TRoS online

[Emiricol]

I'm saving up to buy TRoS.  It will be the first non-D&D, non-D20 game I've bought in... oh... 13 or 14 years.  I used to play a lot of non-D&D games, but that was when I didn't have job/house/family to squeeze into my limited number of hours of life each week.

As an aside, the whole GNR discussion is something I'd never heard of before, but I'm definitely going to also check out Universalis...

Anyway, my questions are these; if you were to play TRoS in a play-by-post fashion, how would you do it?  Combat seems problematic for other than face-to-face play. Likewise, how would you play it in a virtual tabletop game (such as using OpenRPG or WebRPG)?

The ideas I get may make the difference between "yet another cool game I never get to play," and the much better "cool game I get to play, even if only online."  I'm sure you'll agree that playing is a much better outcome than not playing ;)

[ZenDog]

Did you get it Emircol? I know you've seen how my online game works as you've posted to it, if you have any questions I'd be glad to help?

[Emiricol]

I ordered it last night :)  Not sure how long it takes to ship, though.  Hopefully not too long!  Thank you for the offer - I might just have to take you up on that at some point.

Very much enjoying reading your game by the way.  The story seemed compelling, and is half the reason I finally got off the fence and decided to buy the game.

[Mike Holmes]

Not possible to get a FTF game going?

I think that if you established some strong protocols that you could do TROS combat by post. It would still be very long, but not impossible.

The same goes for OpenRPG and the like - really just like IRC (you don't need the "tabletop," really). Have set shorthand notation for stating things, and a tight flow of the action. These are key.

Not the optimum game for online, but it can be done. In fact has been done in Indie Netgaming (see my sig).

Mike

[Emiricol]

Hi Mike,

A search of the archives for tros and riddle both turned up nothing, though a search on "online" did turn up a number of things.  I don't think they related to Riddle of Steel though.

I imagine the map portion of OpenRPG is about useless (even counterproductive) for TRoS play, but I like the dicebot and whisper features.  I ought to get more familiar with IRC though.  I have a client for it after all...

One question in general - when throwing the red/white dice for initiative (if I have that right - don't have the book yet), it has to be at the same time, right?  If that's so, how would one accomplish that online?

As a sidenote, the more I read about the combat system, the more I think I'll probably want IRC more than a play-by-post venue for the game.

-Emiricol

[Mike Holmes]

One question in general - when throwing the red/white dice for initiative (if I have that right - don't have the book yet), it has to be at the same time, right?  If that's so, how would one accomplish that online?

I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure. For one, I think a lot of people here play by the "dramatic initiative" rule that says, basically, you'll know who threw red by their declaration. If you see typed in IRC:

"That's it, I charge his stinking ass, to put my steel through his ribs."

Then you know who threw red.

But if you need to do it secretly, then the two sides in question just send a private note to a third party who reveals them after he gets them both.

Very important to play this way is the "cascade" method. Do a search here for my posts on it. Essentially you should never have more than two combatants going at once. Even if twelve people are fighting.

Mike

[ZenDog]

I do it 'live in chat'

Lee says:
1
Lee says:
2
Lee says:
3
col says:
w
Lee says:
r

but there are only two of us so this works ok, not sure if it would be so easy with multiple players/combats

[Emiricol]

Both excellent suggestions.  Thank you.  

Via IRC, how suitable is TRoS for solo play with just one player?  What would be the largest group you'd recommend?

Sidenote: I'm a bit irritated that I missed the part on the website where it states books are shipped the Monday after the order was made.  It means I'll have to wait a full week plus however long actual shipping takes (which isn't mentioned).  But I'll live.  Somehow.  /angst

[Mike Holmes]

Via IRC, how suitable is TRoS for solo play with just one player?  What would be the largest group you'd recommend?

I'm guessing one player is quite suitable for TROS IRC. Personally, I'd probably play with two and no more than three at the most. I think the game works best with that many players in general. For IRC less is more here.

Mike

[Ingenious]

Speaking as one who has had many an IRC duel.. one free for all involving three people..(myself included)...
I have noticed that IRC is a perfect realtime replacement for face-to-face play. It has a built-in dice rolling system..private messages built-in, and if you need to use visual aids.. you can either send files.. use a webpage.. a second chatting apparatus.. etc etc.

Declaring initiative was done in IRC by myself and co, as well as through AIM.
As I have said in the past.. it is a hell of alot better than play by post.

-Ingenious

[ZenDog]

One on One works really well in chat based games. Like mike I imagin two or three would be the upper limit (four hours of typing gets tiring even with one player).

Prep as much as you can in advance, write up your intro any set pieces if you can. I was able to do that in our first two sessions becasue we were playing in the PC's past. From here on in though it's all about the players choices, so set peices get replaced with 'by the seat of yer pants typing.

Talk to your players a lot find out what they want to do and where they want to go, this should help with the prep work.

I'm going to do something that is new for me and my player (we're both old skool casualties) by allowing him to see scenes between play sessions that his player couldn't see as if it were a movie he is watching.

As for dice we just roll real dice and type in the results (I have a bucket of dice and I want to use them).