Kuunari

We have just started using Google+ and Twiddla.com to role-play online, and it has been working great.  I got the idea from Constantcon.  Searching online, I haven’t really found any good resources for using these two websites while gaming, so I thought I’d put together a little how-to to use these tools.

Google+

Google+ is a great and easy tool to use. We mainly use the google hangouts. I’m sure we could start using it for planning and discussion, but we haven’t really explored much more of google+ than hangouts. The best thing about google+ is that it requires only a plugin for your web browser. That’s it. We’re all pretty big computer users in my gaming group, but it’s so much easier when it doesn’t require anything more than a web browser. All you need to use it is an invite to google+. If you need one, just say so it the comments and I’m happy to hook you up.

Helpful Hints

• Some people have problems with other people hearing an echo because the one person’s mic is picking up their voice on their speakers. This was easily solved with that person wearing a headset.
• There are rumors that more than 4 people can cause hangouts to slow down. We didn’t have any of those problems when we had 6 people, but only a couple were using video, most had video muted and were only using the audio.

Twiddla

Twiddla is a whiteboard program available for free. Much like google+, it doesn’t require a download, and is pretty self explanatory. We only pull up a twiddla page when are ready to do an encounter. Otherwise, we are looking at images through picasa, and roleplaying through google+. Just send the people you are playing (usually through the google+ chat window) the link that twiddla creates for your page, and they will all join the page.

Helpful Hints

• Right click on an object will allow you to select send to back. You’ll need to do this to send tiles behind PCs tokens.
• Use the grid to allow you to play 3e/4e or other games that require a square grid. Even though the squares are a bit small, we just played with 4 small squares make one regular 4e sized squares.
• Have all the images you want to use saved in a folder to make it easy to find and use, since you can’t save whiteboards unless you pay a bunch of money for the professional version.
• The chat function includes a dice roller. Just type in dx, where x is type of die you want to roll. The randomizer seems pretty decent.
• Use WOTCs tiles for creating maps and Maptools tokens for PCs and NPCs. Just go into each of the programs folders and grab the images of the tiles and tokens. There are a ton of tokens available for Maptools online.
• You can keep the initiative order right on the whiteboard. You can also keep notes on each character next to their name.
• Don’t put bloodied, dazed and other makers directly on a PC token. It can be difficult for people to select the PC token if you do. Put in on their name in the initiative order.
• Create a shape that people can use to show which square they are talking about when you are discussing possible moves.

Other Tools

Catch Your Hare: We used this dice roller, although I recently learned that twiddla actually has a dice roller in the chat window, so we will likely use that from now on. All you need to do to share your dice is create a password, and tell everyone you are gaming with the password.

Google Groups: This is the tool we use to communicate between games, and organize gaming events.

Google Sites: I know there are sites out there that are designed to manage campaigns, but I’m comfortable with google sites and it does everything we need it to, which is give links to tools we are using, and link to the spreadsheet that we use to keep track of the basic stats, xp, and treasure that each character has.

Picasa: I post pictures of the overland maps and maps from previous sessions here. I plan on also posting pictures of the various NPCs and areas of the City, but that’s on the to do list.

power2ool: A great website I’ve already written about that is really useful for the GMs of 4e. It connects to the D&D Compendium, so you can use it to find any monster that has been published by WOTC. I used it to quickly create encounters for the adventure.

Resources