Octopus Overlords

Fair Warning: I have no idea what I'm doing at this point.

With the most recent [Path|Star]finder Humble Bundle, I'm considering running a Starfinder game. If there is any interest, of course.

I would plan on running the Adventure Path included in the bundle as a start. That being said, I'm looking at a schedule that would run a session every 2-3 weeks at the most. I've tried weekly RPGs in the past as a player, and I can't keep up with it. And I imagine that with everyone's schedule these days, weekly would be a huge ask anyway.

I've played Pathfinder before, I've run a couple of games over the decades to varying levels of success, etc.

So if there's any interest, I could do a whole lot of reading and see about prepping a game for after the turn of the year.

(Dips toe in noncommittally) Playing it how? Roll20? Fantasy Grounds? Foundry? Discord only? Play-by-Post?

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 9:55 pmPlay-by-Post?

Definitely not.

Other than that, I'm open to being convinced to throw money at a solution more elegant than Discord-only.

I've set up a Roll20 account and linked to Paizo, but it does not appear to auto link my content into the Roll20 Compendium for sharing.

Which appears to be a 'feature':

discounts on items on the Roll20 Marketplace for products you own on Paizo.com

That's why I use Foundry. It's not quite as 'elegant' as R20, but the rules systems are free. The downside is that you (usually) need to enter your own adventures, although you can often find other people who have done so and have shared it. If not, googling things like the maps will often find superior versions thereof for free that are ready to be inserted.

Using a VTT (virtual tabletop) adds an extra learning curve, but it adds the visual element back into the game, and generally (including in Foundry) adds visual dice rolling, automatic calculations, and in-game reference materials. It also simplifies line of sight and lighting issues (if you want to take the time to set it up.)

Or rather 'used' Foundry. It's been at least a year or more since I've had a game. I will say that we eventually decided to use Foundry for the gameplay, but muted the voice option and used Discord to talk.

Registering interest - my D&D game went in-person and it is a bit out of range that I'm willing to drive once a week. I'd be down to help figure out the logistics as well.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 10:09 pm I've set up a Roll20 account and linked to Paizo, but it does not appear to auto link my content into the Roll20 Compendium for sharing.

Which appears to be a 'feature':

discounts on items on the Roll20 Marketplace for products you own on Paizo.com

I had bought the bundle and didn't think to link them. I just looked at it and it looks like the first AP module is about $10. I'd be willing to pick that up. That'd only require players to potentially buy the $15 HB to get access to the Core Rules PDFs.

I'd be interested.

Interest, yes. Time and availability however, no.

But keep us in the loop on how it goes.

Interested, and frankly would love to see what you do with a Roll20 game. I call the job of scrappy scavenger-engineer.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 10:57 pm Or rather 'used' Foundry. It's been at least a year or more since I've had a game. I will say that we eventually decided to use Foundry for the gameplay, but muted the voice option and used Discord to talk.

How did you host the server? Foundry looks way easier/better than Roll20, but the hosting looks a lot more complicated.

baelthazar wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 10:46 am

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 10:57 pm Or rather 'used' Foundry. It's been at least a year or more since I've had a game. I will say that we eventually decided to use Foundry for the gameplay, but muted the voice option and used Discord to talk.

How did you host the server? Foundry looks way easier/better than Roll20, but the hosting looks a lot more complicated.

Honestly? I don't recall. It's been a couple of years since I've run it myself. Like I said - not as elegant - and that's the trade off. It's sort of like Windows vs Linux, or Apple vs Android. You gain a lot more options and control (not to mention saving a lot of money and not having a pushy 'micro-transaction' environment), but at the cost of having everything pre-packaged for you.

FWIW, I've played around with the idea of offering to do something like this myself over the past year, but just haven't been ready to devote the time and energy to it.

baelthazar wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 10:46 am

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 10:57 pm Or rather 'used' Foundry. It's been at least a year or more since I've had a game. I will say that we eventually decided to use Foundry for the gameplay, but muted the voice option and used Discord to talk.

How did you host the server? Foundry looks way easier/better than Roll20, but the hosting looks a lot more complicated.

You'd need to host it somewhere. I did some quick digging and someone is maintaining a docker image for this so it's not too hard. The main downside is the group becomes dependent on someone administering it unless you split the responsibility/cost by moving it up to something like AWS.

I run a lot of Internet facing apps out of my server rack in the basement and it'd be perfect for that. It's low resource but I'd still recommend if someone is individually hosting that they'd back it after every game session into another person's possession just for safe keeping (Google Drive, S3, Dropbox, etc.). Whether someone flakes or the server crashes it'd be a shame to lose everything. Honestly it isn't that much work to set up and run. Maybe an hour or two and 30 minutes a month to keep tabs on it.

I have no idea what a docker image is, but I do recall that hosting it on the same machine I was using to run it wasn't any more hassle than running a local video game server - follow a step-by-step guide, click start.

My group played SF for a few weeks about a year ago of Fantasy Grounds. This was with pre-made content so as others have mentioned all the 'work' was mostly done for the person running the game in terms of NPCs, encounters, maps, etc.

We have also played D&D over Foundry VTT and the person doing the running has always hosted on their own machine without any issue. That person was not me so unfortunately I can't provide any further detail than to say it ran without issue.

Link to the Starfinder rules module at the Foundry VTT site. This will implement a great deal (if not all) of the system rules in Foundry for you.

I want to download this game but don't know how to download

First you open the book, then you download the system with your eyes.

Not sure if this is still planned or if i already missed the boat but if still happening id be interested.
Will depend on the schedule and my ability to learn and process the game though.

I have absolutely no personal organization skills, so it has not occurred.