What are you top tips for running and playing games online?

[HywelPhillips]

New top tip from me, just started doing this and it is a big help.

For FGU, make yourself a map module.

Collect together your maps with line-of-sight information so that you can import them into any campaign you subsequently run. I started doing this because I'd want to use the same map for different games in different systems and didn't want to have to re-enter LOS info each time.

Do this:
1) Make a new campaign with nothing in it (no modules or extensions, using whatever ruleset). This will be the place you ALWAYS do your map imports.
2) In the Images and Maps tab, make a new category. I use "Hywel's Battlemaps".
3) Import the maps you want. Enter the LOS information here, set the grid, etc.
4) Export the module with "/export". Choose a suitable name for the module ("Hywel's Battlemaps") and export only the images and maps info.
5) Find the .mod file in your SmiteWorks modules directory.
6) Rename to .zip
7) Unzip it
8) Edit the definition.xml file, changing Ruleset to Any.
9) Rezip the module directory
10) Rename back to .mod

Now you have a universal module that you can load from any one of your campaigns containing all your battlemaps with LOS data. When you load your other campaigns, your map module should be there ready for you to load in.

When you do so, you will want to populate the maps with encounters, pins, etc. specific to that campaign. I like do that by dragging and dropping the map from the module "master" copy back onto the Images and Maps window, which gives you a map copy local to that campaign. Then you can add all your system specific stuff to that copy of it and can always go back to the pristine module version if you need to (e.g. to run a new encounter in the same place).

You have to repeat steps 3-10 to add a new map to your map module which is a little bit of a fiddle, but far easier than loading up a map you know you entered LOS for for a Savage Worlds one-off when you want to re-use it for your regular 5e campaign. The time consuming bit is entering LOS for maps you've made externally, and this lets you reuse them without that time-consuming step.

It was probably obvious how and why to do this for old hands, but it wasn't for me. So hopefully this will help.

Cheers, Hywel

[BubaDragon]

If you set your game time for 8.30pm on Wednesday. Play the game at 8.30pm on Wednesday even if only 2 players can make it. Everyone is so busy these days and those two players (and you) have cleared time and committed to it so give them game. Even if its a side adventure, a one shot, something different. The other players will hopefully also commit more whole heartedly when they know that everyone else has done so already.

What he said...

[HywelPhillips]

9) Have an intermission/comfort break. Great tip playing a SWADE game from Savage Doswelk today - put up an intermission map and plonk the character tokens on it, with an "I'm AWAY section" and an "I'm BACK" section. Avoids endlessly polling via Discord voice chat.

[HywelPhillips]

10) When running a roleplaying-heavy social setting like a party, use an evocative pretty picture as a backdrop with an invisible grid set to large pixel count (eg 200 pixels). Then drop tokens on for the party and the NPCs so they can "see the faces" of the people they are talking to, and you can move people around if the conversation breaks up into smaller sub-groups.

[HywelPhillips]

Now on to a problem I've noticed.

In real life, one of my favourite things is planning/chat sessions where the party spend a long time freeform talking.

Has anyone good a good way of facilitating this as the GM for online play? Video/voice conferencing absolutely SUCKS for this in my experience. Either everyone talks over each other, or everyone stays silent for an uncomfortably long time, then all start talking at the same time.

I've tried keeping the initiative count going to go around the table inviting people to speak. This does help a bit, but it feels much more like a boring and hostile council meeting than the friendly discussion and banter around the campfire with free exchange of ideas.

If the players are keen and have time, I think doing it offline asynchronously via Discord chat or email might work (that's what's we're doing in one campaign I'm playing).

But I wonder if it might actually be more free-wheeling and fun to do it without voice via chat?

Has anyone got a better way of doing it?

[Honken]

I have to iterate on the sound quality of the OP. I was in a game where we had 2 players, native British English speakers (I am not native English), they used Teamspeak from a phone, and I am not sure if they used a headset, but there was a lot of "room" noise. So i had a hard time to follow what they were saying.

I cannot fathom the groups that have 6 or more players. In my mind, 3 players is the best setup for online play, though i like to have 4 players.

And i would like to add a point

11. Make sure, that if you add a new player, make the character outside of the game session so that you don't spend the first hour of the session making characters.

/H

[Ryuson]

As someone new to online gaming and FG, I'd add a few lessons. First, find an experienced GM and/or group with FG. It makes the transition much easier (fortunately, they were very patient with answering my questions).

Second (and this is related to trying to GM on FG for the first time), already published content is your friend. For example, 5e is well supported, so I bought a few items on sale. Now, the pressure is off from creating all this content and automating it (though technically it's not required - just makes things easier). The focusing is learning the interface and bells and whistles of FG. MUCH easier.

Third, do a trial run with a player. So, I've played for a few months. I looked at videos and read stuff. I thought I was "ready". I even made up two encounters with maps. I know pretty much everything, right?

Wrong. It's little stuff that you don't realize you need to do and would probably come up - in this case, it was how to add a NPC (which I had created as a PC) on the map?

Fortunately, this was a test run and both of us had the proper mind set. There were a couple of things we had to stop and look up on the internet. But we had fun and plan on running another test before the main group.

[spoofer]

Now on to a problem I've noticed.

In real life, one of my favourite things is planning/chat sessions where the party spend a long time freeform talking.

Has anyone good a good way of facilitating this as the GM for online play? Video/voice conferencing absolutely SUCKS for this in my experience. Either everyone talks over each other, or everyone stays silent for an uncomfortably long time, then all start talking at the same time.

I've tried keeping the initiative count going to go around the table inviting people to speak. This does help a bit, but it feels much more like a boring and hostile council meeting than the friendly discussion and banter around the campfire with free exchange of ideas.

If the players are keen and have time, I think doing it offline asynchronously via Discord chat or email might work (that's what's we're doing in one campaign I'm playing).

But I wonder if it might actually be more free-wheeling and fun to do it without voice via chat?

Has anyone got a better way of doing it?

Sometimes I ask players to roll initiative. I go once through the combat tracker round, and everyone speaks on their turn only. Then once the round is over, I open up the floor to anyone who still has more to say.

[Mytherus]

Honestly my group is pretty straightforward with what to say. We just talk over voice if people step on each others mic we simply self manage with “I didn’t hear you say that again “ type of thing.