Is the Corona-virus affecting your games?

[soltakss]

7 hours ago, Dethstrok9 said:

Also, what happened to "China made it as a weapon and accidentally released it"?

In Russia, they are saying that it was planted by US Troops. When I told my wife that there weren't any US Troops in China, she said "Well, that's what I've heard".

7 hours ago, Dethstrok9 said:

I thought that was the official story, which would mean it was engineered, unless I'm wrong.

It's unlikely. An engineered virus would have a higher fatality rate, unless they were sneaky and engineered it to have a lower fatality rate so it would appear not to be engineered. Hmmm, bio-engineers are crafty.

Edited March 17, 2020 by soltakss

[GAZZA]

I have four campaigns for various games that I'm either running or playing in at the moment. One of them is on Roll 20, and one of my players was diagnosed and admitted to hospital last week (he seems to be recovering OK, but still in hospital as we speak). The rest of us have decided to go to Roll 20 for the foreseeable future just to be on the safe side.

[AndreJarosch]

We had a long Cthulhu session on the weekend march 6th to 8th. It was a blast. 

Since then: Children at home, my wife has home office, my work will be closed from tomorrow onwards. 

I will find some time to write something RPG related, but otherwise it will be stress, because i will have to home school the kids (with the school providing learning stuff online). 

Edited March 17, 2020 by AndreJarosch

[Bill the barbarian]

Sorry to hear it is affecting your games all, this is important and as an individual who not only makes his living through the arts/entertainment and believes in its importance to the human experience I truly believe gaming to have great importance to quality of life.

I waited until now to respond so as to do so with a clear and mellow head. These conditions now being achieved it might be worth mentioning that my gaming is being affected by the fact that last week the government of the province I live in, and the government of Canada made my career redundant. In fairmess. they had to. But I go on many resources on the net to see pages of industry related info say one word and saying it clearly and repeatedly. “CANCELLED”. By banning any meeting of more than 250 people the COVID 19 crisis may be ameliorated so I am in favour, but after paying all my bills and rent this coming month, the wallet will be looking a little empty. After the usual slow winter I was looking forward to the usual spring pick up, but, I really can not imagine the union dispatcher calling me to say Jon Bon Jovi is playing a house concert in your neighbourhood and I see in your internet portal that you can take calls for Truck Loader, Audio Crew, Stage Hand and LX... are you available?

In conclusion, yes my gaming will be affected, but hopefully I will be alive and that is something.

Cheers

Edited March 18, 2020 by Bill the barbarian

[Ian Absentia]

10 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

On the other hand, it frees up more time for me to work on books. So that's a plus. (Arguably)

Yes, yes.  I expect to see a report on my desk Monday morning.

!i!

[ColoradoCthulhu]

Yes. Last night, the gaming store where my group of five Investigators and myself play Call of Cthulhu every other Saturday evening cancelled tabletop events for the foreseeable future. So, I e-mailed everyone via our Meetup page and said that we can still run CoC games over Fantasy Grounds. I am in the process of figuring out how to use this platform as well as determining how to integrate video chat into a Fantasy Grounds session.

[g33k]

20 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

It died the miserable little fear-mongering death it deserved...

Unfortunately, it did not.  This -- and other similarly nutjob-origin theories -- are out in the wild.   💩💩

As witness the sub-topic -- right here in this thread -- where multiple theories are being reported as currently-believed, by multiple people.   🤡

[Dethstrok9]

Foil

"Weird Al" Yankovic

I never seem to finish all my food
I always get a doggie bag from the waiter
So I just keep what's still unchewed
And I take it home, save it for later

But then I deal with fungal rot, bacterial formation
Microbes, enzymes, mould and oxidation
I don't care, I've got a secret trick up my sleeve
I never bother with baggies, glass jars, tupperware containers
Plastic cling wrap, really a no-brainer
I just like to keep all my flavours sealed in tight

With aluminum foil (foil)
Never settle for less
That kind of wrap is just the best
To keep your sandwich nice and fresh
Stick it in your cooler (cooler)
Eat it when you're ready
But maybe you'll choose (you'll choose, you'll choose, you'll choose)
A refreshing herbal tea

Mm, lovely!

