Running games on G+, my verdict

I have now played in a few games on G+, and it works quite fine. The biggest issue is trying to figure out which timezones works for everyone so you get a group together. Having tried to run a game I found there were some issues compared to a face to face game, though.

My first issue was surprising to me, having played successfully. I was not getting the kind of visual queues I apparently rely on a lot when running a game. Setting scenes and doing descriptions I often do without thinking to much about it, but this time it felt stymied and stunted. Without being fully aware of it, I think I rely quite a lot on getting eye contacts and seeing my players listening to me. Now they might be listening intently, but if their webcam wasn't trained on their eyes, or if they glanced at another window I kind of felt a bit out of touch. Clearly this is something you can adapt to, but I didn't know I was so dependent on it!

My second issue was the question of where the characters were in relation to each other. Usually I don't play with minis. Instead, I usually drop down some dice on the table to show how is where. Now I had to get Roll20 up and make sure everyone was looking at it. It felt a bit awkward. Those who have been running games online seem to like Roll20 a lot, so I guess it can work fine as a virtual table, but for me it felt clumsy. I had to choose if I wanted to get that eye contact, look at the chat window, or at the virtual table. Maybe if I could have them all in different windows and have them all side by side it would work better?

The last thing is dice. I like rolling dice. The feel of a nice die in your hand as you toss it is part of the experience for me. In the game I ran we used physical dice for the most part and it worked fine. Like I said, if you want to cheat you've already misunderstood what it's all about anyway, so why should I even try to stop you? But, I found I missed the feeling of everyone huddling around the table, waiting intently for that crucial die to land. Maybe the virtual dice rollers are the way to go after all?

All in all, I think this is the way to go. I have no idea of how well Google feel their new platform is doing. They have been known to kill off things before, and I hope it's working well for more people than the rpg crowd. It's clearly where people are getting their game fix these days. RPGA events and cons is good, but this is it. Let's hoep Google keeps it alive!

My JackerCon experience - playing FATE

This last weekend there was an online convention being organized among the fans and friends of the Happyjacks RPG podcast. It was all happening on g+, after you signed up on the events posted in timeslots in the podcast forums. Luckily for me, some people scheduled events at a time when it was not in the middle of the night here in Sweden. So, jumped in and played a session in a g+ hangout.

First I had to setup a laptop with a webcam, which I did not have on my main machine. Then I actually did a test hangout with my wife just to understand how it worked. It felt like I had never used a computer before. Finally, I was ready. I can say from the start that it worked quite well, even though it felt a bit awkward to switch from the Roll20 window to the Hangout window to actually see the person speaking. But, all in all I think this marks the beginning of more online play on my part, if I can only manage to get all the duck in a row in the messy world of international gamerdom and timezones.

The game was a secret, only to be revealed when we "sat down at the table" so to speak. Had I known more about the source material I might have been able to immerse myself even more. We played gummi bears. Yes, from the children's cartoon. Silly but funny.

Our GM had decided to run the game using Fate Accelerated Edition, a slimmer version of the recently concluded FATE Core rules release. I have not played FATE before in modern times, and it was great to get the opportunity to try out a new game system. I own the FATE books, but sometimes you get a better perspective on the game not by reading, but by playing it with someone who have ironed out the kinks, and can show how it's done. I love that aspect of convention play, and I'm a bit sad it doesn't seem to be done much in these parts where freeform play is popular in the convention arena.

How did it work? Quite well! We had an aspect that defined our character, a bit like the class define who you are in D&D. Then we had an aspect defined as a trait that would get us into trouble, either with the setting or another character. In general that is a great idea, I think. There were some other abilities, but those were the ones I fixated on. We went nuts and acted like cartoon characters for a couple of hours and laughed a lot. Thanks a lot to the organizers and to our GM Mike!

One thing I though you could grab from FAE, and maybe import into other games. In contrast to FATE Core, you don't have skills but instead have something called Approaches. Since older editions of D&D don't have skills, many have pondered the question of whether that is a feature, or a indication that something is missing. I wont take a firm stand on that question, but for your edification I will tell you something about how Approaches work, and you can decide for yourself if you like to maybe include something like that in your D&D game.

Approaches are basically words that describe how you do things. They are Forceful, Quick, Careful, Clever, Sneaky, and Flashy. So, if you want to bypass a door, you can do it sneakily or forcefully. I guess you see what those two options entail. I think the way you do it in FAE, add your rating in that Approach to your diceroll, might be borrowed to other games. Maybe you have a few points to spread around, or decide one Approach is dominant and the other recessive. It could be a cool way to differentiate that 1 in 6 roll to intimidate someone if you choose to do it your favoured Forceful way, or the Clever way instead. If you roll under your stat with a d20 or 3d6 a bigger bonus than +1/-1 might be used depending on how much you want those Approached to influence play. I think there are interesting possibilities in this system! Fool around with it, and if you try it out, I'd love to hear how it went.

Is it hard to get an online game going?

When g+ was new, I remember how some people hailed it as the future of gamers lacking a group. Now all the online community was open for recruitment. That sounded so good I dived in.

Since then I have tried multiple times to sign up to people wanting to run games, and never has there been anywhere near a full group showing up. Mostly it's just me. Still, since I am stubborn I'm thinking of buying a headset and a web cam and try my luck at recruiting some players of my own. That Delving Deeper game has got to me!

But how do you do it? Have someone written a tutorial to how to set up a g+ event and how to run a hangout game? If anyone reading this has a clue, feel free to enlighten me.