.  Small post-its and a flipped card in a sleeve should do the trick for that.

I'll give it a run later in the week once I set up a decent position to place the board.

[Aidyzappiar]

I play most of my games through Skype with a friend. We each have a copy of the game and keep the full current state of the game on each board. It runs quite smoothly. Like people said, you just use proxies for hidden enchantments and then look up the cards that you actually need to keep on the table. We simply avoid mirror matches. Being friends we can trust each other regarding dice rolls and don't really find the video so useful; we could basically play on the phone. I guess if you were playing a stranger you could use some online dice rolls generator.

[Laddinfance]

I actually played a skype game with Brian.  Once we got rolling it worked pretty well.  All you really need is easy access to your cards to help set the board up.  It was surprisingly smooth.

[Fentum]

If you are looking for a long distance relationship, OCTGN works really well. Combine with Skype chat and it is lovely.