So uncool, bro. Seriously.

[The Kind Knido]

I'm attempting to put together some kind of regular Dungeons and Dragons sessions (heavy emphasis on "attempting"), and I'm having insane trouble finding out where we could all meet up at.

Naturally, I have set up a gaming table in the guest room which will never be used, but I need somewhere convenient.

See, I'm not what you call close by. I haven't been close by for over 10 years. There is absolutely no way in hell that my players, who are all in the city while I'm not, will drive all the way out here just to play a few hours of a game I'll likely bore them with with my slow storytelling and whatnot.

I thought that a middle ground where we could all meet up would be swell, and it would've been too; glorious empty library study room right in the middle of us all, but one player says he doesn't want anything to do with that place. I don't even know if he's been there. I can't think of any reason why he would have ever been there.

There is another library where an Anime club used to/still is hosted. There may be a way to find a way to start up a group in there but then I'd be the one the farthest away.

Skype is simply not an option for a full group when we would all need the payed garbage. Thanks, Microsoft. Stop being a part of Skype, please.

I know of online tabletop gaming systems, but I'd prefer the genuine method. Besides, that's just another thing that would be required for everyone to learn and one of them requires port-forwarding which I am literally incapable of. Don't ask.

EDIT: Sacramento's gaming meetups are a once a month thing. Out of the question.

So here's my "poll" kind of question -

Where do you host your games?

[Eldan]

Got a university or public library nearby? In my experience, both have rooms you might be able to use.

[Sucrose]

My group hosts games on the internet, with either the use of Google Plus or Maptool. Google Plus hangouts are easier to set up, while Maptool, once set up, is a lot easier to see maps and such with.

[The Kind Knido]

Got a university or public library nearby? In my experience, both have rooms you might be able to use.

I'm not sure about a nearby university. I'm sure that we could probably find one, but we'd be seriously out of place being the only ones not attending the university for studies.


My group hosts games on the internet, with either the use of Google Plus or Maptool. Google Plus hangouts are easier to set up, while Maptool, once set up, is a lot easier to see maps and such with.

I tried to stay away from Google+ but I got forced into it with a merging of my Youtube channel.

I liked the interface of Maptools, but I believe that is the one that has the port-forwarding setup.

[Cespenar]

Persuade that "one player" that is refusing the only logical place, or if you can't, dump the responsibility of finding a place to him/her.

Note: The only games that I have played, to respond to the original question properly, was the houses of my friends. And we have, on occasion, drove 1+ hours to a friend's house just to play. Just saying.

[The Kind Knido]

Persuade that "one player" that is refusing the only logical place, or if you can't, dump the responsibility of finding a place to him/her.

Note: The only games that I have played, to respond to the original question properly, was the houses of my friends. And we have, on occasion, drove 1+ hours to a friend's house just to play. Just saying.

Kicking the player who refuses the location may be all there is to do. To be honest, I haven't even gotten everyone's character sheets/backstories yet, so I still need to write some campaigns as well. We've got a nice amount of ideas, and I have two characters ready - a wizard and a soulknife. The players have sent me a ranger and a wizard (cleric and possible druid on the way at some point).

If I had all the sheets and typed up an adventure, I'd surely kick the refusing player as he's never online anyways.

[Krazzman]

At our homes.

We meet in one of 5 locations.

Our Home, the home of [the Father], the home of [the couple], the home of [the new guy] and the home of [the guy's parents].

Or similar. At first it was only at the couples place, later at ours too then when the other joined we played sometimes at their place. We cook for our guests (or order together) and then play after eatin/talking.

Works quite good so far.

For our weekend group we only meet up at one place due to them being the DM's and having the largest apartment.

[The Kind Knido]

I'm afraid I can only imagine the simplicity of organizing games where everyone is nearby.

Either I wait for all the info to write a quest and kick the missing player, or just hope to be warped into the city so I can do this with ease.

For now, I guess the library would have to do even if the missing player doesn't want to go there for whatever reason. I thought a park gazebo would be pretty neat, but they don't have power outlets, of course. I need Skype for one person who is even further from all of us - San Francisco. Damn far. Nobody's going to drive 100+ miles to play a game.

I'm liking the university idea, though, if there's anyway it could be done. There is one in the same vicinity as the library.

[zilonox]

Perhaps the rest of the group can meet in one place in the city and have you join virtually. That's what happens with my current group - one player joins via google and the rest of us sit around the table.

We have a laptop set up at one end of the table. The speakers built into the laptop and the microphone built into the webcam suffice for our needs (it's a small group). Works out decently, though he does sometimes have to reboot mid-session.