Oh, by the way, I've cracked the code
I've figured out these shadow organizations
And the Illuminati know
That they're finally primed for world domination

And soon you've got black helicopters comin' cross the border
Puppet masters for the New World Order
Be aware: there's always someone that's watching you
And still the government won't admit they faked the whole moon landing
Thought control rays, psychotronic scanning
Don't mind that, I'm protected cause I made this hat

From aluminum foil (foil)
Wear a hat that's foil lined
In case an alien's inclined
To probe your butt or read your mind
Looks a bit peculiar ('culiar)
Seems a little crazy
But someday I'll prove (I'll prove, I'll prove, I'll prove)
There's a big conspiracy...

[seneschal]

Long before the corona scare my campaigns suffered from the dreaded lack of interested players virus, certainly a joy killer if not biologically dangerous.  However, since the latest ban in the U.S. limits meetings to 10 people (and most gaming groups are 3-5) you can still play on Friday afternoon (because your workplace is closed anyway) and attend synagogue on Saturday (10 Orthodox believers).  Whether you can eat pizza during the game depends on how observant you are (drive-through orders only).  It works out.

The disease is a genuine concern but the fear and restrictions it has generated are an equal and perhaps greater concern.  We're fighting over toilet paper while government on all levels commands us to hide in our homes?  And we meekly obey without question?  Every Walmart is a mob scene but we can't meet to worship or vote?  What's wrong with this picture?  I don't want one more person to get sick or die but we've essentially consented to tearing up the Bill of Rights while chasing the illusion of safety.

[Dethstrok9]

7 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Long before the corona scare my campaigns suffered from the dreaded lack of interested players virus, certainly a joy killer if not biologically dangerous.  However, since the latest ban in the U.S. limits meetings to 10 people (and most gaming groups are 3-5) you can still play on Friday afternoon (because your workplace is closed anyway) and attend synagogue on Saturday (10 Orthodox believers).  Whether you can eat pizza during the game depends on how observant you are (drive-through orders only).  It works out.

The disease is a genuine concern but the fear and restrictions it has generated are an equal and perhaps greater concern.  We're fighting over toilet paper while government on all levels commands us to hide in our homes?  And we meekly obey without question?  Every Walmart is a mob scene but we can't meet to worship or vote?  What's wrong with this picture?  I don't want one more person to get sick or die but we've essentially consented to tearing up the Bill of Rights while chasing the illusion of safety.

I'm assuming people here might call this a "conspiracy theory", but I completely agree, thank you!

[seneschal]

No conspiracy theory.  That would require human intention and planning, and a global plague is outside mankind's control.  However, our response to that disease is critical.  There are always those who attempt to take advantage of societal chaos.  Like the guy who attempted to corner the hand sanitizer market.  Or some politicians attempting to use emergency spending bills to push through their partisan funding priorities.  We must not allow fear to cloud our judgement.  We must be alert to unscrupulous behavior, from telephone scammers as well as from our leaders.  And we must be willing to accept risk to not only protect our God-given freedoms but to go about our daily lives.  Even before coronavirus you could catch something by shaking someone's hand, riding the bus, or using public toilet facilities.  So, certainly wash your hands, cover your mouth with an elbow when you cough or sneeze, stay out of people's faces, and don't hoard toilet paper (since the virus doesn't cause the runs anyway).  Most of all, don't live in fear. And don't let yourself be buffaloed by constant scare stories on the news.  Turn off the TV or radio for a bit and play Uno with your kids while you have the chance.  We'll all have to trudge back to our 10-hour shifts soon enough.

[Dethstrok9]

9 minutes ago, seneschal said:

No conspiracy theory.  That would require human intention and planning, and a global plague is outside mankind's control.  However, our response to that disease is critical.  There are always those who attempt to take advantage of societal chaos.  Like the guy who attempted to corner the hand sanitizer market.  Or some politicians attempting to use emergency spending bills to push through their partisan funding priorities.  We must not allow fear to cloud our judgement.  We must be alert to unscrupulous behavior, from telephone scammers as well as from our leaders.  And we must be willing to accept risk to not only protect our God-given freedoms but to go about our daily lives.  Even before coronavirus you could catch something by shaking someone's hand, riding the bus, or using public toilet facilities.  So, certainly wash your hands, cover your mouth with an elbow when you cough or sneeze, stay out of people's faces, and don't hoard toilet paper (since the virus doesn't cause the runs anyway).  Most of all, don't live in fear. And don't let yourself be buffaloed by constant scare stories on the news.  Turn off the TV or radio for a bit and play Uno with your kids while you have the chance.  We'll all have to trudge back to our 10-hour shifts soon enough.

