IRC Protocol and online RPGs

[JamesDJIII]

I was wondering if any of your have had experience with playing RPGs via IRC (or similar chat mediums)?

Do you know of any Social Contracts that explicitly deal with how to handle this medium? How about the effects of the medium on the way play if changed, good or bad?

Thanks in advance!

[TonyLB]

Ron had a bit of a rave about Code of Unaris, which is a game recently written specifically for use with IRC.  No other medium will do.

I haven't played it, but the thread I quote has quite a bit of discussion that is probably relevant.

[Vaxalon]

I play via IRC all the time.

You will find that, compared to FTF, things will take longer, tempers will be shorter, and misunderstandings will come thick and fast.

Patience is the first requirement.

[M. J. Young]

I ran a game in an AOL chatroom for maybe a year or so, and learned a great deal from it.

[*]You lose almost all the clues you use in live play. You can't use voices or mannerisms or anything like that to communicate who is talking; you can't indicate to whom you are speaking by looking at him. You have to type emotive descriptives, like that the character is angry, or laughing, or furtive. It takes a lot longer to do everything because of this, even apart from the fact that no one types as fast as he can talk.[*]Look-ups become a problem. When I'm running a live game, I can talk and keep the game going while I'm flipping through a book or making notes or checking my notes or rolling dice or any of a number of other things that use my eyes and my hands. When you play in a chat room, you converse with your eyes and hands, and that means you don't have them for these other things, and that also slows the game.[*]I don't know IRC, but on AOL we had a lot of traffic with people popping into the room and throwing themselves into the game without any regard for the fact that it was a refereed game. We could have taken a private room, but part of the point of that was to show the game to people, so it was Hobson's Choice there.[*]It was easy to fall behind. When players started getting really active, the text would scroll pretty fast, and you had to pay attention lest you miss something important. This further complicated any use of reference books, whether rules or settings or character sheets.[*]AOL does have random number generation built into the chat rooms. If you type the right command it returns a die roll for you. I found it most convenient to keep commands for the essential die rolls in a text document from which I could quickly copy/paste to make them work, particularly if it was likely that I would use the same roll several times in succession.[/list:u]
I probably wouldn't attempt it again, although I might if I knew the players well and could get a private room.

Hope that helps.

--M. J. Young

[JamesDJIII]

M. J. Young,

Thanks! That was the sort of advice I was seeking.

We plan on using OpenRPG (I think that's the name). Privacy of the room is a given, so we wont have to deal with unwanted interruptions.

The game http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12692 Code of Unaris does explicitly use the medium as a feature of play.

I think what I am wondering about now is anyone has seen a protocol amongst people who are playing that reduces the confusion and "overlap" between responses.

I understand that speed will be reduced - I've seen that before. I will make it a point to make sure the player's understand that the metabolism of player communication will be slower.

What I'd really like to adress, in a written Social Contract, are the rules for "speaking" as a player in the game, that is, informing the other players and the GM what they are doing, saying, or trying to achieve with a game mechanism. I'd like this protocol to reduce the instances where one player tries to "out shout" the others ("I said it first, therefore, I GO first!").

I am also aware that some games remove this problem with their turn order resolution mechanics, but I want to make the players respect this problem up front and right from the start.

I imagine some sort of text tag that indicates: "ok, I'm done, y'all can talk now", or, "I aint done yet, more text to follow."

Suggestions?

(Thanks for the responses so far, gentlemen. Keep 'em coming.)

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

My very brief experience with the medium is that speed of response is actually quite fast, equivalent to face-to-face. What slows things down is the disconnection among what's being said.

If one person is trying to get information about who's standing where, if another is frantically trying to "hit him!" (i.e. a foe), and still another wants clarification of whether a starflower glows brightly or brightly glows, then there needs to be a way to negotiate announcements and in-game actions.

In other words, IIEE. That's what chat-medium play apparently needs to evolve, and although it may gain some clues from things like Sorcerer's and Trollbabe's "free and clear" phase, it will also certainly make use of the new medium's strengths just like hacking did, in ways that are hard to foresee.

Best,
Ron

[TonyLB]

How about military radio protocols?

"Over"
"Out"
"How do you read me?"
"Read you five by five"
"Roger, wilco"

These were custom made for embedding in the main text of a conversation to talk about the structure and quality of the conversation itself.

I particularly like "Read you five by five"... which refers to the quality (first) and strength (second) of a broadcast, on a scale of 1 to 5.  So "five by five" means clear and loud.  "Five by two" means free of static but so faint as to be almost inaudible, and so on.  This strikes me as something you could easily use on the internet in general... particularly "You are broadcasting very loud, but I am not getting your meaning" translates to "I read you only 1 by 5".

