Running a Campaign through IM Options

[ATCBob]

Hello all

I apologize if this has been addressed somewhere else, but I was unable to find references to it. Me and a friend are thinking of running a SR campaign through IM. I was wondering if anyone has tried this and to what success if any. If any one has any ideas that they think would be helpful we would welcome those as well.

Thanks for your time.

[anelander]

I've never tried it but I would be interested in joining you guys when you try it!

[Backgammon]

Having done IM games, I don't recommend it. No dice-roller, for one. I'd definately go with a chat program like OpenRPG or any of the other ones. Much, much better.

[Catsnightmare]

I've got a tuesday night group that has plays D&D and BESM over instant messenger for that last two years. As for dice rollers, AOL instant messenger has them in the group chats. The die roll code looks like this for example

//roll-dice2-sides6

Which will generate two dice rolls of a D6.
Simply replace the numbers for more or less dice and the specific number-of-sides.
//roll-dice1-sides20
//roll-dice5-sides6
//roll-dice3-sides10
etc. etc. etc. depending on the game system you're playing.

As for differentiating text, I joined the existing established group so these are the ones they used...
(( bracketed like this is what you the player are saying ))
:: describes what your character is doing ::
"This is what your character is saying in character."

[Platinum]

I can't wait for google wave. Everything is threaded, with playback. They already have dice bots.

Online collaboration will be so great.

Oh ... ATCBOB... what edition are we playing? I would love to play 2nd myself.

[Lok1 :)]

Me and a few guys from this bored play over a combo of Skype and maptools. Its great, we play every sunday.

[triarchic]

I have been involved in three IM rpg's and all have been quite enjoyable. AIM and like a previous poster mentioned AOL messenger allow for in room dice rolls. I will state that over skype (voice) requires a lot of responsibility, maturity, and patience among players w/ the GM and each other. It is very hard to hear three to four people talking at the same time. Most GM's get around this problem by just using the chat function on AIM or Skype etc... but the voice option is much faster if everyone can be responsible etc...

The games are also slower in real time obviously since the speed of someone typing is slower than the speed of someone talking. It just depends on how many players there are in the game or how concise players are in their messages to you the GM and other players.

Like I said, I would love to talk with you guys more regarding a IM SR3-4 game or whatever version and the logistics of one further.


P.S. I know that you didn't open up invitations to the game your considering running, but if there are any open slots, I would love to be considered.

[Kagetenshi]

It should be noted that AIM defaults to two dice with six sides if you leave out arguments; for Shadowrun, with its love of d6s, you only need //roll-dice# (and if you decide for whatever reason to play Craps in the chat, you can stick with just //roll ).

Edit: for differentiation, we used the following conventions:

"Quoted text is spoken aloud"
#Text encased in hashes is "spoken" via transducer and transmitted somehow, usually radio or telephone#
And everything else, from actions to out-of-character banter, is not specially marked.

We occasionally used actions inside asterisks *nods sagely* but those happened more often OOC; in-character actions were usually described.

~J

[TheLanyard]

How long are the game sessions? How often do people take breaks? I'd be willing to try a game this way. Especially if you're using Skype or some other voice-chat option. Also, I'm a web-developer who loves side-projects so maybe I could be helpful with some of the dice rolling issues...

[TheLanyard]

Whoops. Double Posted.

[Freejack]

I'm looking into doing this as well. Still getting the tech together and ready. I was thinking skype for in game, over the commlink talk only with IM for what I'm doing and out of character discussions. Pen and Paper games has a good dice roller as part of the site and its chat I believe.

This assumes I can't find a local group of course (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Carl

[Platinum]

We are looking at doing this shortly. I am running him through some solo stuff first to get him used to the differences between sr3 and sr2. WE started by playing a shadowrun mud together so we have the setting down, I am just getting him up to speed on the rules.

I am gm'ing 2nd edition with some minor house rules. Looking at using IM, with either map tools or a php program that I wrote that lets you move points around the screen.

We will probably be starting something more formal in 3 weeks to a month, and start getting players in.

We are trying to sort out schedules and see when we can get time zones to match. I have some software that I wrote, and I am supposed to have a good wave account invite coming through any day. Will try and run skype for groups, but for our solo stuff we are just going to use google for now.