Indeed.

[g33k]

2 hours ago, seneschal said:

Long before the corona scare my campaigns suffered from the dreaded lack of interested players virus, certainly a joy killer if not biologically dangerous.  However, since the latest ban in the U.S. limits meetings to 10 people (and most gaming groups are 3-5) you can still play on Friday afternoon (because your workplace is closed anyway) and attend synagogue on Saturday (10 Orthodox believers).  Whether you can eat pizza during the game depends on how observant you are (drive-through orders only).  It works out.

The disease is a genuine concern but the fear and restrictions it has generated are an equal and perhaps greater concern.  We're fighting over toilet paper while government on all levels commands us to hide in our homes?  And we meekly obey without question?  Every Walmart is a mob scene but we can't meet to worship or vote?  What's wrong with this picture?  I don't want one more person to get sick or die but we've essentially consented to tearing up the Bill of Rights while chasing the illusion of safety.

Except that (temporary) shelter-in-place & self-isolation is the ONLY technique we have that is effective.

(If we hadn't screwed up initial test-production, we might have tried that method, like S.Korea did (to good effect); but we're so far behind that curve we may not be ABLE to catch up even if we get test-production fixed).

This is neither panic nor conspiracy, it's fundamental disease-control.  It has been well-known for many years.  We just haven't had to face the realities of logarithmic disease-spread for so long that it's striking people as an unreasonable imposition on their "god given rights."

This isn't a civil-rights issue, it's a public-health emergency.

[seneschal]

It could easily become both if we don't keep our wits about us.  Is IS a panic, fed by the media for their own purposes.  They sneered at the U.S. President's attempts to limit the diseases' spread two months ago and now are blaming him for not doing enough to combat it.

The truth is that no amount of planning by any government, here or overseas, is proof against a new, fast-spreading organism whose traits and symptoms are not yet known.  The early tests offered by the World Health Organization proved to be ineffective.  And our annual vaccines against the regular well-known flu have checkered results.  How were we supposed to whip up effective tests and vaccines on the fly against a stealthy, no symptoms until it is too late, virus that most folks had never heard of until a couple weeks ago?  We went in a matter of days from "it isn't as bad as the common cold" to "lock yourselves in your houses and don't come out until we tell you to."

My family had to run errands today to get medicine and pet supplies.  The streets were quiet at 2 or 3 pm but got busier as the afternoon wore on and we traveled from the city to a nearby small town.  The drug and farm supply stores had several customers besides ourselves but the Walmart parking lots we passed were packed.  Sit down restaurants had sparse trade but those with drive-through windows had a reasonable amount of lunchtime business.  The animal shelter had a full lot -- mostly employee vehicles.  Didn't see any face masks.

Lessons Learned:

Avoid Walmart.  Go to the tractor store instead.  They've got multi-species probiotics to keep you healthy, and cedar chips smell better than Charmin anyway.  Plus, ducklings!

The bored Walgreens pharmacy window girl knows less about medicine than you.

For once, McDonalds drive-through is your friend.  And they're actually happy to see you now.

SMILE at the cat-loving ladies at the City animal shelter.  They're all packing.

Tubi has lots of free movies and TV shows you'll love to watch, since you're stuck at home.  Unless your wife seizes the remote first.

Edited March 18, 2020 by seneschal

[Jeff]

Everyone: this forum is for discussions of BRP. Talking about how the Coronavirus quarantines and shutdowns have affected your gaming (and what you are doing to get gaming time in) is fine - but this is not a place for discussing Coronavirus itself or about your thoughts about how well your local or national government is responding to it. Find another place to chat about that.

UPDATE: now that this has been moved to Alastor's Skull Inn, chat away on all of the above. 

