How do you guys game?

[Sunwolfe]

I too am a FTF gamer--have been for the last 38 years. As we're all working adults, we get together when obligation, family and inspiration allows. I just closed up a RQ6 turned MW campaign and am presently in a D6 Star Wars game and a Warhammer Fantasy Role-play game. 

 

Paper and Pen/Pencils are the norm. Each player has a character folder or binder and something to write on. When I GM, I use my lap-top for reference though I have books--one or two--on the GM table or table-end; I also have a small binder of house-rules and campaign notes on hand, but I try very hard to keep such things at a minimum.

 

As a player, I use my Iphone messenger rather than handwritten notes to privately communicate with the GM or any of my fellow players. We prefer the feel of literally "rollin' the bones" and most of us have a personal dice tray for the job. We did have one player who went the virtual, but he soon returned to rolling the dice himself.

 

Cheers,

[seneschal]

Wow, this thread is overwhelmingly FTF w/o electronic assistance. It's a little strange for me to see that, since nearly everyone around me uses some form of digital sheet and electronic dice. Must be some generational gap since most of the people I know who RPG are under 25 years of age. 

There's some truth to that.  When you were in high school in the 1970s, you didn't have much money, certainly not enough to buy laptop computers, which at the time cost thousands of dollars.  In 2015, sophisticated electronics cost only hundreds of dollars.  But now you've got your kids in high school -- and as a result you still don't have much money.  Corner copy machine and softback rulebook is still the affordable way to go.

 

What?  You want the core rulebook in hardback?  Good luck sliding that $50-$100 non-essential purchase past the wife, bunkie!  (The kids meanwhile roll their eyes, go back to fiddling with their X-Box or Nintendo DS.)

[Chaot]

Up until last year all of my roleplaying was face to face.  While I was running BRP Ravenloft I decided to hybridize, buying a nice camera and mic so that it was easy to see and hear people at the table while a few people called in through google.  Over all I would rate it as a success and while I still prefer seeing people seated at my table it is a nice compromise.

 

Everybody has to wear pants though.  (The equivalent of pants are acceptable.)

 

For years it was pencil, paper, books and dice.  Now laptops and ipads are showing up.  I use an ipad for my rules books now, which feels odd.  I don't use online software though.

[soltakss]

Face to face, weekly at each others' houses.

 

One of our players plays twice a week, once with us and once with another RQ group.

[el_octogono]

Face to Face mostly, with a sporadic G+ meeting. Real dice, pencils an sheets with a notebook and/or a tablet, in addition to paper books.

[Mankcam]

There's some truth to that.  When you were in high school in the 1970s, you didn't have much money, certainly not enough to buy laptop computers, which at the time cost thousands of dollars.  In 2015, sophisticated electronics cost only hundreds of dollars.  But now you've got your kids in high school -- and as a result you still don't have much money.  Corner copy machine and softback rulebook is still the affordable way to go.

 

What?  You want the core rulebook in hardback?  Good luck sliding that $50-$100 non-essential purchase past the wife, bunkie!  (The kids meanwhile roll their eyes, go back to fiddling with their X-Box or Nintendo DS.)

Seneschal it's like you are living my life man, heh heh

[soltakss]

What?  You want the core rulebook in hardback?  Good luck sliding that $50-$100 non-essential purchase past the wife, bunkie!  (The kids meanwhile roll their eyes, go back to fiddling with their X-Box or Nintendo DS.)

 

That's one reason I only buy PDFs now - Nothing on the bookshelf, nothing coming through the post, no paper invoices and no easy way of finding out that I have bought it.

[clarence]

I play only with my family, face to face, perhaps once every two weeks. Pen, paper and dice. All necessary books on a trusty old iPad 2 running GoodReader. Mostly sci-fi the last year. Works fine. (I just wish GoodReader had something like "book piles" that could be saved. That way I could prepare all documents in advance, open books, maps, tables & NPCs - and then just save everything as a "pile" to open in the exact same state at the next gaming session. It would be a huge time saver).

