I’m thinking of starting a hybrid campaign online, a live weekly session by video with a Discord forum for 24/7 sideplay. Has anyone tried anything like that? Any tips?

  •  Mummelpuffin   ( @Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org ) English
    2•1 year ago

    Ooooh my god one of my favorite novels is The Book of the New Sun so this is RIGHT up my alley. Do you know what system you’re going to be using?

    People get the idea of a West Marches game all mixed up. It’s all about reducing the level of obligation. Rather than you scheduling and preparing games, you expect your pool of players to do that for you. Rather than needing a specific “party” of player characters to keep showing up, the “always return to base” requirement means people can drop in and out as it suits them. Someone from the last game can tell everyone what happened, what they found, etc, and if someone’s interested in something, they can put a party together and go “hey GM can you do a game on [whatever day]? We want to try X”. It’s not for everyone but with the right (and large enough) group it’s a pretty low-stress way of doing things.

    •  BobQuasit   ( @BobQuasit@beehaw.org ) OPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      I’ll be using a simplified version of the RuneQuest III rules. I know that almost nobody knows them, but that’s no problem; they map really well to reality, and everyone I’ve introduced them to has been amazed at how much easier roleplaying can be. The system was designed by actual combat veterans and SCA people to reflect the reality of combat and action, so it’s much less “wargamey”. Also, it was designed as an RPG from the ground up, so there are a few simple rules that pretty much apply to everything.

      I’m starting it with a few players, but I plan to open it up to new players once I’ve had a chance to get comfortable with the hybrid model. I’ve been GMing since the 80s, but apart from a couple of early BBS experiences my games have all been FTF.

        •  BobQuasit   ( @BobQuasit@beehaw.org ) OPEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          Cool! I’ve been playing RuneQuest since about 1984, back in the RQ2 days. My RuneQuest site is actually the oldest still-functioning RQ site online; I started in in 1996. Had a nasty run-in with Stafford at the first RuneQuest Con, and our relationship ran downhill from there. So I gave up on Glorantha, but kept using the Avalon Hill edition of RQIII with a few fixes (the Dodge rules as written amount to suicide), with a bit of supplemental material from Jason Durall’s multi-genre edition of Basic Role-Playing for other genres.