[LordSmerf]

One thing that has not yet been mentioned here is the use of multiple channels.  Every IRC game that i have been involved with took at least two seperate channels: one for In Character (SIS) information and one for Out of Character (negotiation, metagame, dice rolling).  If a game grows large enough it is possible to open up a second (or third or whatever) In Character channel to facilitate simultaneous handling of multiple scenes.

So, having a second channel is, as i see it, a must have.  Additionally, if you want to indicate that you are not finished talking a simple "..." at the end of a line of text is a great indicator.

Thomas

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Really? The IRC session I was in just treated all communication at once. Just as a preference thing, I think I'd like to keep it that way. The idea of looking at different windows to process all the information seems silly to me. I can count the games in which the widely-vaunted IC/OOC distinction matters or makes sense on the fingers of one hand.

I really like the idea of that military-radio protocol.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Ron, its not so much an IC vs OOC difference.

Its a "this has officially occured in the SIS" vs. this is still being negotiated and worked out.

That way everying posted in the IC channel is clearly something that has happened and its not cluttered up with rules queries, debates, IIEE issues, mechanics, etc.

[Vaxalon]

Lots of IRC games log the IC channel as a way of keeping a history of the events in the game.  You don't want things like "Wait, there's a guy in the corner, too?  I thought that was the red-haired guy we just killed" in the history.

[greyorm]

I think what I am wondering about now is anyone has seen a protocol amongst people who are playing that reduces the confusion and "overlap" between responses.

No, not to my satisfaction, at least -- but I may be searching for perfection in that regard and thus coming up disappointed.

One of the things my group has attempted to utilize is the "Just Do It" rule: that is, if you want to do something, you just do it and roll for it. Don't bother asking, "Hey, can I..?" or "Is it possible to..?" or whatever. If you want to try it, act as though you've asked and I've said, "Yeah, that's possible."

The reason I set this up is because I was finding huge chunks of play time were being devoted to unnecessary Q&As: the vast majority of the time, the answer was "Yes, you can." This is a sort of "get on with the game, damnit" ruling on my part.

If the answer is no, I can say that after the attempt, and the attempt can be cancelled or modified -- we collectively forget about it -- but since that happens so rarely, since the answer is usually "yes", it is no big deal to do so, and is actually much faster than pre-checking attempts.

This applies for the included rolling as well. If a player says, "I'm attacking the nearest orc with my bastard sword," waiting for the GM to confirm this ("OK, Roll") each instance is a huge waste of time. The game runs much, much faster if the usual rolls for an action are simply made without waiting for GM confirmation. This extends to any level of event. For example, since we play 3E, an attack's damage is something else that is just rolled, and then simply ignored if the to-hit roll failed.

So, rather than:
Player: "I'm attacking the nearest orc with my bastard sword."
<waits>
GM: "Ok, go ahead."
<waits>
Player: "I rolled a 17. Does that hit?"
<waits>
GM: "Yep."
<waits>
Player: "I rolled a 12 for damage."
<waits>
GM: "The orc drops dead."
Etc.

You get:
Player: "I'm attacking the nearest orc with my bastard sword. I rolled a 17 to-hit and 12 damage."
<waits>
GM: "Your swing misses."
or
GM: "Your swing connects, and the orc drops dead."

Another example, this applies to initiative rounds as well. If it is your turn to go (as determined by the initiative rolls), you do not wait for the GM to say, "OK, it is your turn." You simply announce your action and roll because it is understood by the rules and pre-determined order that, "It is now my turn to act."

Waiting for GM confirmations is one of the main things from FTF gaming that slows down chat-based play an incredible amount, even though in FTF gaming it is an absolute non-issue, a blip time-wise.

Second, it is very important (and I cannot stress this enough) to put the rules of interaction up front, and to remind players on a weekly basis about them until they are habit.

One of my mistakes for a long time was announcing a "new rule" (or whatever) and then expecting it to be remembered afterwards. I quickly found that it was not. Repetition is key. GM "coaching" is key; saying, "Don't forget, you should blah-blah-blah here," when you are trying to get a particular method of interaction to become habit. You can even encourage rule recall with, "Maybe you don't want to do that? The rules say blah, blah, blah...want to try that instead?"

I imagine some sort of text tag that indicates: "ok, I'm done, y'all can talk now", or, "I aint done yet, more text to follow."

Suggestions?

