Roleplaying in the Age of Covid-19

[assault]

Beard chewing is one of the signs that someone is about to go berserk, isn't it?

 

It's good to see that not all the old ways have been forgotten.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

4 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

I don't have money for any of the virtual tabletops other than the copy of Tabletop Simulator I already own. And that may not be ideal. But at least it lets you amusingly clone and roll as many d6s as you need, and isn't like the Dungeon Crawl Classics line that requires things like d5, d7 and d24. Once I have that settled I may start a game.

My group has been having great success with roll20.net.  Nobody's paid a cent and it works quite smoothly.  Could be made better, even, we haven't touched some free features. 

 

Our big problem has been that we've got a couple players with zero access to the rules and are not really sure how to go about bringing them up to speed short of telling them to show up half an hour early for a rules crash-course.  "Just hand them the rulebook" has become illegal. 

[Cygnia]

We've been having sessions on ZOOM and Google Hangouts so far.

[Doc Democracy]

11 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

My group has been having great success with roll20.net.  Nobody's paid a cent and it works quite smoothly.  Could be made better, even, we haven't touched some free features. 

 

Our big problem has been that we've got a couple players with zero access to the rules and are not really sure how to go about bringing them up to speed short of telling them to show up half an hour early for a rules crash-course.  "Just hand them the rulebook" has become illegal. 

 

One of the big issues with virtual tabletops is that folk get carried away with what is possible and the bells and whistles without considering whether that enhances the gameplay.

 

If you are/were a group that heavily invested in maps and models then you have a reason to consider investing that time in the electronic versions.

 

If you were more narrative and sketched maps etc out on dry-clean boards or on scrap paper then you can do a bit better than that on the free to use Roll20 with very little prep time.

 

What is important in cooperative story-telling is being able to communicate and to add in that game element you need to have a decent way to share your dice rolls etc.  You could achieve this in Roll20 without access to the paid storage, the icons etc and the fancy integrated character sheets.

 

I was an early adopter of Roll20 and have become increasingly dissatisfied with the way (not the fact) that they monetise the platform.  It remains however a decent platform to access voice, video and a shared gaming environment.

 

Doc

 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

I was an early adopter of Roll20 and have become increasingly dissatisfied with the way (not the fact) that they monetise the platform.  It remains however a decent platform to access voice, video and a shared gaming environment.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been considering playing online with my group using Microsoft Teams. I know there are all the problems with the Evil Empire of Computing, but my school has a license and so I use it regularly, and it’s also free for any individual to use outside of our license. We’ve been doing real-time meetings and such to finish out the semester, so I’ve gotten to see some interesting stuff. The main feature that has caught my attention is the Whiteboard app. You can have a video conference but also use your tablet, or a secondary screen of some kind, to share your desktop for others to see. This could be for your own scribbles, or it could be a full map. The point is, it allows real-time chatting with a visual reference tool. Everything a gamer needs for a basic startup, without a lot of problems. It’s a very basic solution without the gaming environment, but as folks like Doc are suggesting, it doesn’t require a lot of prep to get set up and going. 
 

One of the things that gaming sites offer is also covered by Teams: using OneNote for campaign management. There are lots of YouTube videos showing how people use this resource, and I made that shift anyway, even before the virus closed hints down. Anyway, I’m not trying to advertise Microsoft, but it is a free and fully functional option.

[Doc Democracy]

I think you can get a free OneDrive account?  Teams would also allow notes, pictures etc to be shared and organised via Teams.

 

Would definitely not be a terrible solution.

[Brian Stanfield]

25 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

I think you can get a free OneDrive account?  Teams would also allow notes, pictures etc to be shared and organised via Teams.

 

Would definitely not be a terrible solution.

