Tabletop RPG Podcast and Roleplaying Resources

Month: November 2017

Trial Run of GroupMe for Messaging and Scheduling

Folk, I’d like to try using GroupMe for a couple of weeks for all communication and scheduling for the Thursday Night Dice group. If we have a good experience, we’ll then try it out with the Saturday Night Dice group. If we all still like it after a month, we’ll consider switching over from Meetup to instead use GroupMe.

Until further notice, please respond to BOTH GroupMe and Meetup invites for Thursday Night Games.

Background

We’ve been using Meetup for over a year and although at the time it was the best featured product on the market for community scheduling, there’s been an ongoing complaint from a few about getting calendar notices for campaigns that folks are not in (this is a limitation with how Meetup works). This past week I had a chance to use the GroupMe app all weekend long at PAX Unplugged to chat with my fellow Expo attendees. It was a great experience. GroupMe does everything that SMS Chat does, but it (in my opinion) does it better).

General Observations

GroupMe works essentially like SMS text messages, but it is reliable (Meetup is not), and has a nice Desktop version you can use in your PC web browser. You can have real-time chats that integrate well with calendars and polls. I do think this will give us better engagement, and will let us segment calendars, polls, and chats to individual campaigns. The key downsides of GroupMe are that (1) it has powerful features, but it takes a bit of tweaking to ‘tune’ message notifications, (2) calendaring is more convenient for users, but a bit more tedious to GMs to set up, and (3) there won’t be one ‘global’ view of the calendar, so we’ll have to be extra careful not to schedule games over each other.

All in all though I still am willing to give it a try. (Google+ is still not an option; on iOS Google+ no longer has Events as an option).

Getting Started

Probably the easiest is to just follow the link I will email you (if you’re in the Thursday Night Dice group).

Alternatively:

  • On your desktop, visit GroupMe.com and register for a free account (if you don’t have one already).
  • On your phone, install the GroupMe app.

Getting To the Calendar and Polls

The one thing that isn’t intuitive (it’s a bit like Snapchat in some regards) is getting to the group ‘Menu’). Simply click on the icon of the group once you’re in it at the top right of the screen.

Feature Comparison

Stuff Meetup Does Better than GroupMe

  • Recurring calendar events
  • Waitlist Support
  • Guest Support (you can allow folks to add 0 guest, or maybe 2 guests for example)
  • Website integration (shows calendar on Dicehaven.com; not possible with GroupMe)
  • Month-view of calendar events (it appears this feature will disappear on Meetup after their new software update)
  • Sync with Google Calendar (GroupMe can do Google Calendar sync but it requires https://ifttt.com/connect/google_calendar/groupme app and looks complicated)

Stuff GroupMe Does Better

  • Free with unlimited groups
  • Segment multiple groups with each group having its own calendar events and messaging (we could have 4 or 8 sub-groups, with a specific group for each campaign, plus groups for things like Lone Star Game Expo planners)
  • Configure email reminders for events to be for custom days/times before event
  • Better, realtime chat notifications (Meetup’s are unreliable)
  • Mute Notifications for One Group or All Groups
  • Office Mode (notifications will not be sent to group members in order to minimize distractions)

Key GroupMe FAQs

Also see all the GroupMe FAQs.

PAX Unplugged 2017 Recap

I’m fresh back from PAX Unplugged! Here some highlights. I also have a few dozen additional photos related to the below you can check out.

Roll20 Gang

In Nov. 2012, I joined a game group that a guy named Nathan was setting up to test drive D&D Next. The group has been gaming together each week ever since! I had to (sadly!) drop out due to scheduling issues, but I’ve stayed in touch and count these guys as some great friends whom I game (or work) with every chance I get. I was able to get together with them at an AirBnB home in Philly and play games all weekend between attending PAX Unplugged. It was a blast!

Stan's Roll20 'Redmark' Group from 2012

Stan’s Roll20 ‘Redmark’ Group from 2012

Dungeonesque on Display

My distributor was selling my game Dungeonesque! Was cool to walk by and see it on sale. The other side of that rack had Savage Worlds and Traveller. Pretty cool to share space with those iconic games!

