What is RPGDeck?

RPGDeck is an MP3 and WAV player, but one that provides a number of features that can make it very easy to use audio in your tabletop roleplaying games. RPGDeck can handle background music, loading any number of MP3 playlists of any length, concurrently. When a playlist is started, the sound fades in gradually and any other currently playing track list is gently faded out. RPGDeck can also host any number of spot sound effects in WAV or MP3 formats and trigger them instantly and independantly of any playlists that might be running.

Best of all, RPGDeck is networkable! Many of us will have a chunky desktop PC in the games room, usually with far better sound capability than the laptops or sub-notebooks often used behind the GM screen. With RPGDeck you can run two copies and use one to remote control the other - bringing you the quality output of your main PC's sound system while giving you the convenience of controlling it all right from the gaming table.

Where's the latest version?

The Windows installer contains version 1.0 of RPGDeck. It should work absolutely fine on Windows 98,2K or XP, but won't work on Vista. If 1.0 works ok for you, you really don't need the tiny 1.1 update.

The Manual install contains version 1.1 of RPGDeck, released 21st February 2007. The only difference here is a new menu entry "Set Mixer". If you're running RPGDeck on Linux or OSX and you're not getting any sound (or you're getting an error) when you try to play WAV sound effects, this might help. Click the new "Set Mixer" option on the "Programs" menu and try the various different mixers that your OS supports - generally, there should be at least one which'll actually work ;-)

Do I get anything else with RPGDeck?

Yes! It's not much since I wanted to keep the file size down, but you get one MP3 track and one WAV sound effect ready to try.

How do I use RPGDeck?

			The main screen is divided into two.
		The left side is all about "Soundtracks" - a soundtrack is a group of one or more MP3 files that will play continuously once started. You can see the name of the soundtrack, and controls to start or stop it. Also, when not in remote-control mode, you can see the list of individual tracks.
			The right side of the window is for "Effects" and shows a simple alphabetical list of buttons naming every effect in your library. Click the button, the sound effect is fired. Simple as that.

How do I set up Soundtracks?

You can use the menu option to Add A Soundtrack. You'll be prompted to choose one of three methods:

1. Copy MP3 Files

   You'll be asked provide a name for your new Soundtrack, and then to find a folder which contains some MP3 files. When you select the folder, every MP3 file inside will be copied to a subfolder inside the "audio" folder in the RPGDeck program directory (normally C:\Program Files\RPGDeck). As soon as the progress bar finishes, you're ready to play.

2. Import a WinAMP Playlist

   You'll be prompted to select an .M3U file - these are what WinAMP stores your playlists in. If the M3U file is valid, RPGDeck will copy it to its "audio" folder - the MP3 files themselves will not be touched. If you later decide you want to remove the M3U from RPGDeck's catalog, just delete it - doing so will not effect your MP3s or your original playlist.

3. Link a Folder of MP3s

   You'll be prompted to select a folder which contains MP3 files. RPGDeck will create a special file inside its "audio" folder. The file will be named the same as the directory you're linking to, but will have the extension .DIR. If you later decide you want to remove the link from RPGDeck's catalog, just delete the DIR file - doing so will have no other effect than to remove that directory from RPGDeck's list.

How much control do I have over playback?

Not a huge amount - the idea of RPGDeck is that it should be very simple and quick to use and should intrude as little as possible on your GMing.

There are two volume sliders at the bottom of the window, one for soundtracks, the other for effects. You can't change the volume of an effect already playing, but if you change the soundtrack volume slider, the currently playing track will gradually fade or ramp in volume to meet your new setting.

Effects can only be fired, there's no stop button. They just play until they reach the end. Since this is exactly what you'll want for most effects, it shouldn't be a problem.

Soundtracks can be Played or Stopped. You can also stop all current soundtrack playback from the menu.

Although you'll see the list of individual tracks contained in any given soundtrack, you can't select precisely which track to play. The idea is that you should have - for example - a soundtrack called Stealth with some tense, edgy tracks in it and then another called Action with dramatic up-tempo material. As the party sneak into the ancient temple, you can play Stealth. It could be hundreds of tracks long, so there's no danger of annoying everyone with the same track repeating over and over, no matter how slowly your players progress. Once the action kicks off, just click play on the Action soundtrack. Stealth will crossfade smoothly into Action, which will continue to play until you stop it. Of course, you can have as many different soundtracks as you want - a different group of tracks for every room in the temple if you want!

How does the Remote Control feature work?

Just pull down the remote menu and select Sound Source for the machine that'll actually be making sounds. Then, on the machine you'll be using to run everything, select Master. Enter the address of the Sound Source machine, there'll be a brief pause while they handshake and then you should see the Master's display change to show all of the soundtracks and effects that are stored on the Sound Source machine. From there on out, everything works exactly as normal. You can play effects, change soundtracks and fiddle with the volume controls.

For the technical, the Master listens on UDP port 29876, the Sound Source on UDP port 29875. Both need any intervening firewalls opened just enough for them to throw packets both ways between those two ports.

About File Formats

RPGDeck supports soundtracks in MP3. I haven't yet found any variations of MP3 encoding that it won't play, but there could be some. Effects can be MP3 or WAV. RPGDeck also supports WinAMP-style M3U playlists, but not PLS playlists. RPGDeck does not support Ogg Vorbis (though future versions might...), WMA or RealAudio format, and is unlikely to play any DRM-encumbered file.

Uninstalling

RPGDeck has a convenient uninstaller link in its Start Menu branch, it can also be uninstalled from the Add/Remove Programs page in Control Panel. When uninstalling, RPGDeck does not delete any files in its audio or effects folders to ensure that you don't lose any important sound files. If you want to remove all traces of RPGDeck from your system you'll have to delete those directories manually.

Acknowledgements

RPGDeck makes use of the JLayer audio library from Javazoom which is released under the LGPL. License texts and required materials can all be found in the program directory.

 

 

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