How has the Coronavirus affected your roleplaying games?

[John Dallman]

How does Google hangouts work for gaming? Like, can you share maps, etc.

It has text chat, which can be used to share URLs. A friend of mine who is our expert on this has blogged about it today. Hangouts isn't the best idea if a lot of your play is tactical combat, but for games that don't do that it is simple and effective.

 

[BigJackBrass]

How does Google hangouts work for gaming? Like, can you share maps, etc.

Better for some games than others. Playing Call of Cthulhu, for example, is easy because you're basically talking and rolling your own dice. Area sketch maps tend to either be held up to the camera or shared on something like Google Drive (which is how we share handouts). Something like Savage Worlds, with its cards and tokens, is more hassle than we care to bother with. Hangouts has no particular tools geared towards gaming, it's simply audio, video and group text.

 

[atanakar]

Will be using my mat instead D&D of tiles.

Our first online game went very well. I'll relocate to my gaming room next time. Instead of using my desktop computer I'll use my cellphone hooked up to an articulated lamp for a better angle of the models.

For maps and other visual aids I use a clip board that I place in front of the camera. One player makes a screen shoot and adds the image to the Skype image gallery.

 

[billd91]

We've tried a couple of games via Hangouts. For the most part, it's worked OK, though there have been a few technical glitches here and there (like an overheating laptop).

 

[Len]

We had our first online session last night. We're using Roll20. We had a bunch of problems with voice chat so we switched to Discord for that. (We also had problems with Discord's browser app, until everyone switched to the desktop version.)

Other than that it went well. We don't have everything set up in Roll20 yet, just enough to get going.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I’m in Australia, so we’re about a week behind the rest of the world in virus terms. We had a face-to-face session on Wednesday, but one of the players didn’t attend as his mother is recovering from cancer, so didn’t want to put her at risk.

I’m all but certain our next session will be online. We’re just looking at the different options now as none of us have roleplayed online before.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I use my stories to create satyres and a softer way to explain the hard and cruel reality.

Now my inspiration is for a story where an erstaz of Umbrella Corporation has caused a zombie apocalpyse, and to cover/hide their bad actions, they want to sabotage the recovery of the zones what aren't ruled by their own puppet politicians.

 

[aramis erak]

Only one of my Sat FTF group managed to log in to discord sat evening. And she happens to live in my home. (My daughter.)

 

[Ulfgeir]

Sweden's oldest and largest gaming-con Gothcon cancel. It was Supposed to have been held during Easter. I know that at the con they were to have had a release-party for Call of Cthulhu Sverige (the Swedish translation/localization of the game), but now due to that con and another con (Nordsken), held at Ascension. the company that is releasing CoC Sverige have decided to not ship to print at the moment. Instead we who were backers will get the PDF-files first. We also have more material that would otherwise be shipped separately as they are behind with proofreading/layout..

So far unknown whether or not the convention Lincon (also held during Ascension) will be held or not. Most likely the answer is that it will be cancelled.

My gaming group started playing though Astraltabletop instead of meeting face-to-face and thus practicing social distancing.

 

[Nikosandros]

Two of my FtF games have moved online. So far, we've been using Skype and D&D Beyond, but we'll evaluate whether to start using a VTT. The third game is in indefinite hiatus.

The AD&D PBEM I'm in is continuing normally...