Dungeonesque Sold by Studio 2

Dungeonesque Sold by Studio 2

Dungeonesque on Display

Dungeonesque on Display

Damien, Managing Editor

Damien, Rogue Comet Managing Editor

Supers

I was thinking of John B. and his interest in superheroes. The three supers RPGs that I say on display were:

  • Mutants & Masterminds (Green Ronin) — a long popular game loosely based on D&D 3.x / d20. Most highly supported supers game out there.
  • Icons Assembled (also sold by Green Ronin, which I thought was interesting) — A lighter-weight game loosely based on Fate. Also well supported with many supplements.
  • Masks (Magpie Games) — Sold at another booth. This game is based on Apocalypse World. Looks like a cool game, but not much support outside the core rules and default setting.

(by the way, I asked the Green Ronin staff, and the official pronunciation for their company is “Green RonEEn” (rhymes with “bean” or “lean”)).

Mutants & Masterminds

Mutants & Masterminds

Icons Assembled

Icons Assembled

Masks RPG

Masks RPG

Fate of the Norns

I know Mason and Todd particularly love the setting of Fate of the Norns (even if there is some debate on how easy/hard the Rune mechanics work, and if their alt-Norse mythology is sufficiently ‘historical’). I saw their booth at the con. More pictures in the full album. View more photos in the  full album.

Fate of the Norns

Fate of the Norns

Micro Dungeon Games

I know Robert has shown interest in microgames focused on Dungeons. I saw two on sale. I bought a copy of ‘One Deck Dungeon’ if anyone wants to check it out. View more photos in the  full album.

One Room Dungeon

One Deck Dungeon

Boss Monster

Boss Monster

PolyHero Dice (Wizard Set)

Got to see the actual copies of the PolyHero Dice – Wizard Set which Mason and I backed. Should arrive to us in the mail in December.

Pre-Release Dice on Display

Pre-Release Dice on Display

OGRE Miniatures

Boy, do I have a soft spot for the old Steve Jackson microgrames of OGRE and G.E.V. After seeing these models on display, I might just put this game on my Christmas List.

OGRE Miniatures Game

OGRE Miniatures Game

A Quiet Year

Kevin has talked about A Quiet Year a few times. Would love to play it sometime. Cool, minimalist game.

A Quiet Year

A Quiet Year

Arena Rex

John S. is developing his Gladiator themed game, so it was interesting to see Arena Rex again at PAX Unplugged (they were at ReaperCon last month).

Arena Rex

Arena Rex

Chris Cocks (WOTC President)

Chris Cocks (head of Wizards of the Coast) spoke. Seemed like a great guy with a vision for doing cross-overs between Magic: The Gathering and D&D (among other things). Showed a bunch of preview art for future Magic card lines, but nothing new on the D&D front.

Chris Cox, Head of WOTC

Chris Cox, Head of WOTC

Fiend Folio

Back at the AirBnB, I ran another beta test of my Stranger Things inspired game, and let folks choose the monster. The gang chose a Khargra from the Fiend Folio. Love the art! Was fun to run this creature. Ended up playing out a game like Tremors with the creatures bursting out of the ground. Feedback was great on the rules! I think this has solid potential so I will continue to improve and expand this game system.

Monster from the Fiend Folio

Monster from the Fiend Folio

PAX Unplugged Review

So overall what did I think?

PAX Unplugged Guidebook

PAX Unplugged Guidebook

Feedback is underway on the PAX Unplugged Forum (I left some comments there) and on Reddit. Quick summary: they ran it like a PAX Expo which resulted in long lines for games, and no ability to preregister for anything. Expo hall was great, but gaming left much to be desired. Hopefully they’ll learn from their mistakes.

Robert, you should read the above to get a general sense of what RPG players are looking for at cons, plus some interesting ideas on how to improve the experience which could apply to Lone Star Game Expo.

Crowded PAX Exhibit Hall and Gaming Area

Crowded PAX Exhibit Hall and Gaming Area

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