Merging past, present and future of PnP gaming

[Brokenbone]

I was the last to "launch" anything, Ronan had already made a hangout room, so me launching a roll20 room was superfluous to our needs. I am not really sure if launching in hangouts precisely would "add anything." May try next time.

[t-ice]

Anybody thought again about voice comms to our nwn2 game? I think it would increase the feelings of immersion and community an order of magnitude. But I understand not everybody has the chance to blabber out loud in their gaming stations...

[kmj2587]

Anybody thought again about voice comms to our nwn2 game? I think it would increase the feelings of immersion and community an order of magnitude. But I understand not everybody has the chance to blabber out loud in their gaming stations...

I thought about trying this in the past and decided against turning everyone into amateur voice actors as a strategy for increasing immersion. Also, Skype during sessions is incredibly distracting and almost always off topic.

[Ronan]

The lack of a chat log also hurts you quite a bit. I'm able to carry on multiple textual conversations at once but cannot manage the same feat with my voice sadly. The vilquari players often Skyped during sessions, but I found it very difficult to DM whilst on the call and to a lesser extent even when I just listened.

[t-ice]

Voice acting no. But the couple of times I've tried, I did find voice allows for much better descriptions of what happens on top of the engine. I felt it allowed me as DM to better keep everyone aboard the situation, to control the flow of the unfolding events. In particular whose "turn" it is to act and for the DM to respond, while others wait for theirs. Only in battle is it really "everyone's turn" in real-time as the engine responds, not the DM.

So things like

"The battle is over and the human soldiers lie dead at your feet, what do each of you do?" Then some go looting, one searches for clues, one goes to lookout for more trouble etc. So everyone gets a clear prompt to act.

"Suddenly there's a loud crash to your east, hold a sec" game gets paused and a group of enemies gets spawned "go" unpause and battle commences

"Ok, PC A is talking to the wench and PC B is picpocketing the dwarf in the corner. Let's do A first"

"Can my PC try to pick this lock clandestinely? Sure, emote and roll hide and open lock and I'll be with you after I'm done with PC B"

Voice is just so much faster that it allows a whole new level of control, and thus I feel immersion to the unfolding events. Immersion doesn't come from voice acting. Things said and done by the PCs certainly should be in text. Voice allows for everyone to request a "DM timeslot" in the action, to keep on top of how the slots are going, and to call in everyone's attention when necessary. Instead of spamming the PCs actions and hoping for the DM and other players to react. Maybe also add in some more description for color and feel. The risk of course is getting flooded in ooc chatter, as the players have way more time on their hands than the DM.

[boombrakh]

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[Ronan]

t-ice, I think it depends on your talents as a DM and the number of players you have. I am a quick typist but poor at following two conversations at the same time (this is probably because I stare at text all day). I can also read faster than I can listen.

With 10 players, someone is probably going to be AFK whenever you're out of combat. This means someone will always be missing something being said. With text they can just come back and read the chat log, but with voice things have to be repeated.

With fewer players I think voice chat makes more sense.

[boombrakh]

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[Zelknolf]

Voice allows for everyone to request a "DM timeslot" in the action, to keep on top of how the slots are going, and to call in everyone's attention when necessary. Instead of spamming the PCs actions and hoping for the DM and other players to react. Maybe also add in some more description for color and feel. The risk of course is getting flooded in ooc chatter, as the players have way more time on their hands than the DM.

ALFA does have a specialized tool for this-- #dm sends commands to a queue, where they remain (sorted to make FIFO easiest) until dismissed by the DM, and are separated from the rest of the often-spammy chatter.

Voice chat tends to have a lot of bad jokes and people talking over one another in it-- and a bunch of people talking makes it hard to write, but writing is where the good immersive narrative in hobbies tends to live. Need rehearsal and multiple takes to do it well in voice.

[Ithildur]

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Suspension of disbelief is a big thing and a reason why I can see a character and not the person behind the mask. Hell, I play a "female" PC at the moment and I'd never try to "act" Jax over voice chat. :D

I would pay you money to see/hear this Boom.

Not a lot of money, mind you, but enough to buy a pint.

Seriously though, some folks can pull it off and it's great fun; for others it can be painful. You guys don't want to hear me trying to voice Aglaril.

I've seen a video of cloud skyping with puny etc. during one of Ronan's sessions on BG; it was hilarious to watch/listen to, but only because it was after the session was over. I think it would've been too distracting for me 'live'.

Tabletop imo is just a very different game/animal when it comes to stuff like this; you're actually sitting in front of each other, with full visual and audio/sensory interaction with other PLAYERS, not just PCs, as an integral part of the game experience. ALFA by design tends to stress the opposite imo; the whole point I think was ... we wanted to interact with PCs (and NPCs) first and foremost, and somewhat de-emphasize the player behind them, to maximize immersion and storytelling. Otherwise, there's no way in hell I would've RPed with some of the crazy folks I've interacted with in my time here... like Boom.