Hi All,

I have more or less by accident stumbled to a few fellow forumites in the Real World as well, and had very nice time chatting with them and exchanging gaming anecdotes and opinions.

And just today, another forumite contacted me about a possibility of a face-to-face meeting... and unfortunately was half the continent off as to where he thought I lived. Not too bad, at least the right side of the Atlantic!

My meetings have mostly been hanging on a simple off-handed comment:
'Oh, I am in city X on a work trip, so I will be slow in responding to your question.'
'City X!? I live like 20km from there! Want to meet for a dinner?'
'Cool! Name the time and place and lets make this happen!'

Naturally, such happy accidents would be easier to arrange, had we known in advance where the other person would have lived.

As it turns out, the forum profile seems to allow location information. Now, I am not encouraging anyone to put their home addresses up there, but perhaps a city and a country(/state for USA) would be good? That is, assuming you wouldn't mind meeting fellow Pendragon enthusiasts from time to time, or at least hearing about a possibility of them being in town. :)

And who knows? If we find out that a bunch of us is living in relatively close proximity, we might even try to start up some kind of micro-con to meet up some day?

Best wishes,
Morien


EDIT:
Ah, looks like you will only find the location if you actually click the name and go to a person's profile. Who on earth has time for that!? :P So, I'll go ahead and add my location information in here, too, and encourage people who reply to this thread to add their location here as well. That way, it is relatively painless to see who might be living in, say, London, UK, and interested in meeting fellow Pendragon enthusiasts. Just skim this thread.

So, ahem, let me get started:
Helsinki, Finland
(but quite a bit of travelling due to work and leisure)

I'm in Houston, Texas.

I'm going to be in England in late July/early August on a whirlwind site-seeing tour (mostly Welsh castles, but also Glastonbury, Stonehenge, Winchester and Longdon —maybe Leicester), but I doubt I'll have much time for a visit. On the other hand if you happened to be in the vicinity of one of our many stops, you could join me and my wife at one of the sites, or maybe we could manage a meal in a local pub or something — we still gotta eat!

T.

I live by the sea in northern California among the redwoods and mountains. The real north, not the SF Bay area--the area by Eureka.

I live by the sea in northern California among the redwoods and mountains. The real north, not the SF Bay area--the area by Eureka.


When I saw you say the real north, I just about choked... Then I realized you were talking about California. I live in the real north. Where even pro hockey players don't want to go. lol

As I'm the geographically challenged person mentioned by Morien above. I feel honorbound to answer this (excellent) thread.

I live in Bergen, Norway. Basically Bergen is built on the rainiest mountain slope in Norway, right by the sea. It's very beautiful. And very rainy.

No-one here plays KAP.

(I used to live in pancake-flat Skåne, in southern Sweden. It's like moving from Salisbury to the Grampians. Or from Illinois to Oregon.)

Sharpskytten, you should start a campaign on Roll20.net!


T.

I am from a small village called Bennekom in the Netherlands. If you are ever in the neighborhood let me know.

Sharpskytten, you should start a campaign on Roll20.net! T.


I guess so. I'm just so ... conservative (not politically!); There is something about sitting four or five persons around a table.

And right now, in my life, with a daughter thats one and half years old, I really don't have much time or energy. There will come a time, though, when I return!

I guess so. I'm just so ... conservative (not politically!); There is something about sitting four or five persons around a table.


I was just talking about that with one of my old players. Nowadays, with everyone spread out, we manage to gather like two-thirds of the playgroup for a semi face to face like once or twice per year. Most of the other time, we play via the internet. And while it is working out better than not playing at all, there are some things you miss out on: visual cues, the ease of just flipping a map open and gesturing, drawing a quick illustration, etc. And of course, just hanging out with friends. It is not quite the same thing when you are just hearing their voices.

Although virtual tabletops can never be as good as having friend at a table in some ways, it has some benefits that compensate mightily. First to address you points:

1. Visual cues: I don't know exactly what you're thinking of here, but Roll20 features built-in video chat. You can see you players in real time and they can see you. Very much like sitting at the table — only they can be anywhere in the world, which means you're more likely to find a group that shares your passion for a given game enough to commit to regular, or semi-regular sessions. that right there is a big attraction for virtual gaming.

