I'm a latecomer to running game online, but here are my anecdotal experiences about game prep between the two.
In-person:
- I have to prep minis - paint them and make sure they're in the minis trays.
- I have to prep all of my paper books and notes to bring with me to game
- I have to pack lunch and snacks
Online:
- I have to scour lots of images to find "minis" or send pictures of the ones I want to one of my gamers to edit into icons.
- prepare battle maps to save time in session
- prepare dungeon maps & deal with FOW
- assign out dynamic lighting, etc. for characters.
Same:
- I have to restock and review the dungeon areas I expect the PCs to travel to.
- write rumors
- deal with last-minute questions about spellstones, scrolls, skills, and point-spending.
It's a change - I have all of these minis, and encounters prepared around specific ones. I have battles that aren't in setpiece locations, so I can't just pre-prep them. It's taking soem getting used to . . . I can't fly by the seat of my pants as much online without having things grind to a halt. It's a learning curve.
Folks should be trying ad hoc games in this time. We're stuck like this for at least the next several weeks. The GURPS Dungeon Fantasy community can playtest all kinds of pet projects.
ReplyDeleteTrue. We all may as well play as we can. Perhaps some good GURPS-centric tools might emerge from this.
DeleteI made a bunch of numbered and lettered tokens for when I need something on the fly.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good idea. Thank you!
DeleteFor my ongoing DF game I have hand-drawn battle-maps which I use with paper minis. Having played with maptool and roll20 in the past, I instead decided just to stick with Google Hangouts (another video conf/call platform would probably work fine), and pointing a webcam at the table. Aside from questions regarding the distance between opponents (which are easily resolved) I think it works quite well. The alternative (going back to maptool/roll20) places a prep-burden that I find less enjoyable (VTT tokens, trying to scan in/draw maps, lighting and FOW, etc) than sticking with physical floorplans and just dealing with the questions that arise from the imperfect information transfer of the webcam.
ReplyDelete