[Rich Tom]

I have two groups that are basically weekly. We do pen and paper, although tablets are used for maps and PDF reference etc. I prefer face to face but with a gaming circle that includes Melbourne Australia, Staffordshire England and Valencia Spain necessity dictates Skype. I always GM which is also out of necessity. We play RQ, MW COC, BRP, Castles and Crusades, 1st Ed Chill, (yes and Crypt World),  C&S 2nd Ed, Star Frontiers, Traveller and Covert Ops, and an odd unpublished OSR that we've been kicking around for years. Every player is a personal friend so a bit like Clarence Post 33 it's like I just play with family. Oh and I seem to have the same wife budget as seneschal post 27

[KPhan2121]

There's some truth to that.  When you were in high school in the 1970s, you didn't have much money, certainly not enough to buy laptop computers, which at the time cost thousands of dollars.  In 2015, sophisticated electronics cost only hundreds of dollars.  But now you've got your kids in high school -- and as a result you still don't have much money.  Corner copy machine and softback rulebook is still the affordable way to go.

 

What?  You want the core rulebook in hardback?  Good luck sliding that $50-$100 non-essential purchase past the wife, bunkie!  (The kids meanwhile roll their eyes, go back to fiddling with their X-Box or Nintendo DS.)

You could get the kids into RPGs, now its not a waste of money but a tool for family bonding. Besides that aren't pdfs much cheaper than softback books and more useful since you could bookmark pages of the pdf you need to reference a lot. 

[camazotz]

Face to face tabletop, but a few of my players bring laptops, phones or tablets....I do have one group that is like GMing to a sea of laptops. 

 

Personally I don't use any devices as GM other than a tablet for emergency referencing of books I didn't bring. For me its old school all the way, electronics just end up distracting.

[Questbird]

Face to face tabletop, but a few of my players bring laptops, phones or tablets....I do have one group that is like GMing to a sea of laptops. 

 

Personally I don't use any devices as GM other than a tablet for emergency referencing of books I didn't bring. For me its old school all the way, electronics just end up distracting.

 

I agree, though I don't ban them at my table. People get distracted  by their phones (as always). I like to use an e-reader or tablet -- something fairly nondescript -- if I have to for a pdf reference or adventure. I've also written adventure notes, converted them to EPUB format and popped them on my ereader for use in session. Advantage of that is it's quite quick and the ereader is good at paging back and forth quickly and conserving power (PDF *not* so good).

[auyl]

I don't restrict the use of electronic items at my gaming table but I prefer to use dead-tree books myself, I just find it easier to reference a book since I usually am able to remember where things are in a book a rather than an electronic one.

[tooley1chris]

I honestly can't imagine playing anymore without a computer. I respect the 'old school' pointz of view expressed here but ever since i got my Commodore 64 ...100 years ago...I've been letting software that i either programmed myself or purchased do encounter /NPC /Character /treasure generation , track initiative, keep track of statuses, help me make maps, use maps and tokens for tactical displays, on & on...

To me it's not so much the tools used, or even the system played, that makes the game fun. The tools just help visualize the action and make my job as a Chronicler easier.

Would we have fun without computers? Sure. But to me it'd be like listening to a sports game on the radio while resting my feet on a perfectly good television that I refuse to turn on.

[Aini]

My groups tend to run these days on Fantasy Grounds 2, Google Hangouts, and probably soon Roll20 with a mixture of text and voice.

 

Older groups prior to my moving was often done on table top with mainly books and printed materials, though there was no ban on electronic devices this was mainly before the popularity of tablets, though we did sometimes bring up pdf's on laptops or phones in rare cases.

 

I can honestly say there are advantages to both ways, online tabletop has the advantage of a little more anonymity which can aid in visualisation for roleplay, i also know of some people who use voice changers to make their voice sound the way they picture their character's voice sounding which i find really quite cool, however i have still always found the table top method of sitting around with friends to be more fun.

[Dave the DM]

I play in person sporadically, I spend most of my time wishing I could get my group together more often. I use physical books when I can, pencils, paper (lots of paper when running Paranoia), pdfs (occasionally), and my brain. I don't use grids or minis, however I do sometimes draw crude maps. I've never run a campaign from a book and rarely use printed adventures. I run everything on the fly with minimal planning, though I'm working on developing good pre-planning skills.

