Dan,

Thanks for last night. I have to say in all my years of gaming, I've never actually spent a whole session devoted to creating characters. The online aspect was fun too, but I can see right now this will take some getting used to.

Not the MapTools or anything like that, but the fact that I cannot see any faces. Any non-verbal RP I may do will totally vanish, and will be an interesting and challenging hurdle.

Same here!

It took a while to get everyone online and oriented, but once we did, things went quite well. We also accomplished my only real goes: characters and created and I have a sense of how you guys fit into town life. In turn, that's helped me figure out how to start the game.

Pat is a warmage in the employ of the militia.
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.p ... tid=374066

Chris is a scout, keep guard, and assistant to the keep's smith.
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.p ... tid=374067

Johann is a stablehand and head trainer for the hunting, tracking, and guard dogs.
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.p ... tid=374065

Wayne is the keep's smith, though only by contract. He, therefore, lives outside the walls.
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.p ... tid=370088

John is a historian and wizard, kept well paid by the Baron for odd jobs, mostly because the under-staffed Baron wants magic users nearby.
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.p ... tid=374064

We established that you guys are all connected through a common employer (the Baron), regular face-to-face contact, and shared friendships.

As for playing over Ventrilo (for everyone else's benefit, we had to ditch Skype due to network load) and MapTool, I agree that the biggest hurdles will be the lack of face-to-face contact, body language, etc, along with the fact that it's hard for more than one person to speak at once. This game will require a lot of verbal clarity and structure to player interactions.

One last thing! Chris and Johann, as outsiders to our usual play style, what'd you think of the character creation process, whether in regard to rules, relationships, or overall methodology? What did you expect or not expect? What worked and what didn't?

I am surprised to hear that. It is normal for me and I have played in games that took more than a session to create characters, but in those cases the world was being created too.

What worked
* The nifty summary and recap at the end. Feel I have much better handle on the world than I did a week ago.
* They way you worked everyone into the setting, particularly my character (perhaps a perspective thing). Felt very organic and made sense.


What didn't
* Yeah, it may have been a little long, but meh. No worries there
* The ending of it. Perhaps this is because I've never really done chargen sessions only, but as a fan of "getting into the action right away" I kind of wanted to get going with stuff. Granted, it was late and we couldn't have started an adventure or anything, but even some teaser boxed text to whet the appetite. I just got done with a big meal of character creation, felt all good and stuff, and I was really looking for dessert. Just some sort of tease as to what awaited us.

Like I said, this may be because I don't do sessions like that (not against them, just never done them), but who knows? I'm excited to do this and hate having to wait.

I thought it was long. I think that's probably due to medium rather than crowd, though. The only time I have spent that long hammering out characters in the past has been when people that have never RP'd are making their first characters.

Like I said, I assume that's more because we were distance-talking rather than anything else.

I'm also not sure I like the PTT function that we were using. The good part is that it cuts down on table talk. The bad part is that it cuts down on table talk. I think it increases the focus of the game to some degree, but I'm not sure that it doesn't detract from the fun of the game.

We can try turning it off and see what happens. The main thing I was looking to reduce wasn't table talk but rather network traffic. However, since Vent handles hosting differently than Skype, it may not be a problem. We'll try it on the next game and see what happens.

It also may reduce the temptation for people to start screwing around since their mic is off, anyway.

I guess this also brings up a new issue. Keeping people on-task is a lot harder when you're sitting in remote locations playing via computers, as opposed to sitting face-to-face without electronic devices. There's no accountability (so to speak), and the source of primary temptation is necessary to the game!

I think it will be easier to stay on task when we're gaming. Character creation for five players who have wildly varying levels of familiarity with the system and setting, and are at different points in character creation, is difficult to keep engaging for all people at all times.

That said it can be a challenge. It is dreadfully easy to do something else with your computer screen open when you're in the backseat for a moment.

Vent sound quality sucks. Can we test out Google talk? I am curious about the Skype issues you had before I got on. I regularly game with 5 people on a call without issues Ames it sounds much better than vent. Any major fallow issues are usually cleared up by just switching who is hosting the call. I would guess that Dan was the map tool server and the call host. Let me host the call, Dan can host maptool and we will probably be fine. My connection tends to be a bit more stable than Dan's anyway.