What we've utilized in our games more-or-less successfully (I say that as we occassionally forget to use them) is the inclusion of a simple [more...] or just [...] after our text to indicate we are not done yet and more is coming, and when we are done, a simple [ga] (for "go ahead) or [done] to indicate that we are done (hrm, you could use [#] or something if you are really into using symbols rather than words -- as I find using indicator words jarring in game text, myself).

In addition, you could also try out a clever use of Charisma or other personality score: the player whose character has the highest score gets to talk first. When they are done, or they idicate they are not acting, the next person gets to go.

I hope you find some of that useful, James!

[Marco]

1. For small groups (1 GM, 2 players) ICQ offers a "see each letter as it is typed mode"). Yes, these are all in different windows--but it reduces the wait-factor (and you can interrupt or respond during another thought).

2. I've had some success typing long blocks of text as individual sentences with dashes or ellipsis to indicate more text was coming. Keeps things moving.

3. Using a chat system that has dice rolling built in helps a good deal. The GM can interpret results as fast as the players can.

4. communication is a lot more ... "literary." Your character "says things excitedly" or "meanders over by the grove of trees" and so on. Lacking some clues or a really fast clarification system, it helps to think in a descriptive mode.

5. I haven't had problems with tempers or misunderstandings in my (comparatively) small amount of gaming--but the online medium does present possible problems in miscommunication. I tend to use parentheses for OOC comments and using/encouraging the use of player comments would, IMO, help a lot.

I've found online gaming to be a very valuable addition to my repertoire--not because I have trouble finding games at home but because online IRC games offer me a chance to play with people I would because of where we live, likely never get to meet.

-Marco

[jdagna]

I think there are probably some good threads in the past about IRC communication.

For my part, I've found the following help a lot:

1) Character dialogue always goes in "" marks, while player dialogue is normal.  Character actions can be done with a /me command or just said as player dialogue.  This greatly clarifies what characters actually say out loud.  I prefer not to use two different channels, but I can see where that would also help.

2) If you're typing a message that directly relates to something someone said, put their name at the beginning.  For example:
Player 1: Can I open the safe?
Player 2: Do I find anything in the drawer?
GM: P1: No.
GM: P2: Yes.
This example shows how putting the person's name is necessary to avoid complete chaos when requests may overlap like that.

3) If you have something long to type, start by saying "typing..." so we know to look for something from you soon.  If you can't finish it at once, end with "..." or "more..." to let us know that.  GMs should try to write out key descriptions ahead of time (like, the day before if possible).

4) Always type in complete sentences (or thoughts, anyway).  I can't count the number of times, something like this has happened:
GM: You see see the legendary gem in the drawer
GM: but its just an illusion
In this case, the two lines may get separated by other comments, making it hard to tell what's just an illusion... and players may miss the second line anyway and think they've found what they want when they haven't.  

4a) As an addendum, always state the intent of your action.  "I move over beside the gap" is not as good as "I want to be in position to ambush the enemies as they come through the gap."  Some players want to game the GM by keeping their intentions secret... I think it's stupid in face to face gaming, but it winds up creating huge communication problems in IRC.

4b) Part of the problem in the example given is due to lack of punctuation.  If you don't use periods, commas, consistent capitals, etc. it's hard to parse out.  Certainly this would have been more clear:
GM: You see see the legendary gem in the drawer...
GM: ... but its just an illusion.
Thus, players should work to include proper punctuation and grammar.  I explained to one player like this: Bad grammar and punctuation on IRC are the equivalent of mumbling with your mouth full in a regular game.

5) During combat, state your action and roll the dice* at the same time and without regard to order.  The GM will then parse this based on initiative and ask questions if necessary to clarify who did what when.  There's nothing more stupid than people sitting around idle, waiting for the GM to say "It's your turn" before they start typing.
* I have typically had people roll the dice at home and tell me what they got.  Ultimately, IRC options for dice-rolling proved more of a hassle than they were worth, and I wouldn't play with someone I didn't trust anyway.

Oh, and I've had enormous problems with attendance over IRC vs regular gaming.  For example, in my regular groups we get about 90% attendance (one person missing every other game or so), but in IRC games, it runs more like 50%.  On top of that, I often have people show up an hour late and then leave two hours early in a four-hour session.  It blows my mind - no one would do that in a face to face game - but it happens so often, I have to think it's fairly common.  I'm not sure how to impress upon people the importance of actually attending the game, so it's probably a good idea to be selective in who you permit to play in the first place.

[Shreyas Sampat]

As an addendum to Justin's post - while for comparatively dice-light games like Shadows, a dicebot will be of limited use, with things like Exalted where pools of unwieldy sizes are rolled frequently, a well-crafted bot (which interprets your results as well as generating them) is a godsend.