RPTools.net

Hey all,

I run a couple different games via MapTool but I also travel quite a bit for work. I used to run the MapTool server on my home machine, remotely connect to load the campaign file, and then connect to the server as GM from my laptop in the hotel or wherever. Lately however, I've been having stability issues on my home computer so it has largely been decommissioned and I'm doing everything from my laptop. That works fine from home where I have control over the router so can forward port 51234 but when I'm on travel I don't have that flexibility.

Without the ability to forward ports on a hotel's network (or a portable wifi device, or a Starbucks' network, etc.), I've been reduced to sending the campaign file to one of my players, having them host the server (forwarding ports on their home network), and then connecting to their server as a GM. I do own a Synology NAS (model DS413j) and I've been looking for a way I could host the server there somehow but haven't been able to figure it out yet.

Can anyone recommend a more elegant solution that would allow me to host the server without having to have one of my players download the latest version of the campaign file every session?

Seems like you covered all the bases. The GM is one of my groups had a bad connection and I would often host the game as a player and he would log in as GM. There's no headless way of hosting MT, so remoting in another way to go. You can also try a 3rd party option that bypasses port forwarding by having the software on each client handle the connection, like hamachi.

Hamachi sounds like it might be the way to go, actually. I'll test it and reply back with the results.

There is a new guide on the MapTool GitHub wiki with info on hosting MapTool on AWS.