[The Kind Knido]

Perhaps the rest of the group can meet in one place in the city and have you join virtually. That's what happens with my current group - one player joins via google and the rest of us sit around the table.

We have a laptop set up at one end of the table. The speakers built into the laptop and the microphone built into the webcam suffice for our needs (it's a small group). Works out decently, though he does sometimes have to reboot mid-session.

That's definitely a clever idea. Strange, but clever. That is something I'll have to consider if whatever solution we come up with is temporarily or no longer a solution. :smallamused:

[Chen]

If they're all in the city, why don't you go to one of their places in the city? We have a similar situation (everyone but 1 lives in the city) and we just make him come into the city to game. On occasion we'll go game at his place since its bigger and we can bbq and the like. But for consistent gaming it makes sense to accommodate the most people and reduce collective travel time.

[Maelstrom]

Kicking the player who refuses the location may be all there is to do. To be honest, I haven't even gotten everyone's character sheets/backstories yet, so I still need to write some campaigns as well. We've got a nice amount of ideas, and I have two characters ready - a wizard and a soulknife. The players have sent me a ranger and a wizard (cleric and possible druid on the way at some point).

If I had all the sheets and typed up an adventure, I'd surely kick the refusing player as he's never online anyways.

Man this person sounds like an old member of our gaming group in the Sac area....I hope his initials are not S.H. ..

[Brother Oni]

That's definitely a clever idea. Strange, but clever. That is something I'll have to consider if whatever solution we come up with is temporarily or no longer a solution. :smallamused:

Hey, it works for these guys. :smallbiggrin: (http://ffn.malletspace.net/)

[AdmiralCheez]

My group just started getting back together again after two years, and for some reason, we decided that we should all meet up at the farthest point from everyone. Granted, it's the DM's apartment, so I'm sure that factored in quite a bit. It's an hour and a half from me, and hour and forty for another, one hour for the third, and two and a half hours from the farthest member. To justify the travel time, we usually all spend the night there and make it a weekend-long adventure. Now, we only do this once a month, but that's not bad considering how difficult it is to fit into everyone's schedules.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Cespenar
...we have, on occasion, drove 1+ hours to a friend's house just to play. Just saying.

I've been a part of several long-running campaigns in which I drove over an hour, each way, to the gaming site--always someone's apartment or home.

This could be a real hassle in some respects (especially navigating Beltway traffic at 2 am) but still worth it. The fun factor outweighed other issues.

That said, I really sympathize with the difficulty in finding a place to host. I tried running my last campaign in the glass-walled gaming room of a local hobby store, and that was a miserable experience in more ways than I want to describe. I'll never do that again.


Originally Posted by AdmiralCheez
To justify the travel time, we usually all spend the night there and make it a weekend-long adventure.

I've done this quite a few times, especially when the sessions ran really late. Better to crash on the futon or the sofa, and go out to breakfast the next morning.

[Emmerask]

Skype is simply not an option for a full group when we would all need the payed garbage. Thanks, Microsoft. Stop being a part of Skype, please.


Google hangouts is free and supports multiuser video conferencing :smallwink:

[The Kind Knido]

Man this person sounds like an old member of our gaming group in the Sac area....I hope his initials are not S.H. ..

...they are.

Wait, no. They're not. From from it. You're safe.


I've been a part of several long-running campaigns in which I drove over an hour, each way, to the gaming site--always someone's apartment or home.

This could be a real hassle in some respects (especially navigating Beltway traffic at 2 am) but still worth it. The fun factor outweighed other issues.

That said, I really sympathize with the difficulty in finding a place to host. I tried running my last campaign in the glass-walled gaming room of a local hobby store, and that was a miserable experience in more ways than I want to describe. I'll never do that again.

I must wonder how bad gaming in a glass walled gaming store could be miserable. To me, that sounds like one of the better ways; then people could just get up and grab more materials for our games.


Google hangouts is free and supports multiuser video conferencing

Who could be evil enough to suggest to many submitting to Google's confusing account algorithms? They're complete with force, poor interface, no user support whatsoever, and very possible NSA workings.

[Remmirath]

My most regular games are hosted in my house, which works perfectly because they're the games that my family plays and we all live in the same place. The other groups, it isn't so nice and consistent, and distance sometimes becomes an issue.

One group I was part of for a good long time was usually hosted at the DMs house, and every now and then it would be another one of the players. Both lived fairly far away, and some of the other players lived farther than I, but it was a monthly game so that wasn't so bad.