2. Flipping a map open and gesturing: You can flip open a map in Roll 20. You can also allow players to accumulate handouts in a library that they can refer to whenever they need want. As for gesturing, you can't exactly gesture with a virtual handout but you can highlight things on it in real time, and even draw on top of it, which I think you'd agree is better than a mere hand wave, which is fleeting.

3. Drawing a quick illustration: Check. You can totally do that in Roll20. You can also make really beautiful and engaging maps that can be reused (or not) — if you have the time, patience, desire, and tools.

4. "Being there" as opposed to just hearing voices: See #1. I totally see my players, albeit only their head and shoulders and in a small window. But I can see if they're engaged, or laughing or whatever.

Things that you can do with Roll20 that you can't do (easily) at the tabletop:

1. Automate the roll process: Virtual rolls can prompt the user to enter modifiers, etc. to keep things moving quickly and do thing like automatically subtract the target's armor from damage rolls, etc.

2. Send secret messages back and forth between GM and player.

3. Make blind rolls for when you don't know the user to know the outcome (like Awareness rolls, etc.).

There are many more benefits of virtual gaming, but most —like dynamic lighting and line of site) probably wouldn't impress Morien, since he's already declared his ambivalence to miniature wargaming. I enjoy it because it really concretizes the scene for the players and gives them all sorts of strategic and tactical options they might not otherwise think of.

Morien, if you ever want to arrange a tour of my PENDRAGON Roll20 set up, let me know. It's pretty cool stuff. And if it means the difference between gaming and not gaming (because you can't keep a local group together) Roll20 is a very compelling solution. The thing that's most exciting? They've only been developing this platform for a little over two years. They have over 800,000 registered users. If they continue to grow, I can't wait to see what the next five years bring.


Best,


T.

Morien, if you ever want to arrange a tour of my PENDRAGON Roll20 set up, let me know.


I might take you up on that, Taliesin, some of these days. Unfortunately, at least one player has a pretty poor internet connection, so the video chat (we tried it via Skype) might be too heavy on the bandwidth for him. But I did take a quick look at the website, and it looks like that they have made some big strides. If it is as user friendly as they indicate, I might be inclined to port our game over. At least the 'paper' part of it, using it to show maps and drawings and stuff.

Best,
Morien

Turku, Finland here.

Any Pendragon GM stopping by gets a free city tour, preferably ending with some GPC chatter over a pint or two.

Turku, Finland here.

Any Pendragon GM stopping by gets a free city tour, preferably ending with some GPC chatter over a pint or two.


I might come to Turku this October! I'll let you know!

Turku, Finland here.

Any Pendragon GM stopping by gets a free city tour, preferably ending with some GPC chatter over a pint or two.


I might come to Turku this October! I'll let you know!


Cool, just PM me beforehand :)

Omaha, Nebraska USA

Travelling to Providence RI and Boston/Salem MA in August.

Would love to share a pint with folks while there.

Morien, if you ever want to arrange a tour of my PENDRAGON Roll20 set up, let me know.


I might take you up on that, Taliesin, some of these days. Unfortunately, at least one player has a pretty poor internet connection, so the video chat (we tried it via Skype) might be too heavy on the bandwidth for him. But I did take a quick look at the website, and it looks like that they have made some big strides. If it is as user friendly as they indicate, I might be inclined to port our game over. At least the 'paper' part of it, using it to show maps and drawings and stuff.


Sure thing. You can use as little or as much of the system as you want. I know guys who don't do maps at all, but put up large photos just to help with the general visualizations, and use them for their "tabletop." One of my players loves physically tossing the dice so much he eschews the use of the inline chat rolls. Whatever. But, yeah, it's VERY flexible and getting better all the time, really. They just launched a massive new update with some really cool stuff in it.

Just let me know if you every want me to take you for a spin. It's pretty astonishing what you can do with this stuff, really.

T.