 

Exactly. Like Microsoft or not, when they made all of their web apps free it has made them much more accessible, and they're beautifully integrated. My Mac allows me to use my iPad as a "side car," which functions as an extended desktop, so I can pretty much use it as my "white board" for my students. And I can also use OneNote to publish maps and text and what not if I prefer it that way. Players can have their own tabs in the notebook, and we can share tabs, etc. And also create a campaign Wiki if we want. It should all work pretty well for a gaming group. There are dice rollers available separately (online, not through Microsoft . . . yet), but I just trust people to roll their own dice, so it's a wash either way. It's not a perfect solution, but it's workable. 

[Scott Ruggels]

My weekends are taken up with a couple of games on Roll 20.net. There was a 5e game which became Savage Worlds. The other game is 5e D&D. During the week, no games yet, but I am using the time to produce scenery assets for Brennall’s TTS module. Interestingly, there are a few Herosystem games starting up soon. 

[Cancer]

Our regular Friday night game has taken up using Discord and roll20, simultaneously, for the TORG campaign we're playing now.  So far it has gone OK.  I am aware both of those have lots of functionality I don't know, but I am too busy to learn about any of it for the next three weeks or so.

[Old Man]

Been playing D&D 5e every other weekend since the apocalypse began.  First on Google Hangouts and then on webex.  The DM trusts us with die rolling* so the only other function needed is presentation so that maps and pics can be displayed.

 

 

 

 

* The fool.

[Ragitsu]

Are you guys missing the free Doritos, Mountain Dew or hummus yet?

[Cygnia]

I'm not missing having to get extra snacks for folks.

 

(or all my tea bags getting drunk & used)

[T-roy]

On 3/17/2020 at 2:04 PM, Certified said:

Our gaming group; has long since transitioned to Discord as we are spread out across four states. If you considered posting a flyer for date, time and virtual location at the store? This way players can still rally, at least online. 

 

One up shot of being locked down, I was able to write a more expansive one shot for this month's adventure seed. 

Does your group have room for one more? I've been looking for an online group.

[Certified]

9 hours ago, T-roy said:

Does your group have room for one more? I've been looking for an online group.

 

Unfortunately not at this time. Currently we are already a fairly large group. However, you can check places like Obsidian Portal. or Meet Up to try and find games.

[T-roy]

On 11/5/2020 at 7:03 AM, Certified said:

 

Unfortunately not at this time. Currently we are already a fairly large group. However, you can check places like Obsidian Portal. or Meet Up to try and find games.

Thanks for the tip. Feel free to reach out if things change.

[Scott Ruggels]

One of the unex downsides to Roll20.net, was how slow it is on weekends. In the ( continuing) age of COVID, the traffic on the site causes lag and network issues. Because of the problem of players in our game spanning from California to Kuwait, the network issues in Roll20 have forced our GM to migrate our Mongoose 2 Nd Ed. Traveller game to Fantasy Grounds. 
 

Compared  to Roll20, the good parts, is the maps are crisp and clear at small sizes, and there are no network issues.  The downsides are the interface is antiquated and a bit hack-y, the character sheet isn’t as well done as the Roll20 one, or as flexible, it Always sorts lists alphabetically, and there is no useful way to share documents in app that allow others to edit, and all functions are GM permissions only. It has no line of sight or fog of war settings, and players have no access to their character sheets if the y the GM is off line. Some of this is learning curve on my part, so we shall see. 
 

Unfortunately, Bewnnall hit burn out, and gas paused development on the TTS Hero Mod at this time, so no Hero to play yet. 

[Spence]

Has anyone tried Astral?

[tkdguy]

The nice thing about Tabletop Simulator is that you can use it to run solo games. You can roll dice and move virtual miniatures in the program, so you have everything you need. Setting up may take a little while if you don't have your stuff ready, but cleanup is a breeze.

[Tjack]

3 hours ago, tkdguy said:

The nice thing about Tabletop Simulator is that you can use it to run solo games. You can roll dice and move virtual miniatures in the program, so you have everything you need. Setting up may take a little while if you don't have your stuff ready, but cleanup is a breeze.

Yeah, but cleaning Cheeto-dust off the hand painted figure you lent the new guy is a time honored tradition.

 

P.S.  Along with burying the body of the aforementioned jackass.