This post is obsolete. Since Java RE was updated in March 2010, Gametable is broken and no one’s fixing it.

Every Friday, as part of a new weekly segment, I’ll be talking about play. Specifically, I’ll be drawing ideas and advice from my week of fun. This week: remote roleplaying (playing games with VOIP).

Every Tuesday I get online and try to play Dark Heresy with two of my old gaming amigos. We use Skype. It’s the type of desperate manoeuvre you dabble in when good friends drift. Problem is, fun + networking = troubleshooting (to help, I’ve posted some How To at the end of this post).

Assuming you get the game rigged up, you’re going to notice something pretty quick: Remote roleplaying is different…and maybe worth thinking about in a different way. Today, I’d like to discuss the vernacular of remote roleplaying, what I call talky writing.

Talky Writing

In remote roleplaying, importantly, you don’t see your amigos. Even if you use video, which I disdain (until they can make a camera that records from the centre of my screen), it will probably be laggy. That means you’re not going to be able to rely on non-verbal communication during play. Everything you say, do and think will have to be exposed differently (assuming we’re talking about running a traditional roleplaying game).

Some folk, the actors among us, will try to lend intention to their words with rhythm, poise and intonation. Good for them. However, it’s not for everyone, and even the best can be misinterpreted. The sensible choice, I would offer, is for remote gamers to get into the habit of writing, real-time. That means explaining what a character says, how he says it and what he’s doing while he says it. Like a MUSH.

Now, it’s not always easy, nor is it high art, but it is fun. You provide a better infrastructure for the exposition of “non-verbal” cues, to establish visual motifs for your characters and to open narrative tropes that were closed to you at the traditional gaming table. By talking in the third person, or just verbosely in the first, you can tap that storytelling resource that’s been educated from stacks of digested fiction. Furthermore, you also open a window for your Game Master. He’s no mind reader, and unless he can hear how you scale and invest in your narrative, he may not know when you are having fun. So if this is your first time behind the mic, stop chatting and try out this talky writing.

Configuring the Talky Game

If you get past the hooking up of the proverbial cables, it’s actually a pleasant ride. You’ll need some stuff for talky, and some other stuff for looky. For the former, I use Skype. It’s pretty ubiquitous. No hassle: Free conference calling, easy to install, blah blah blah. For the latter, I use Gametable. It has dice, networking, maps, a whiteboard feature, private chatting, etc. You can even load character sheets into the background. It’s as if it was designed for this kind of shit.

The configuration of Gametable might be trixy. You’ll want to make sure that one of you can open up a port in your router (to host a game). Plus, everyone will need a stable version of the Java Runtime Environment. That’s a chunky download. Best to arrange that before you start the session.

Check-list:
1) Install Skype (Here) and create a Skype account.
2) In Skype you can add a new contact.  Do that.  My username is bobacino.
3) Install JRE (Here).  Choose the ‘Windows XP/Vista/2000/2003/2008 Online’ option.
4) Download and extract Gametable (Here)