Roleplaying in the time of corona: Tips for doing it online?

Baba · Mar 12, 2020

I’ve always avoided online roleplaying like the plague, but it seems like I won’t be able to meet any of my regular gaming groups physicaly for some weeks.

So we began talking about trying to do it online.

None of us have any experience with it, though. Any tips?

I’m especially wondering about services. We don’t use mattlemaps or miniatures, we trust each other with dice rolls, we like to keep thing low-prep and non-fiddly. Would any of the specialised gaming services do us any good, or could we just as well use a normal conference call service?

dragoner · Mar 12, 2020

The main rule is persistence, keep at it even if there are mistakes:

"If you are going through hell, keep going." -Churchill

Len · Mar 12, 2020

Baba said:
I’m especially wondering about services. We don’t use mattlemaps or miniatures, we trust each other with dice rolls, we like to keep thing low-prep and non-fiddly. Would any of the specialised gaming services do us any good, or could we just as well use a normal conference call service?

Yes, Skype/Slack/whatever will probably work fine. Just make sure there's a way for the GM to show maps & pictures to the players - but at worst you can hold a page up in front of the webcam.

Tonguez · Mar 12, 2020

well on a hot day the Corona Michelada with lime and a rim of salt is really refreshing, but of course one should always use moderation even in roleplaying

Ringtail · Mar 12, 2020

If you don't use battlemaps or dice rollers something like Roll20 isn't going to be super useful to you.

My suggestion would be to pick your favorite video-chat software and make a conference call. I've used Discord and Google Hangouts in the past. I like Discord because if you want to link an image or a map you can paste it in chat and it will enlarge for users to see.

hawkeyefan · Mar 12, 2020

Discord is a very solid option if you're not using maps and minis/tokens. It has a lot of capability and you can create different chat channels or text channels as needed, and can easily add documents and images. You can also import dice rolling bots and similar programs to help facilitate play.