Edited March 18, 2020 by Jeff

[MOB]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Everyone: this forum is for discussions of BRP. Talking about how the Coronavirus quarantines and shutdowns have affected your gaming (and what you are doing to get gaming time in) is fine - but this is not a place for discussing Coronavirus itself or about your thoughts about how well your local or national government is responding to it. Find another place to chat about that.

MOD HAT: moved this thread to Alastor's Skull Inn, where it properly belongs ("Forum for socializing, site news, feedback, conventions, other games & all the rest"). As Jeff stated, the BRP Forum is for discussions about BRP.

[Puckohue]

We (five ppl) played our bi-weekly face-to-face RQG-campaign yesterday, and will continue to do so.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Puckohue

[davecake]

We've had the occasional player that couldn't make the game in person play via Skype etc, and one player self isolated (due to what is likely a cold) last night, we are now using Slack (which has a nice like die roll app we use. We are planning to do that more if we have to, up to running our whole regular game via Slack/webex/Zoom etc and maybe something like Roll20. 

I'd like to know if anyone has suggestions other than the apps mentioned above. I know Roll20 has RQ support, don't know about alternatives. 

For those that did turn up, we have got everyone hand sanitising as they turn up, using individual bowls not sharing snacks, etc. 

We expect that my house will be isolated at some point, and I'm the  GM and host, as my wife is an emergency medicine doctor and so at significant risk. We'll soldier on somehow. 

[Cloud64]

RPG club is now not meeting, hand forced by the closing of the club where we meet. I expected it to be cancelled anyway, and I’d already decided not to go. Also, my group’s meet tonight cancelled, Dr’s orders to one of the players to not mix, and as we’re already one down no point in carrying on. 

[g33k]

I've got one game that we're going to try moving online.

I'm the most devoted gamer in the group; most of the others are never-before or only-rarely players.  However, I've never run online before.  I'm looking at these tools for the first time, really.  One of the players was actually the one who suggested moving online, using Zoom & document-sharing (not realizing, I think, that gamers have been working this issue intensively).

I'm looking at three platforms, mainly...

• Roll20, because of specific content support (this game is really about my niece, who specifically wanted D&D, so <shrug> LostMineOfPhandelver it is; Roll20 has a LMOP module (otoh re-buying the same content kinda rankles...).
• Astral, (astraltabletop) because they've made their paid/premium service free through end-of-April specifically to support covid-19 isolation, and I want to throw my (presumed, eventual) money behind the kind of folks who do that kind of thing; also, I know Astral did some CoC-specific stuff a few months ago, so I'm hoping all the BRPish mechanical issues will run smoothly. 
• DIY (based likely around Zoom, as per the original suggestion)

Also considering a "blended" model running Zoom (and/or other non-gaming-specific collab tools) alongside Roll20 or Astral.

My main considerations are two-fold:  ease-of-use (gonna have a mix of technically-adept and very-non-adept trying to make this work); also least GM-prep to run, as I'm already juggling a fair number of RL items.

Anyone with specific experiences with any of the above -- I'd love your input!

[Puckohue]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

I'd love your input!

I run a game on roll20 with discord for voice. I like roll20 but it’s not perfect.

good: Nice functions like dynamic lighting/fog of war. RQG character sheet with built in dice rolling Marcos. Some Free tokens etc to download.

not so good: takes time to prep sessions. For dynamic lightning the maps need to be worked on. To use the character sheet functions on npc:s you need one sheet per npc which becomes hard to handle.

also: no specific resources for RQG except a character sheet.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Puckohue

[HierophantX]

It’s forced me online which actually ironically means that I will finally run something. Had my son talk me through setting up a discord server via discord setting up boys etc.. so it’ll be Zweihander next week!

[Questbird]

On 3/19/2020 at 5:07 AM, g33k said:

I'm the most devoted gamer in the group; most of the others are never-before or only-rarely players.  However, I've never run online before.  I'm looking at these tools for the first time, really.  One of the players was actually the one who suggested moving online, using Zoom & document-sharing (not realizing, I think, that gamers have been working this issue intensively).

I'm looking at three platforms, mainly...

