And so we embark upon a cyber campaign...

Hey all,

This is mostly just a test to see what this blog will actually look like, but also to see if we can't get the ball rolling on this thing.

I don't think we have any ideas of what we're even going to play yet, or how, but as far as I remember, I think the best of the plan for procedures we came up with was:

- Use AIM chat-rooms for general game-playing, with the GM possibly using different font colors or labels to denote different characters, and all using asterisks or otherwise to denote action from dialogue
- Use regular AIM to have private conversations, but perhaps we should limit this to during the game when our characters are not being directly dealt with by the GM...how we'll determine this protocal is yet to be seen, clearly.
- Use the blog to distribute information: character histories, settings, any literature the GM or other players come up with for narrative purposes (i.e., newspapers, documents, etc.), pre-session recaps, post-session debriefs, all that kind of good stuff.

Elements that were discussed among Mark, Jason and myself to keep online playing smoother by spreading responsibility out and making all the players more participatory in determining the way some things play out:
- Players making intelligent/logical assumptions about setting - less "is there a chair in the room?", more like "*sits in a chair*", but probably not if you're in the middle of a forest or something.
- Players coming up with and playing some of their own NPCs

Things yet to be determined:
- What we're going to play, and who's storytelling
- Whether we're going to try to use conference calling/headsets?
- Whether we'll roll actual dice or use an online dice roller (potentially a matter of trust, but probably more a matter of personal preference given the way we all tend to not play to screw one another).

I think that's all I've got right now. Jason, I hope I sent your invite to the right email address: jaywilso@umich.edu? I didn't know if you got a new one. Anyway, this is pretty much just to get discussion started, so if anybody else wants to offer any topics up, heave ho!

peace,
Kate