Re: General OOC Chatter Thread

[Baelon Drakeson]

Wanna know how powerful my rig is?

I play forum, text-based games.

Nothing beats the graphics of the imagination. Best frame rate anywhere, and almost 0 latency. :ugeek:

My rig can do more, but these games are better.

[Dunstan Tullison]

Agreed!

*raises a glass of wine*

I only discovered these things exist in last december. Missed a lot of goodness

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

It's rare that a PBP does this well. Not unheard of, but rare.

Usually too many people drop out, or the GM gets a case of RL...or just vanishes.

But when it works, it's peerless.

[Dunstan Tullison]

Does anybody have any experience with Fantasy Ground?

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

As it happens, I do. Some. Not a lot.

It seems pretty good, though it takes some getting used to.

[Dunstan Tullison]

Cool:)

I've been meaning to give it a try.

Played a game on roll20 but text just feels better than video to me.

[Theomore Tullison]

No idea what Fantasy Ground is.

Don't go jinxing reader now, gwyn.

BITW had a good run, too, but like SA before it, actually completing the first chronicle without the GM quitting one way or the other is not all that likely. Third time's the charm?

When reader has had it's fill, I think two or three of us needs to get together to run the next one because the whole setup is a bit too complex for one person to handle IMO, no critique of reader or stranger (x2), but throughout all three games, it's the "
narrator-bottleneck"
more than anything which has been the major constrain on the awesomeness.

[Dunstan Tullison]

From what I understood, it's a platform where you set a time and date, meet up with people online and play, only in live chat. Has IC and OOC chat going on, and the DM can prepare the adventure beforehands. Well, as much as adventure can be prepared.

And yeah, I can imagine how much work does it take to Narrate a game of this calibre. With the first chronicle finished soon - different people can narrate different "
smaller"
events.
Marsten clan fights, some clandestine back/green stuff etc..

[Yoren longshore]

Lucy I'm home
Has anything happened while I was gone?
I will have to shake off some exhaustion from lack of sleep, but should be good to go tomorrow :;
):

having several GMs might work...

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are at their hearts very similar programs. They're 'virtual tabletops,' meant to allow game groups to get together and game in real time. They incorporate character sheets, maps, dice, and chat windows...with Roll20 also having the potential for facecams I believe.

I have used both Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. They are pretty comparable, as far as the player side of things goes. Fantasy Grounds has more bells and whistles, and handles more of the calculations...and of course, comes with the PHB built into it (at least for D&
D 5e which is what I've used it with), so it's easy to look stuff up and so on. But it's also not freeeeee.

Roll20 as I understand it is kind of a pain for the GM to use;
it has a steeper learning curve and doesn't hold hands as much. But by that measure it also allows more customization, and once the system is mastered you can do stuff that isn't hardcoded into the rules more easily. It is potentially free, though GMs may want to select a pay-package that gives them access to more resources for use in mapmaking and so on.

I've been doing online chat RPGs since the days of WebRPG. I've seen 'em come and seen 'em go.

[Jon Cobb]

While having multiple narrators may be necessary, it's not without risks. For instance, in BITW I felt that I understood Stranger's GMing style, and that it suited me well. When a sub-narrator was placed in charge of House Bartheld, I felt there was a drastic change in GMing style, and the new style was antithetical to the style of play I prefer. It didn't take more than a week or two before I felt that the sub-narrator and I had irreconcilable differences, which would ultimately have forced me to change house just to keep playing.

[Riackard]

Well, having a single narrator doesn't allow you the choice to change a House, you have to stop enjoying the game to keep playing, as eventually like you have said there will be irreconcilable differences, then you leave the game. So multiple narrators just like single narrator has its pros and cons, but the main difference is you are more willing to negotiate things with a single GM to continue to play, then when you have multiple GM you just can switch and hope to find someone that suits you better, regardless of being right or wrong.

[Jon Cobb]

No, the difference is that I signed up to play with one narrator, and if I don't like him/her and his/her style, I walk. When sub-narrators are added, it's usually players in the game who are entrusted with the job, and I didn't sign up to play with any of my co-players as narrator. If, as was the case in BITW, the new sub-narrator turns out to have an incompatible GMing style and is unwilling to adapt to the player(s) he's got, then my enjoyment of the game will plummet. In such a situation, the "
choice"
to change houses is a decision made under duress. I wouldn't be leaving the house because I want to, but because someone whose presence I never requested as narrator was suddenly given the authority to muck up the story I've been building for my PC over many weeks of play. And that just stinks.