• Roll20, because of specific content support (this game is really about my niece, who specifically wanted D&D, so <shrug> LostMineOfPhandelver it is; Roll20 has a LMOP module (otoh re-buying the same content kinda rankles...).
• Astral, (astraltabletop) because they've made their paid/premium service free through end-of-April specifically to support covid-19 isolation, and I want to throw my (presumed, eventual) money behind the kind of folks who do that kind of thing; also, I know Astral did some CoC-specific stuff a few months ago, so I'm hoping all the BRPish mechanical issues will run smoothly. 
• DIY (based likely around Zoom, as per the original suggestion)

Also considering a "blended" model running Zoom (and/or other non-gaming-specific collab tools) alongside Roll20 or Astral.

My main considerations are two-fold:  ease-of-use (gonna have a mix of technically-adept and very-non-adept trying to make this work); also least GM-prep to run, as I'm already juggling a fair number of RL items.

Anyone with specific experiences with any of the above -- I'd love your input!

 

I've used Zoom to work from home recently and I've been impressed with its quality. It's pretty easy to use and allows screen sharing if you want to show maps or websites (eg. dice rollers or atmospheric pictures). I've asked my gaming gang if they want to try it on Friday, which was to be our regular meetup. One thing to note - I think the free tier of Zoom limits you to 40 mins (and 100 people but that's one big rpg session). However I don't think it's a problem if the meeting is called by someone on the paid tier -- but I can't confirm that. I suppose you could always have breaks every half hour or so if that did turn out to be a problem. Zoom is just a video/screen sharing app so it is fine for ease-of-use but doesn't give you any special gaming prep powers except for the screen sharing (which would require prep in order to remain immersive).

I haven't tried Roll20 (not a D&Der) or heard of Astral before, but I'd be interested to hear how you go with those.

[Loïc]

Hi! As I said in another topic, I tried Roll20. Twice as a player (Star Trek Next Generation and Te Deum pour un massacre), and once last friday as a GM (Astounding Adventures). Few personal remarks :

- I think you must carefully choose the game and genre. Some games entirely based on atmosphere should really have something missing (in my opinion). That's why I chose not to run a CoC ;

- I don't like very much battle maps (even as a player) and I prefer narrative scenes. So I used the "create map" function of Roll20 not to create maps, but to illustrate my scenes and NPCs. The players enjoyed it very much : about 6 or 8 pics for each scene, mainly some 1930/1950s Pulp magazines covers (the players said it offered very good immersion), plus the NPCs and handouts. For the characters' illustrations, I found some great pics on google images (all painted illustrations - in order to harmonize the screen) ;

- a good pulp scenario certainly helped the pleasure of this session. Enough rythm, etc. But wrong point : you can't really improvise and get off your initial scenario's scheme...

- of course, all my habits as a GM, like rolling the dice beyond my players' eyes to say them "I won't help you this time", were canceled... I could just speak, make voice effets/accents and so forth. Wrong point, but couldn't do otherwise...

- a word about BRP on Roll20 : there are already many character sheets registered here, including many  CoC editions, BRP fantasy, etc. Good point, economy of time...

Conclusion : you really can enjoy a game on Roll20, even if it doesn't match (for me) the pleasure of a "real" tabletop RPG. But this containment is also the opportunity to try Roll20 - or any other website of this kind. Surely, after the containment, I will return to tabletops and not gaming again online. But here, I have no choice (I'm in Mulhouse, the most contamined town in France - the containment is drastic here). At least, I can play RPGs, and I can stay in touch with my fellow gamers and spend cool evenings with them... - hey ! Isn't this what RPGs are about ???

By the way, I wish you all good courage and health during all this mess !!!

As usual, excuse my english, I'm french...😉

EDIT: Oh, and I'm curious to read / exchange your own experiences online (I'm talking about RPGs... 😁)

Edited March 30, 2020 by Loïc

[Loïc]

Oh! I forgot something : on Roll20, do prefer pregen characters (or already created PCs). I wouldn't try to make an online creation (or I would just give my players the creation process and let them do it...). For Astounding Adventures, I took CoC The Two-Headed Serpent pregens and let my players choose (just give them the names and the professions), after a few adaptations of course. It worked very well!