Gaming sessions will probably be about 2.5 hours long because of family life. Any more and my wife starts turning green and grows warts.
Hopefully everyone has a quick typing speed. I am about 70 wpm with spelling errors. :o)

I hope that I am not talking out of turn ATCBOB... what are your thoughts?

I am so excited to play again.

[triarchic]

Like I said in a previous post. I am most definitely interested in joining up w/ you guys. I'll keep an eye out for when the more formal discussions start taking place. (I type around 60 words per min. )

[Platinum]

I have a google wave account and I have 15 invites left. Does anyone want an account so we can try playing over wave? 2e.

I am trying to learn how to add app engine bots, but should have it running soon.

[Platinum]

double post.

[Kagetenshi]

I realized that this one slid by.

How long are the game sessions?

That depends entirely on the schedules involved. Historically we've started at 19:30 or 20:30; we used to just go until people had to leave (generally around 23:30), but with increasing numbers of us no longer living the student life we've started setting 22:30 as the target finishing time, with a general rule of "the scene in progress at 22:20 is the last one; if combat is occurring, the full round that begins after then finishes the night". The game I'm in right this instant is GURPS, mind you, so a round is almost always one action per combatant; SR3 combat with initiative scores in the 20s-30s may require either an earlier cutoff or only finishing out the pass rather than the whole turn.

How often do people take breaks?

Historically they've taken them whenever they've needed them; if you're using all-text, they can just read whatever happened while they were out. Using VoIP, breaks are "as infrequently as possible"; sometimes you can get around issues (if the game start catches me still cooking dinner I can turn the volume up and aim the speakers towards the kitchen, and thus just be really slow in responding to things) but the general expectation is that people are in for most of the time.

~J

[Platinum]

Again, putting out an offer for google wave accounts hoping that we can get some players. PM me if you are interested. I have 30.

[Dumori]

I've got my wave acoount. saunders.mitchell@googlewave.com

[Jericho Alar]

Again, putting out an offer for google wave accounts hoping that we can get some players. PM me if you are interested. I have 30.

you have 30 invites or 30 players?(if the latter.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif) ) I have an account and would be interested in watching although I don't know if I'd have time to participate.

[Platinum]

you have 30 invites or 30 players?(if the latter.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif) ) I have an account and would be interested in watching although I don't know if I'd have time to participate.

30 invites. so far 3 players for 2nd edition. for 4e there are about 30 players in various games. send me your email to send the invite to.

[Dumori]

I'm on wave saunders.mitchell@googlewave.com

[Platinum]

I'm on wave saunders.mitchell@googlewave.com

I think you were added into the thread a few days ago.

[Dumori]

Really must have found you on the bigg list o' wave RPGs

[Infernlmagician]

I've GM'd and played using Maptool and Ventrilo. Ventrilo is the OOC chat where we just talk about what's going on and all the commentary goes, and everything spoken in the Maptool is what actually is happening. When I'm GMing, it takes away my "He says it- he says this like.. he speaks to you in an accent" stutter and allows for me to collect my thoughts and put them into some nice imagery.

Maptool also has a pretty nifty [Xsr4] dice command where x is the number of D6 dice. =P Then [Xsr4e] For edge using the rule of 6.

I'd love to get in on an online campaign if it's floating around...

[Freejack]

I'm running a Shadowrun 4th Google wave right now. It started back on Thursday and we're still getting organized. I'm running the Denver Missions.

The Waves are:

Campaign and Play Guide - List of players and rules for how to post.
Character Sheets - Discussion wave on characters for the game.
Character Sheets - Wave with just the character sheets, no discussion.
Denver Map - Wave with the Google Maps focused on Denver with the borders (with a little adjustment) and pins for players and locations.
Table Talk - Out of character discussions.
In Character Talk - General in character wave. Any comments are strictly in character and responded to that way.
GM and Player - Waves for each player and GM discussions. In character as much as possible.
Combat - We're using a Grid extension for combat (haven't actually used it yet).
Edit: Oh, and two Player to Player (with the GM included) waves.

We also are using the Shadowroller extension for dice rolling.

As we're beginning, it's going well. We'll see how it goes as it progresses.

They're currently private waves. I've asked if they can be public and folks are still hesitant as it's new to them and me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Carl