Playing online

By Scapino, in Game Masters

Hey, got a question for all of you.

Given the current stay-at-home orders, I haven't been able to meet with my players to continue our adventure (and we were one session away from the big end of the current story arc). I promised one of them that I would look into online options, but I haven't had time to wade through a lot of it.

I know that Google Hangouts used to have a way of hosting games. That's how I got introduced to this system several years ago, but I have no idea what I'd need anymore to get that up and running. One of my players who has done D&D online suggested I check out Roll20 and see what they can offer.

But I thought I would ask you guys: what would your recommendation be? What's the best way to take a campaign online? What are the essential programs and tools that I would need to be successful?

I have not used Roll20, but I hear it is quite good. I use Discord with my in-person group. Discord and the SkyJedi dice rolling app.

41 minutes ago, Scapino said:

Hey, got a question for all of you.

Given the current stay-at-home orders, I haven't been able to meet with my players to continue our adventure (and we were one session away from the big end of the current story arc). I promised one of them that I would look into online options, but I haven't had time to wade through a lot of it.

I know that Google Hangouts used to have a way of hosting games. That's how I got introduced to this system several years ago, but I have no idea what I'd need anymore to get that up and running. One of my players who has done D&D online suggested I check out Roll20 and see what they can offer.

But I thought I would ask you guys: what would your recommendation be? What's the best way to take a campaign online? What are the essential programs and tools that I would need to be successful?

I also have this question. I just got into FFGs RPGs recently. I saw people use orokos.

Lots of threads about this recently!

I recommend you use the Search function.

But I also recommend Roll20 plus vanlevey.com for dice-rollin'.

On 4/3/2020 at 10:29 PM, jhh3 said:

I also have this question. I just got into FFGs RPGs recently. I saw people use orokos.

Orokos is great, particularly for play by post games, which is the only way I play online.

33 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Orokos is great, particularly for play by post games, which is the only way I play online.

Yeah. That's probably the only way I will be doing it. Unless I have hours at a time I have to spare.

RPG Sessions is a great site that has not only character sheets, but dice rolling and a brand new Gaming Table! It has an integrated Discord bot so you can use Discord for voice/video chat and RPG Sessions for everything else. The only thing it doesn't do currently is maps: for that you'll need Google Drawings or something.

You can keep track of wounds, strain, XP, currency, encumbrance, obligation/duty/morality, and more. It's pretty amazing.

Here's a screen cap of the gaming table (I play Genesys, so pretend those are SWRPG icons :p)

WjWQCIl.png

On 4/6/2020 at 9:46 AM, c__beck said:

RPG Sessions is a great site that has not only character sheets, but dice rolling and a brand new Gaming Table! It has an integrated Discord bot so you can use Discord for voice/video chat and RPG Sessions for everything else. The only thing it doesn't do currently is maps: for that you'll need Google Drawings or something.

You can keep track of wounds, strain, XP, currency, encumbrance, obligation/duty/morality, and more. It's pretty amazing.

Here's a screen cap of the gaming table (I play Genesys, so pretend those are SWRPG icons :p)

WjWQCIl.png

This looks awesome! But I'll admit it also looks a bit overwhelming. Do the players have to add their character sheets in individually? I'd love to be able to use this, but I also want this to go smoothly for the players. Is there a tutorial somewhere?

Might only be me, but I wasnt really satisfied with RPG Sessions.

There are tutorials hidden on their website, but these are rather simple and the tool didn't work quite well for me and my group.

I have good experiences with Roll20, but I can also understand if people do not want to spend money to be able to play online.

In my opinion it comes down to comfort.
Yes you can easily play online using RPG Sessions or Discord Dicebots, is it comfortable and easy to setup for your players? Moderate in my opinion... some of my players did have great problems using RPG Sessions or using the Dicebots.

On the other hand, the Roll20 API Sheet for FFG Star Wars is really really neat and makes everything, from charsheets to dice rolling really easy and accessible, but yes the GM needs to have Roll20 Pro.

Edited by Fl1nt
On 4/7/2020 at 5:40 PM, Scapino said:

This looks awesome! But I'll admit it also looks a bit overwhelming. Do the players have to add their character sheets in individually? I'd love to be able to use this, but I also want this to go smoothly for the players. Is there a tutorial somewhere?

Each player needs their character added to the system, yes. But the GM can make the characters, share them with the players, and the player just needs to hit the "Clone" button to get their own copy.

As for tutorials, they have a few on their YouTube page . If you have any specific questions that aren't covered there let me know and I'll see if I can answer them!

My weekly group uses Google Hangouts. We just roll (I'm using physical dice) and post the results to the Hangouts chat or tell the GM what we got. Works well.

I'll have to take a look at RPG Sessions. That with EpicTable (a tabletop) may do everything for me.

Does anyone have experience with Fantasy Grounds for Star wars? I heard people like it better than roll20, but it is not fully supported on it. I haven't been able to find many videos of people using it or how to install it. Any help would be appreciated.

On 4/10/2020 at 2:42 PM, Jedi Ronin said:

My weekly group uses Google Hangouts. We just roll (I'm using physical dice) and post the results to the Hangouts chat or tell the GM what we got. Works well.

This is exactly what we've been doing.

We pissed about with roll20, the chat/vid function was appalling, so sacked that off.

At first with Hangouts we were pointing webcams at dice and such, but we don't even bother with that now as we're a pretty trusting group.

You can use the jedisky dice webpage. Everyone can log in to it and share rolls, it is basic but has good features. That is what I use, here is the link:

https://dice.skyjedi.com