Some of you may have seen my thread looking for players (http://www.gspendragon.com/roundtable/index.php?topic=493.0) to start an online game using Google Wave. I will use this thread as a place to show the technology and techniques we're using to play what is shaping up to be a very good game.

"Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation
and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

About Google Wave (http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html) - The video here is 80 minutes long, but if you're interested in collaborative technologies, then it's worth it.

Wave is still in development, so many of its features aren't implemented yet. It's also prone to crashing if you have several windows open to different waves like I do. I'm not sure how the crashing experience has been so far with the players. Fortunately, the waves save in real-time and I have yet to lose more than a word or two from crashes. There is also no feature to make waves publicly viewable and anyone invited to a wave can create, edit and delete anything within the wave. That means I can't show you the real thing, but I'll provide screenshots.

Wave even has gadgets that you can insert into waves, such as the dicebot we use. Anywhere on a wave anyone can enter something like [d20+5] and it'll automatically resolve to a roll that would look something like [d20 + 5 = 3 + 5 = 8]. It's been very useful for play and it's quick, too. I'm trusting players not to cheat, though I suspect I could use Wave's playback feature to see if a roll was edited.

For all character sheets and bookkeeping we are using Google Documents (http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/tour1.html). Docs does allow view-only access, so everyone can see everyone elses' sheets. I use an embed gadget that puts the docs right inside the waves. Only myself and the applicable player can actually edit their character sheet. Here is an example player's character sheet (http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiBGTJKf7T51dFViOW5nQmM2ejFuY0VxLUlMcWtvc kE&hl=en). Notice the tabs at the bottom; I think I've pretty well covered what every individual character would want to track.

[hr]

We are currently running the first year of the game, standard 485 stuff using the 5th Edition ruleset, Great Pendragon Campaign, Book of the Manor, Book of Battles, Book of Armies, and supplemental materials from Greg's website.

I am the Gamemaster and there are 8 players:

Bellias , played by Kenneth (aka Obiken)
Heward, played by doorknobdeity
Llywel Ap Hywe , played by abnninja
Miles the Boar, played by Al
Morwyn ap Chwldrtwn, played by Erik
Primo Cavaliere
Reginald Fitzurse, played by dcwhitworth
Rhodri, played by Lee


With the exception of Miles (who is a personal friend of mine), everyone came from my solicitation thread on this forum. I've already got a very active player base; I think only Primo Cavaliere is the only player not up and running already.

Up next: Instead of explaining how Wave has been working for us so far, I'll show you some screenshots.

Here's a shot (http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/v-6IAIpt6jqXJ8H_XwrIVA?authkey=Gv1sRgCOHPw46puu7Z6gE &feat=directlink) of Wave with all of the windows open. Navigation on the left, inbox in the middle, and a wave is open on the right. This is unweidly sometimes even if you run at a high resolution.

Fortunately, you can maximize a wave (http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/sm5V_lv70OJobfguUxfjNQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCOHPw46puu7Z6 gE&feat=directlink) to enhance readability.

Here's a longer shot of our in-game wave (http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/PVpAcCdoK6xWv73sJYSaYw?authkey=Gv1sRgCOHPw46puu7Z6 gE&feat=directlink). Participants can watch others update the wavelets and blips in real time. I've found it very easy to be updating sections of the games and players are immediately jumping in and interacting with one another.

As you can see from the first screenshot, my inbox is filling up with waves. I've created an in character and out of character wave for each year, waves for each player character, and waves for battles. It's beginning to get unwieldy, and I've barely dipped my toes into 486. Index to the rescue (http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/WyYGz2eCLPYohTfxp_YMIQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCOHPw46puu7Z6 gE&feat=directlink)! Linking to another wave is done by dragging the desired wave into the page you're editing.

How's this going?

How's this going?


Actually, we're having a great time and having a lot of fun. Our Knights just split up, one set is delivering a very important letter for the Earl and the other half just helped Merlin (unbeknownst to them that it was Merlin until the end) with a little task. IMO, this is good way to run an online campaign. There have some minor glitches, but all in all, it has been much fun. BTW, Russ is doing a good job keeping us going. It's kind of like herding cats since we players are located from California to Sweden.

I like the combination of Wave and Docs. Wave is fun for creating scenes with other people. The combination of a live multi-player editing mode and persistence means that you can quickly put together a scene and then edit it later to take out the OOC comments, fix errors, do formatting, etc. I find using the dice robot really satisfying because the rolls are done in public and you get that nice feeling of shared tension before the roll resolves the same way you do in a face to face game. Unfortunately the robot breaks a lot.

I do wish there were a way to easily flatten a series of Wave blips (conversations) into a single blip. And a way to delete transient blips.

I agree that Russell is doing a good job of creating opportunities for the players and keeping the action going.

Well the experience is working very good. Splitting the group was no problem, playing on-line or not is not so a big issue... even if the time zones are far away one from the other...

I am not writing it is the perfect way, but it works damn well enough. :D

It's been very interesting so far. Everyone in the group is fantastic, they are great roleplayers and already very experienced in Pendragon. I see them launch into a series of trait rolls to determine many of their choices and am tickled to see how eager they are to submit themselves to the whim of their characters.

Wave is working pretty well. I'm having a hard time keeping track of actions just because everyone writes so prolifically (not a complaint at all). I've never run an online game before, so we are trying to get a handle on pacing and player/GM control. We are a geographically diverse group, between California, Arizona, Illinois, Virginia, U.K, Sweden, Norway and Italy. This is beginning to show its challenging side, but I think slowing down the game will allow everyone to participate and be included.

This is how wide-spread we really are
http://www.russelldeneault.com/forumimages/playermap.jpg

Splitting the players was interesting, though I need to be very conscious to allow everyone to shine. This first year had half of the players gaining a load of Glory helping Merlin out and the other half delivering a letter on a relatively uneventful trip. I intend on remedying this as more years pass and I will pay special attention to have focus swing on to everyone.

I'm not entirely convinced that Wave is the best way to play online. I want to play for at least several more (Pendragon) years to make sure, but I'm considering installing a forum in my own space and playing from that. Google Docs, though, is great. Access permissions allow me and the player to edit their sheets, but they can be viewed by anyone.



How's this going?

Great stuff!

Having played a few more weeks I have more comments on this venue and compatibility KAP. I like it more now than before. I say this due to the way one can handle multiple groups of adventurers acting with different levels of participation. More so than in many other RPGs, KAP finds itself with groups or singles on differing adventures. This tends to be a bit boring for the people (person) who are out of action. This venue lends itself particularly well to handle this. What it take is a loose rein by the GM and a group ready to take on some of the GMs duties. Along with these duties comes responsibility, and the layers must act in a responsible way when portraying enemy knights, villeins, potential paramours, interaction with nobility, etc. This is where the GM must be vigilant and not hesitate to take charge again when things go too far astray. But, when it comes together, as it seems to with the group playing the GPW, it is a thing of beauty.