It'd be a reckless gamer who'd dive back into face to face roleplaying right now. Whatever the Red Skull says, the coronavirus is not going to magically disappear. Fortunately there are plenty of online alternatives, and taking the glass-half-full view I quite like not having to travel to a game during London's rush hour or faff around cooking supper for a room full of hungry gamers.Here are Scott Dorwood of The Good Friends of Jackson Elias and Joe Trier of How We Roll with a smorgasbord of suggestions for gaming over the internet. (I'll append my obligatory quibble, which is that HPL probably pronounced the "dh" in dhole as an eth. So, not like the Asian canid. But I realize it spoils a perfectly good pun, so I won't press the point.)
In our games we've stripped it all back to Discord with the Dice Maiden bot installed for the rolls. Discord supports video now, but we stick to audio because it stimulates the imagination. After a session's over my mental impression of the game-world lingers as vividly as real memories. If your games involve a lot of tactics and combat, though, you might be better off with one of the other options Scott and Joe discuss there.
One of their recommendations is ViewScream:
"Three to five players assume the roles of desperate people trapped in a world of high-tech horror. A typical game session lasts 60-90 minutes."We haven't had any problem with seven or more players at a time (audio-only seems to help) for games of three to four hours, but I've heard several people say that online gaming works better with shorter sessions and smaller groups, so I plan to try it out and report back here.
In the meantime, don't go drinking any bleach, will ya? Take vitamin D if you like (it won't hurt) but there's no evidence it has any effect against covid-19. As for hydroxychloroquine -- no, just no. Though if you buy into that stuff and you have a few hundred dollars to spare, why not pick up a USB stick (sic) which, as any fule kno, uses authentic quantum woo to "re-harmonize" 5G radio waves. Between Trump's twitterings and barmy internet medical myths, the coronavirus has some pretty stiff competition in its quest to wipe out humanity. Your best defences are reason and evidence. So stay alert -- to nonsense.
That's been our public health information broadcast for this week. Come back tomorrow when we're plunging into a time of superstition, plague, violence and apocalyptic fear. No, it's not another current affairs post -- I'm talking about Legend, the world of Dragon Warriors.
Plunging into Legend. Reserve me a seat!!! Can’t wait...
ReplyDeleteI've just been writing a section for Jewelspider about the really far-out creatures, as a matter of fact -- though tomorrow's offering is a bit more down to Earth (or down to Legend) than that.
DeleteMy preferred internet online venue is RPoL.net. No audio. No chat. Just play-by-post. Check in ever so often, see if anything's happened to which your character needs to respond and then go do the other stuff in your life.
ReplyDeleteNo use for role-playing, that, but I'm been thinking of running a turn-based "play-by-email" style game along the lines of the old Pieces of Eight pirate game run by Undying King:
Deletehttp://www.ukg.co.uk/old_games/piecesof.htm
I’m curious as to why you think RPoL is no use for role playing. I’m a newbie to both playing online and play by post as John accurately describes it. But whilst it took some getting used to and can be frustratingly slow at times, particularly with a big party with players in different time zones, it certainly feels like role playing Dragon Warriors. The dialogue and actions are perhaps more detailed and better considered than if we were all sitting around the table (real or virtual) and maybe that makes it a bit contrived and lacking in spontaneity but it’s certainly better than no role playing at all!
ReplyDeleteFair point, Nigel. I had never thought of that as roleplaying, but after all what else would we call it? And there are whole novels written in the form of letters, after all, which is a similar thing.
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