What have people been using to play online? I know hangouts has been big, but has anyone used roll20 or the like?
What have people been using to play online? I know hangouts has been big, but has anyone used roll20 or the like?
What have people been using to play online? I know hangouts has been big, but has anyone used roll20 or the like?
I’m new to online gaming, and I’ve just used Hangouts. I have a dice roller, we can see and hear each other, and that’s all I need. That’s one reason I picked Blades in the Dark to run online.
I’m new to it as well. The group is a little spread out so we wanted to try an online session to help save on gas. What dice roller are you using? I know Hangouts apparently has one built in, but there are also app ones it seems
I use the one built into the hangout, it’s on a bar on the left and it is super-easy to use. Push the pictures of the dice you want to roll, then push the “clear” button when you want them to stop hanging over your head. =)
awesome. Sounds like it will fit my needs nicely
I started with an old webcam we got years ago and a decade-old microphone and some sketchy headphones. It didn’t take long before I got an upgrade to some decent headphones with a built in microphone and an HD webcam.
I had enough tools to get started and see if this was going to be a feature or a fad, and man; I have loved getting to game online, so it was worth getting better equipment to me.
In the “Settings” (fourth tab) of the DiceStream-tool, there is an automatic clearance and other features. 😉
Roll20 is fine, but imo most useful for tactical gaming you won’t have regularly in BitD, I think.
I’ve unfortunately yet to be able to give BitD a spin, but I’ll offer my experience with Roll20. In 2013 I decided to figure out this whole R20 thing for all my gaming needs. Here’s the pitch for your perusal – ymmv.
No doubt, that its tools are an especially huge boon to games that use tactical maps. However, even for rules-light games, the easy functionality to have graphical backdrops and/or pop-up pictures showing who the PCs are talking to or the city they’re currently in remain very useful. The idea being your game transpires against a backdrop of a picture of or actual map of Duskwall, for example. (Players & GM have tools for pointing at or pinging certain spots.) Without affecting that backdrop, if you wished, you could have pictures of people or specific locations pop-up in front of the players.
I don’t always use background music (or sound effects), but it’s nice to have the functionality right there to give me options.
R20 also has extensive capabilities for character sheets, and it’s nice to have them right there in your playing space. Most R20 character sheets have the ability to roll right from them – don’t knock that til you’ve tried it. It’s also nice to have handouts not only in the cloud, but in your gaming space for easy player access. Players can have thumbnails of whatever handouts they wish right in the playing space – or a thumbnail of their minimized character sheet.
Asynchronous information functionality in R20 can be handy too. Some players seeing something (pictured on a handout or NPC character sheet) that others don’t is easy, as is typing messages only to certain players (and them typing only to you).
If you’re a tech geek as well as a game geek, there’s a lot of advanced functionality to go crazy with, if you so desire. Also, there’s some really nice tools for tactical maps that I won’t detail here. The platform currently has some 800,000+ registered gamers and new functionality is being added regularly.
Almost two years ago, I decided to become proficient with the R20 platform for my RPG go-to, for games of any type, and it’s worked out really well. Alright, that’s the quick pitch – carry on. Cheers