Stephan Hornick
Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Sometimes life isn't easy. You played with your folks regularly at your beautiful gaming table and suddenly circumstances changed and you switched to gaming via chat.
Have you tried playing via chat? It is very different. Interesting in its own right, but different.
Just some aspects:
You can describe thoughts and feelings, give flashbacks in your own right, and shine light on personality traits and split-second moments during fights. On the other hand, each and every person should write in an interesting way. It is much harder to formulate texts so that the others can react to it, to not overstep your boundaries as to what you actually can do or for which things you should roll, while also making a point and progress the plot.
And then there is timing. If it is a side story that is not relevant to the main plot, but shows interesting aspects of the PC's life or thoughts or background, then you can combin it with actual gaming. If you try to use it as an alternative to a lost week of gaming, you will quickly notice that it is much slower and you will never be finished in time for the next session.
Roleplaying and descriptions are easy, but only if you accomplish to have every one be at their phones and laptops at the same time you can make a combat work in which several PCs and NPCs / monsters partake.
Finally, it depends a lot on the number of players and their activity and writing skills.
I have been playing via chat now for almost 4 years. Shadowrun. I love it. It is great cinema! And I have been the GM for about 70% of the times.
There the ups and downs, but it is a medium with which you could make it worth it.
Now a call of arms:
Please vote.
If several of you have collected great gaming chat texts - like me, I think we can create another sub-forum to collect all of those great stories and go deeper into analyzing what works and what does not.
Please just answer shortly if you have some nice chat logs that you would be able to share.
Have you tried playing via chat? It is very different. Interesting in its own right, but different.
Just some aspects:
You can describe thoughts and feelings, give flashbacks in your own right, and shine light on personality traits and split-second moments during fights. On the other hand, each and every person should write in an interesting way. It is much harder to formulate texts so that the others can react to it, to not overstep your boundaries as to what you actually can do or for which things you should roll, while also making a point and progress the plot.
And then there is timing. If it is a side story that is not relevant to the main plot, but shows interesting aspects of the PC's life or thoughts or background, then you can combin it with actual gaming. If you try to use it as an alternative to a lost week of gaming, you will quickly notice that it is much slower and you will never be finished in time for the next session.
Roleplaying and descriptions are easy, but only if you accomplish to have every one be at their phones and laptops at the same time you can make a combat work in which several PCs and NPCs / monsters partake.
Finally, it depends a lot on the number of players and their activity and writing skills.
I have been playing via chat now for almost 4 years. Shadowrun. I love it. It is great cinema! And I have been the GM for about 70% of the times.
There the ups and downs, but it is a medium with which you could make it worth it.
Now a call of arms:
Please vote.
If several of you have collected great gaming chat texts - like me, I think we can create another sub-forum to collect all of those great stories and go deeper into analyzing what works and what does not.
Please just answer shortly if you have some nice chat logs that you would be able to share.