Mobile Google Docs for Play-By-Post

I posted in a previous article how to use Google Docs (Drive) for a play by post game. For some reason, I expected people to post at their desktop. I was wrong. Almost everyone used a mobile device of some sort.

I'm organizing the game by Acts which contain Scenes which contain Rounds. I do one Drive document per Scene with the Rounds as Headings so I can generate a table of contents for easy navigation on a mobile device. Images use a sub-heading so they show up in the ToC as well. The players 'follow link' to any particular section.

First thing I had to figure out was how to take a screen shot. Don't laugh. I've never had to do this before. On my Note 2, I went to Settings->My Device->Motion and checked 'Palm Swipe to Capture'. To take a screen shot you act like you're going to karate chop your phone on one edge of the screen then swipe the edge of your hand from left to right or right to left. It takes some practice.

I then edit the photo in my favorite image editor, Sketch. It allows me to easily draw arrows and annotate. I can't say enough good things about that simple but powerful tool.

So, first thing I asked them to do is make sure they have Drive, Google+, and GMail.

I had previously shared the Drive document but it wasn't all that obvious to new users how to find that. 

The next problem was adding comments. Again, not that obvious to new users of the Drive Mobile App.

The results of this is a Savage Worlds game using MapTool. The maps are small on the screen but Drive allows a pinch motion on the image to expand for exploration.

I'm pleased with the results of using Drive on a mobile device. My only complaint so far is that when pinching the image above you often enter edit mode which covers some screen real estate with the touch keyboard.

Using Google Docs for Play-by-Post

Recently I started a new Savage Worlds play-by-post (PbP) game utilizing the Science Fiction Companion. I've attempted this a few times but have run into problems. Basically people don't want to create another account on any of the PbP sites and not everyone is on Google. My solution is to utilize Google Docs (aka Drive) with a link that allows folks to comment.

Comments can be activated one of two ways.

Method 1
1) The first is to select a region of text.

2) Next, right click on that selection to bring up a pop-up menu and select 'Comment'.

3) A box will appear on the right side of the document to let you enter however much text you like.

Method 2
The second method involves using the Google Docs Menu.

Place your cursor in the document you want to discuss. Select 'Insert' from the main menu, then 'Comment'.

The comment box will appear as in step 3.

I'm going to give this a try. Ideally the characters will comment on the section of test. For rounds I'll put in their initiative order then let the comment on the character's name. I'll then 'Resolve' the comments as I continue the narrative inside the doc.

I'll post back here to let you know how it goes.

Google Hangouts with Extras for RPG

Friday night I played Warrior, Rogue, and Mage from Stargazer Games. game with my longtime online gamers I met through MapTool. As always, we had a great time.

Matt Jackson - cartographer, book cover designer, and the master of 20,000 rules-light games - wanted to try a Google Hangout with Extras for maps, character sheets, and handouts. I'm a longtime MapTool fan and serve on the RPTools.net staff so I suspect I'm more than a little biased.

MapTool does all of those functions very well and was custom designed with gamers in mind. Still, I tried to go in with an open mind. I suspect the two glasses of wine I had beforehand helped. What follows are the Good, the Bad, and the Frustrating about Google Hangouts for RPGs.

The Good.

This is a web application and so needs no client software or special plug-ins to play. As long as you have a Google+ account you have access. I suppose some would consider forcing you to use Google+ is an overall minus but I suspect those people are still trying to figure out a way to get Facebook usable for RPGs.

Google Hangouts with Extras has great integration with Google Docs. You can store documents, spreadsheets, pdfs, etc. in Google docs and share them during the game. You can share only with certain members or open an entire folder up for the group to use.

Google Sketchpad integration is nice as well. Sketchpad is an drawing/image sharing program that lets everyone in the Hangout draw or drop images onto a common canvas. This was the way we shared maps and moved our tokens around the maps.

You can open both Sketchpad and Docs in a separate tab or window if you need multiple items open at once.

The new Hangouts has full text, voice, and video chat capabilities. You don't need a third party product. The picture and voice quality were both good. The text chat comes in handy for sharing AFKs and BRBs as well as typing out quips versus saying them.

The Bad

There is no built in die roller. I hear there are online sites that let players share dice rolls but I haven't found a good one yet. During the game we rolled actual dice and shared the result via the voice chat. While I trust the guys I game with, others may not be so lucky. Isn't it time all text chat programs came with built in die rollers? Let's start an occupy Google campaign (via hangouts) until we get it.

The Sketchpad functionality is fairly limited. It does OK and is good for getting a point across but it really isn't built for gaming. The objects you place on the screen don't have a way of annotating ownership. Sketchpad only tells you who has the object selected. One of the major problems is that the map is an object just like the tokens. So anyone can grab and move it around. Adding layers to Sketchpad would go a long way to making it more usable for Gaming. Player tokens could go on one layer and background objects on another. Let's start an occupy Google campaign (via hangouts) until we get it.

The Frustrating

• It's not MapTool, a product designed for gaming. It's a presentation/discussion tool. I spent a lot of extra clicks doing what comes easy in MapTool.
• There wasn't an easy way to zoom around the map.
• The accidental map movement drove me nuts when people selected the map rather than their token.
• Images could not be named and had no owner. It was hard telling who was who and what they were doing.
• You quickly run out of screen real estate for viewing different documents and images.

Conclusion

A Google Hangout is what it is: a method of sharing documents with chat and whiteboard built in. You can make due if you don't expect a lot from it. I hope they someday publish an API for Hangouts that VTTs connect into so you can let VTTs do what they do well and Hangouts do what they do well.

Still, if your mapping needs aren't large and you do more storytelling than combat, Hangouts may be the right gaming tool for you.