Google + hangouts

Awesome Things

Eureka!

So, As I've pointed out a few times, I currently live rather far away from the majority of my friends due to an unfortunate incident involving injury and hospital time. Thus, whilst I've been in my medical exile over the last year, I have been forced to go from  roleplaying with the chums once or twice a week, to once or twice every few months (if I'm lucky) each time I'm able to make it back onto the mainland to visit. As of last night, this has changed, as I have finally managed to get some of my friends together (along with some new ones) and started playing online. This has been made possible Via Google + Hangouts.

I know some of you out there are saying "well no shit Sherlock, online gaming has been a thing for a while", to which I reply, "I know". But I like to cover all my bases before I start something big like this and, having done my due diligence, I have discovered it works quite well. With Google + Hangouts one can host a VIDEO chatroom with up to 10 people total, screenshare notes and maps, and generally get up to much of the shenanigans that one can whilst in person without all that bother of actually arranging a place to play. With the addition of a great app called Scoot and Doodle, a little paint program that all can access and edit which works a treat for encounter mapping (and is saveable as well as shareable to facebook for others to laugh about), almost all the tools you need for online pen and paper gaming is available in one neat little package.

As an interesting aside, there is a group working on a G+ hangouts dice roller app, which is AWESOME, as the honour system for individual dice rolling isn't really an option for some groups.

So, how did it go?
Smashingly!

Once the group settled in, and my brother stopped farting around with hats and meme face replacers.... The game went wonderfully, with the action starting off almost instantly, and a daring prison escape against all odds (Seriously, they rolled crap and got almost wiped out by falling masonry!) the group made it to land and can now set about putting the punk into Cyberpunk!

Good times.

So, for those who are looking into various SIMPLE (*cough cough* I'm looking at you Roll20*cough cough*) programs for running pen and paper games online, I give a very thankful and huge thumbsup to Google + Hangouts.

Until next time,
Pirate hats and sound effects do not, a serious game make.
Bean out~