Another group that typically only ends up playing in the summer we used to have at the local gaming shop, but since it closed we've been playing at a local coffee shop. We all live pretty close by, so that's not the same sort of thing. I'm also considering setting up another, larger, gaming area in the basement so I could have games like this at my house, because I find that more comfortable than the coffee shop or the only other gaming stores around.

Other games that have come up every now and then are typically hosted at the DMs house as well; that's the default among the people I know. Some of those have fallen apart because of distance, however, so I haven't got anything particularly useful to add there.

Have you asked the player who won't go to the library why he won't? It seems remotely possible that he's confused it for some other place, or there's some issue he has that could be worked out. Otherwise, if it works for all of the others and it wouldn't cause too big a problem, it might be best to just not include that particular player. Failing that, the other library sounds like your best bet so far, unless it's far enough from you that it doesn't really work (I know the definition of "too far" varies greatly from person to person).

[RandomNPC]

"Uncooperative dude, maybe we'll see you next time we arrange a game."

Seriously, I've got enough people to make an entire game group who I've said "If schedules allow you're welcome to game any time." And honestly if they all take me up on it at once my living room will be shoulder to shoulder in geeks. Sometimes your group goes -1, that's just the way it goes, just try to be nice about it and let them know the invite stands.

[The Kind Knido]

Have you asked the player who won't go to the library why he won't? It seems remotely possible that he's confused it for some other place, or there's some issue he has that could be worked out. Otherwise, if it works for all of the others and it wouldn't cause too big a problem, it might be best to just not include that particular player. Failing that, the other library sounds like your best bet so far, unless it's far enough from you that it doesn't really work (I know the definition of "too far" varies greatly from person to person).

I'd ask if I were ever able to catch him lurking online. I suppose I could call him as well. You could be very much right about being confused for another place since I can't imagine him ever going there before. If the study rooms there aren't possible, the university is on the other side of the freeway I believe. If that's not an option either, I could just go straight to having them gather and have me be the mysterious DM only seen by laptop.

The most latter of the possibilities, I hope I will not have to resort to. That would be rather awkward.

[Taffimai]

Back when I was a student, we often met in the backroom of an internet café. I also know that the game store where we all got our dice/handbooks/miniatures hosted games for free, and I've occasionally played in what the US would call a coffee shop (they had a "dead" corner where we were neither disturbing anyone nor likely to be disturbed).

Other than that, yes, the DM's house.

[AttilaTheGeek]

Actually, only one of you needs to pay for skype. And since you pay once and get it for a year, it winds up not being that much.

[Arcas Corricol]

Use PLAY-BY-POST on this forum :D

[shadow_archmagi]

I thought that a middle ground where we could all meet up would be swell, and it would've been too; glorious empty library study room right in the middle of us all, but one player says he doesn't want anything to do with that place. I don't even know if he's been there. I can't think of any reason why he would have ever been there.

Kick him in the shins until he explains himself.


I need Skype for one player

I strongly caution against partially-online games. My group has tried to do it before, and it always creates disharmony because one player has no physical presence and thus may struggle to hear, see, be noticed, etc.

There are voice programs out there which are not Skype. Perhaps Teamspeak? A lot of my friends use teamspeak, but I think there's always one of them that's paying to host a permanent server. Steam can also work fairly well in a pinch.

[Tyndmyr]

I've been a part of several long-running campaigns in which I drove over an hour, each way, to the gaming site--always someone's apartment or home.

This could be a real hassle in some respects (especially navigating Beltway traffic at 2 am) but still worth it. The fun factor outweighed other issues.

That said, I really sympathize with the difficulty in finding a place to host. I tried running my last campaign in the glass-walled gaming room of a local hobby store, and that was a miserable experience in more ways than I want to describe. I'll never do that again.

I admit to being curious...Ive run games in multiple shops and it was quite convenient. Sure, limitations exist, like reasonable driving range and what not, but I'm curious for the story behind this.

Home games work pretty well, too. Doesn't HAVE to be the DMs home, though it often is. Someone else can host if the logistics work better that way.

[Taffimai]

There are voice programs out there which are not Skype. Perhaps Teamspeak? A lot of my friends use teamspeak, but I think there's always one of them that's paying to host a permanent server. Steam can also work fairly well in a pinch.

Ventrilo, ooVoo, gmail video chat, some smartphones and tablets have a built-in chat that works over wifi,... problem is though, one bad internet connection on either end and you spend your time repeating yourself :smallannoyed: