Borrowing from the idea of the Pluspora Check-in get some tabletop conversation going. If you have any questions that you want to get on the list to be asked, let me know. Also, if you'd like to be added or taken off the list of participants, let me know.

Have you ever played in any way other than Face-to-Face? Why or why not? And if you have, what are some tools that you've used/advice that you'd give in doing so?

I play almost exclusively non-face-to-face these days. Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, I'd found that it was easier to get together with friends, negotiate schedules, and meet new gamers online rather than trying to get anything together.

For #RPG I use the mediums of play by email or what I've come to term play by google doc (even though we don't always use google- the non-google alternatives I've used are https://cryptpad.fr/ and https://hackmd.io/). Though I have tried roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, I find that the asynchronous types of games seem to be easier to schedule and last the longest.

For #boardgame I've tried Tabletop Simulator and roll20, but again, the most successful have been more asyncrhonous types of games. We've used Google docs for those also and play by e-mail, but even more I've found myself using websites built for the games.

Some examples include
http://www.amarriner.com/#/ (the games are down right now, but played a lot of roads and boats there)
http://brass.orderofthehammer.com/
http://www.spielbyweb.com/
http://www.boardgaming-online.com/
https://www.yucata.de/en/
http://www.mabiweb.com/index.php (my love for In the Shadow of the Emperor came from too many games there)

There's also https://www.michaelschacht.net/pbm/modules.php?name=Game_Info, but I haven't played games there.

As far as advice, it seems to me that social contract becomes even more important when playing games online. It's too easy for interactions that are not conducted in person to go wrong, and having a baseline for what is expected help to smooth these along.


#Tabletop #QOTD

@Eric Franklin
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