[Baelon Drakeson]

I've been doing online chat RPGs since the days of WebRPG. I've seen 'em come and seen 'em go.

Now I feel old - I've been been doing online chat RPGs since AOL Instant Messenger. Then I built my own chat interface and ran a game in that... it wasn't great, but it worked... mostly. Then WebRPG came along, and did it all better. Mostly.

In truth, if I can't get face to face, I prefer fully asynchronous - PbP or (in the old days) PbEM.
Synchronous forms are great for tactical-focused games, but I find them to be too fiddly for chat... virtual tabletops help solve that, but that adds extra workload to the GM... and it's hard enough to find a decent GM that has the time for it anyway, adding extra work either lowers the quality or cuts down the pool of available GMs. Less tactical, more narrative games are better asynchronous, I think. They give more time to think through how a character will act in unexpected circumstances, leading to better and more nuanced roleplay.

While having multiple narrators may be necessary, it's not without risks. For instance, in BITW I felt that I understood Stranger's GMing style, and that it suited me well. When a sub-narrator was placed in charge of House Bartheld, I felt there was a drastic change in GMing style, and the new style was antithetical to the style of play I prefer. It didn't take more than a week or two before I felt that the sub-narrator and I had irreconcilable differences, which would ultimately have forced me to change house just to keep playing.

Yeah, being on the other side of that (as one of the other sub-narrators) was kind of painful, especially because it really was just stylistic - there was no clear 'right' or 'wrong' about it. In all fairness though, I think that there was a lot of other stuff going on that said sub-narrator didn't have control over that mucked up your plans/story - though I do think that some of what happened could have been handled better. I just don't think having a different (or no) sub-narrator would have prevented all of it.

Honestly, I don't think per-house sub-narrators was the right way to go... meta-game concerns like narration style should not be linked to large-scale character choices like what house you are in. I think it would have been better to have sub-narrators in charge of various aspects - so one sub-narrator to run the fight scenes, one to run NC intrigues, etc. Or multiples of each, with one coordinating... the BitW joust worked out pretty well, with the four of us swapping in and out as needed to get them resolved quickly while preventing conflicts of interest.

[Theomore Tullison]

I had more in mind a narrator team that is present from the start and agreement between themselves who does what. Including separation between players and narrators. If a player becomes narrator, his PC becomes an NC.

Looking from my perspective, I'd like to see at least one NC from each house that *does* stuff. In SA, you had Dunstan, Isobel, Brom, Ambrose Kytley, Tom Tinker, Gareth Snow (under different name, and considerably different character) and a scary scary Longshoreman I can't remember the name of. Plus at least that number of very active non-house NC's, some of them very big canon-names.

Transferred to here, this could mean that we see threads started by Tomas Coldbrook, Yve Tullison, Isobel Marsten, Brom Bartheld and whoever is interesting for the Longshores (Dulvers and Kytleys has no players, so them we ignore), we see these people pop up during events, we see them drop by threads marked as open. In short, we see them act like PC's.

Say, you have someone able to spew out a lot of text and story in a short amount of time to facilitate this, and then you have someone else taking care of all the pm's, house objectives, rule discussions and that stuff.

[Ser Jorah Holt]

actually Septon Arlyn is from House Dulver

[Septon Arlyn]

True I am, But I could fold into another house if that would make things easier for the reader

[Dyana Marsten]

WHERE R D POSTS

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

I know, right?

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

Dy, I think you're up in the Three thread, if you really want something to do.

[Dyana Marsten]

I think I am, am I not?

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

Well, Corrie just admonished Gwyn to stop embarrassing you, so it seems like a good place for you to have a word in edgewise.

[Septon Arlyn]

Unfortunately most of the conversations I am involved in seem to have fizzled down to a low simmer.

[Jon Cobb]

Been a busy day, but hopefully I'll be able to catch up on the posting front later this evening.

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

Unfortunately most of the conversations I am involved in seem to have fizzled down to a low simmer.

There's a grand ball to attend. :;
):

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