black chat rooms…

@Chatty: In D&D 4th, we also have maps as a general reference. For Gametable, we play with the map for combat, and pay more attention to the chat block at other times. But yeah – thanks to you for the opportunity and praise!

Wyatts last blog post..What the heck is a drabble?

When you said that you did online gaming, I didn’t know that you were playing text only. The points you bring about making this more of a literary experience and exploiting the practical realities of text RPGing gave me many good insights in my own interest to play such games.

Once again, thanks my good man!

And that can be the only issue with PbP or online gaming (other than the lack of direct social interaction): What could be done in person in a 4-6 hour game can take weeks to accomplish in a PbP game.

Rafes last blog post..The Three "R"s of Session Planning

@Bob: Indeed! I love reading chat logs myself, and I’m always asking around for them whenever someone I know is having a game I’m interested in. A massive drive crash a few years ago practically wiped out all of mine, and I mourn their loss to this day.

Wyatts last blog post..What the heck is a drabble?

Having all those posts/chat logs archived in one place makes the game’s history much more alive to people. My game has been running for 15+ years with the last 5+ years of it being online.

The stories that have become our own little mythology from ‘the old days’ are seeping farther away as newer players refer to stories that they read in the chat logs. Just having all the content from a game session in one place really helps to clear the debates about “wait a minute you ruled this way last month” or “what was that lead dwarfs name?”

I have found that I have a small handful of people that can not make the leap into live roleplaying but do like to read the chat logs and or contribute character sketches, etc. on the site.

I do feel that online roleplaying is the way of the future, as it stops a lot of the ‘how do I compute that attack’ problems from happening. The program of your choice handles it and you just worry about the role, not the roll.

BOB

If you still play with the same group as the one you started in, and never have been forced to brave the internets in a quest for gaming buddies, the game will become more and more of a social event where you drink and eat with friends and fool around a lot more.

Now I’m not saying that playing online can’t be a social event… Au contraire, it can probably be great fun and you can still drink and eat and talk about other stuff. What I am saying is that such a transition from desk to desktop would be awkward to gaming groups in the same ‘phase’ as I am.

But your article did shine a light on a different aspect of online (text) gaming; the writing and the role-playing aspect. The bar for role-playing (and contributing in general) for shy players is probably set much lower in an online environment, and I never even thought about the nice practice and sharing of writing techniques and styles that online gaming facilitates. This stimulation of writing and role-playing will probably not exist when you play online with skype and cams…

Anyway, I get the point and see the advantages now. I would be very willing to try it in the way you described it. Since I plan on leaving my country for a few months next summer, it might even be a great way to keep the group playing in my absence, which is (go figure) one of my “major” problems should I leave my home and native land.

Finally, again my compliments. Good form! Looking forward to the next part. Many black sheep and platypi (keepin’ it pseudo-Latin, yo) to you too!