I’ve been wanting to try running some games on Google Wave, and I think I will start with a short term Traveller game. Greywulf over at Greywulf’s Lair set up some waves showing the sort of thing you can do to set up a game, and I plan on taking what I like from his setup and apply it for my game.

Here’s what I’m thinking – A sandbox style game, taking place in the Traveller Universe. Maybe traders on a ship, maybe hired guns, depending on the players. While I’ll probably want to continue it beyond this, I only want to commit to one job or episode for now.
The game would mostly run as a play by post over Wave, though I also want to try at least one session scheduled realtime (possibly with a skype call going at the same time).

For at least the first chapter, you’ll have to be on Wave. Once I’ve got the “Try Wave Out” bug out of my system, I may be open to playing using more mature online gaming tools.
Let me know if you’re interested in playing (I’d be shooting for at least one post per day, and one live session, to see how that works)

I’ll probably get a recruiting thread up on Wave tomorrow. [Update: Recuitment/Discussion Thread now active]

Image courtesy of Traveller 3D

http://at-will.omnivangelist.net/2009/11/the-waves-the-thing-looking-for-gamemasters/

Submissions close this Wednesday, (the 11th), so if you’re interested, post your pitch on At-Will (100 words or less) and take a shot. (There are a bunch of waves pledged, so there are going to be multiple winners)

On Wave and mode.

You’re not really supposed to be able to edit a gadget in while viewing a blip, and with Fighty, I’ve learned why. If someone’s dragging the map around, and someone else is working with markers, they get really messed up. Also, the playback feature and the new items feature is practically useless, because every time someone pans the map, or zooms out, that’s a new change.

So, what I’ve done is made the map static most of the time. Here’s how it’s gonna work (for now)

Of you’re editing the blip containing the map (you can tell because you have text formatting buttons up top), everything works the way it always had. You can drag, add and delete markers, and they get updated everywhere. If you pan or zoom, they get updated for everyone in view mode.

If you’re in view (or any other) mode, you can watch. You’re able to pan around, you can zoom in or out, but someone in edit can recenter your map, or change the zoom level. You lose the add marker button. And you can look all you want, without triggering a wave update.

If this is horrible, let me know, this is the best way I can come up with addressing this issue, and it gets what to me seems to be a big usability problem taken care of, so I can focus on fun stuff (like getting icons to work), and maybe even some gaming.

When d20/3E came out, I was so far away from Fantasy role-play, and set enough in my ways, that I wasn’t impressed with the changes (a gamer not likeing a new edition of D&D, never!). I didn’t really dig into the system till 3.5 came out. I was in the group that was mad that miniatures were listed as required, I mean this is D&D isn’t it? All you should need is dice, paper, and your books…

And I moved on. The funny thing is, sometime between when I stopped playing 2E, and now, traditional RPG’s became a thing that required minis to work. I know this isn’t really true, because I remember playing and having a blast without battlemaps and whatnot.

Just recently, I pulled out my old 1e core books from storage, and went through it. Best I can figure is I either ignored or winged tracking who was and wasn’t in melee, how tough it would be for someone to engage/disengage, and flanking/terrain advantages.

I mostly play 4E these days, and I’ve always so far used counters & maps/tiles to track combat location. What I wonder is, how tough would it be do hold all that stuff in your head, and would it make things more fun?

Are miniatures no different from initiative trackers, power cards, and hit point tracks? Just tools that take some of the cognitive load off the players? And does the clear representation of the battlefield that they provide impair the narrative of an encounter?

Comments welcome.

So, I want to try it this week. I’m do it in the evenings (EST 7-12). Drop me a line (wherever) if you’re interested with when would be best, and when would be right out. We’ll be playing over skype, and using http://www.catchyourhare.com/diceroller/ for dice. If things go well, I’d like to make a habit of this, but there’s no commitment to try.

For those of you who don’t know, Burning Wheel is a fantasy role-playing game. What makes it different (to me) from most others out there, is that since it focuses on what your character wants and believes, you end up with the sort of things happening in the game that mirror fiction better than most traditional RPGs. People new to role-playing games are welcome too, if you want to give it a try, I want to show you (this goes for any games I play).