I really have nothing better to do at work...

I'm finding a couple of options for digital dice rolling, should we decide we don't want to use real dice. Personally, I would rather, just because they're fun to play with and tangible, but I also think this decision can be made on an individual basis (unless we use a chat-room-roller, so everybody can see the rolls).

Downloadable desktop RPG dice roller:
http://www.niagara.com/~mcarter/rpgroll.htm - I couldn't check this out at work, but I will later on my laptop.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20040517a - D&D custom dice roller that you can use offline, also. Allows for any number polyhedral roll.
http://members.aol.com/dicetalk/rpglink.htm - a site with links to 8-9 downloadable dice rollers - easier than looking more up for myself.

Website that rolls for you:
http://www.irony.com/igroll.html - has some fun options that don't have to take more time, but can add or subtract from the roll. Also has the option to make several rolls simultaneously, so this could help to streamline combat with one roll for all initiatives (if we concede everyone on equal footing and we don't take the dex+wits part into account, which may or may not be good).
http://www.white-wolf.com/DiceRollers/ - white-wolf chatroom roller - allows all those signed in to see all rolls, but requires login to use. Also shows the 5 million other people on the chat your rolls, not quite sure how this works.

GM tools website:
http://eposic.org/rpg/index.html - has a diceroller, but also other sweet GM aids (like a combat manager, which would probably be quite helpful). Looks like it could be really handy for our yet-to-be-dubbed storyteller.

Comment to "Perfect Place to Play"

I think the Perlman is a brillant idea! It sounds private, stocked with the computers we need, and we get to be just a little bit rebellious in the process :P What could be better :)

Perfect place to play

THE PERLMAN! My laptop + the Perlman desktop + the workstudy laptop = 3 online computers for Mark, Sarah, and I in one room to which I'll have a key and where nobody will have to know how weird we are late at night. We'd have to be a bit discrete, but I think it could work perfectly - even if Ian's in, he's got his laptop so we'd be fine. Thoughts?

Some things to ponder

Hey, so I'm pumped for this idea, but there may be some kinks that we'll have to work out. Some things that I could see being a problem:

Whatever we play, everyone would need a book. This limits us down a ways, but there are a few ways to get around it. If all the AA people could cram into one room, or a lonely computer lab, we could share books, or there are online PDFs of many books that we could keep up as a reference. Just some ideas.

Also, stories would take a lot longer to complete, especially combat. Combat online takes forever, so we'd have to find a way to avoid or streamline any combat system.

On the positive side:

Posting story/character ideas will be very easy and abundant and fun, so that will be exciting to do.

This setting can allow the individual character more fun in descriptions, more time to shine in the spotlight as well. When you type, it becomes more like a story, and as such, more descriptions and mood come out as well.

Finally, when you aren't in the scene, you are by yourself by your computer, so you can do homework, read, write, etc.. And we can make a special private message noise so you get an audio cue as to when you have to do things.

As for games to play, I think Vampire may be easiest. We have the most books for vampire, so that would be easy. Exalted would be fun, but we'd have to streamline combat significantly.

My two cents for now.

Mark

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