[PoppySeed45]

I game once every 3-5 weeks, sadly, but at least it's regular - never miss a month! We game face to face, and since I normally GM, I use a tablet for just about everything except impromptu maps and the like. Everything else that's prepared I use the tablet for.

 

In terms of games, recently we're playing a cyberpunk Burning Empires hack, but I'm now planning a BRP one shot for next session because two of the players are going on vacation at that time (couple they are). I figure, this is as good a time as any to introduce the glory of BRP. I'm thinking it might be an easier compromise between "verisimilitude" (which Burning games gives in spades) and "ease of use" which, frankly, while I personally love it, BW doesn't do as well for my players. Also, I hate giving XP of any kind, and BRP sidesteps that nicely (same for BW really, which is why I prefer those games in the first place...).

[KPhan2121]

I play in person sporadically, I spend most of my time wishing I could get my group together more often. I use physical books when I can, pencils, paper (lots of paper when running Paranoia), pdfs (occasionally), and my brain. I don't use grids or minis, however I do sometimes draw crude maps. I've never run a campaign from a book and rarely use printed adventures. I run everything on the fly with minimal planning, though I'm working on developing good pre-planning skills.

Have you considered trying out roll20.net? It's a website where people can come together to play online games, its quite good if you can't play locally as often as you'd like. 

[Dave the DM]

Have you considered trying out roll20.net? It's a website where people can come together to play online games, its quite good if you can't play locally as often as you'd like. 

I would but thanks to a distinct lack of money my monthly bandwidth is severely limited.

[michaelsbagley]

I would but thanks to a distinct lack of money my monthly bandwidth is severely limited.

The service is free (although the more robust features are only included in paid for accounts), and it can be used on low speed internet... However, you would likely want to mainly use typed text, or maybe just voice instead of video.

[threedeesix]

Most of my RPGing is done electronically even if my group plays face to face we use laptops instead of character sheets and dice. We use a software called Maptools and I've been using a modified version of Booga's CoC 6th Edition Framework. How do you guys game? Do you prefer online using voice chat or in person? Do you use electronic tools or use good old fashion character sheets and dice? If so, why do you prefer one over the other? 

 

We do things oldschool.

 

First I tear the plastic off the game box and carefully place its contents on the table.

I then discuss the game with my players as I color in the dice with the included crayon.

Once the dice have been prepared, I tear out one sheet of notebook paper for each of my players and tell them what to write on it for their character sheet; Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, etc.

 

Ok, maybe we haven't done things that way in a long time.

 

I typically play face to face with a combination of dead-tree books and a lap top. All dice rolls on my part are using physical dice from behind my GM screen. All player die rolls are physical as well. Other than that I have no problem if the players are using books or tablets for referencing rules. They don't typically use laptops for space limitations.

 

Half of my players are the same ones that have been playing with me since 1978, the other half joined within the last 20 years. We all live within 20 minutes of each other so we really have no need to play online. A few years ago, we were playing twice a week, unfortunately, with my current workload play has slowed down. I finally got a chance to play again three weeks ago for the first time in over two years.

 

We plan to pick it up again in about a month with bimonthly sessions.

 

Now where did I put that crayon?

 

Rod

[Questbird]

 

I typically play face to face with a combination of dead-tree books and a lap top. All dice rolls on my part are using physical dice from behind my GM screen. All player die rolls are physical as well. Other than that I have no problem if the players are using books or tablets for referencing rules. They don't typically use laptops for space limitations.

 

Half of my players are the same ones that have been playing with me since 1978, the other half joined within the last 20 years. We all live within 20 minutes of each other so we really have no need to play online. A few years ago, we were playing twice a week, unfortunately, with my current workload play has slowed down. I finally got a chance to play again three weeks ago for the first time in over two years.

 

We plan to pick it up again in about a month with bimonthly sessions.

A few years ago I found our roleplaying sessions were being crowded out by boardgames so I organised a monthly roleplaying-only session. It would be nice to play more but we all have families, other commitments etc. However having a regular fixed session has been good for other reasons. The 'show must go on' on RPG night, which helps faltering campaigns, wannabe GMs, tired GMs, disorganised GMs and occasionally trying new games or one-off adventures.