I’m interested at trying my hand running Urban Shadows, but I’m completely unfamiliar with Google+. Although I have a paid subscription to Roll20, I feel like I’m not getting much use out of it. I tend to prepare a bit more than I should, and the PBtA engine has really helped me to do better running games on the fly, but I’m still very much fumbling my way through it.
If someone wouldn’t mind showing me how to use some of these interfaces, I’d be happy to run a game. I probably couldn’t handle much more than two or three players, but feel free to message me if you’re interested.
What sort of interfaces do you mean? The character sheets are pretty self contained and should be most of what you need.
Are you thinking about running a game in Google Hangouts, is that the interface you mean?
You can absolutely have people print and fill out their gamebooks wherever they are, and trust what they say thwir dice are.
You could also use a group dice roller.
If you’d all like to be able to see each other’s character sheets, you can throw them bishes up in a Google Sheet and share it with everyone.
Then, you can use whatever video conferencing software you prefer.
R20 has everything you need for getting started with US, just start up a couple of character sheets and make sure the players have control. There’s also video tutorials and documentation if you need help.
What do you feel you’re having difficulty with?
Sorry, I work 12-hour night shift and haven’t had much time to sleep over the last few days. I mean that I’m generally unfamiliar with both Google Hangouts and R20, albeit for different reasons. I have a cheap webcam but no good place to put it, and there are some basic things I don’t understand using video chat software in general (e.g. how to put a still image up instead of using the camera to stream a video, and so on.)
You’re right, Kelly, none of that stops me from printing my own sheets and having people just use a dice roller. I would prefer to orient myself with R20, if only because I paid for a subscription that I’m not using, but I’m willing to branch out.
It’s difficult to convey exactly what my problems are with Roll20, but in general, I tend to get overwhelmed by the whole interface a bit too easily. I typically want to edit or slightly modify the character sheets, but I’m awful with CSS, so the whole thing can become a bit frustrating.
I have maps of New Orleans broken up by district, and I wanted to upload them and display them like dungeon maps on R20, but the maps are PDFs, so I’d have to convert them to images first, and that process was a bit frustrating. I used to have Adobe CS6, so I got a little spoiled. I’m also a bit nervous at trying to run a game for people I’ve never met, and I think some of that would be compounded by my general lack of familiarity with video chat.
I’m willing to give it a try if anyone’s interested, though.