
Hello! I was wondering what's text only games like? Is it just more writing or is it more like RPG (with more exact stats and numbers)?
Somewhere in the Rifts a voidjammer is under attack from pirates. Klaxons sounding, monitors flashing alerts as the damage is inflicted on the ship., the air is growing thick with the acrid smell of something burning until life support sucks it away to the scrubbers. The subliminal vibration of the engines disappear but echoes radiates through the plating as two pirate ships attach themselves to the hull.
Cloey is holding on to a nearby console, while studying the readouts from the engines as she is muttering something about how dare they hurt her baby, looks up to say “Cutting through the hull in Cargo bay 4 and 9”. Atty, quivering in excitement, is crouched poised to rush off into battle while Atty double checks Atty's weapons.
Rev, standing balanced, as the rocking of the ship is a natural feel to him. Without thought, he grins while efficiently checking his weapons and thinking about where to ambush the soon to be boarders.
Nator moving back and forth between a viewscreen showing the pirates ships which looks to worth a decent amount of credits and an internal monitor showing his small salvager ship “Fido” being exposed to vacuum as the pirates cut a hole in the hull.
Oda is jabbering in his native tongue as he is trying to twirl the mule about in an effort to dodge the attacks but soon realizes how futile that was as two of the pirate darts attach to the ship. Brossu laments to his buddy “Oda, I swear it was suppose to be a simple cargo run” as he thinks back to how it all started on Deep Space 6 when he placed his advert for a crew. Three days earlier......
While stopping in the Leaky Hull pub on his way home from work, Nator sees an advert looking for a spacer crew, since he was partly responsible for bringing the settler ship back in mostly one piece he wanders over to the ship after a beer or three to apply.Does this help any?
Brossu Berkesto had just lost his last credit in an ill advised wager, a fist fight between a Louhos and a puny human should have been easy money... how was he to know the human was a Heavy Worlder whose punches were like blows from a pneumatic hammer! There was nothing to it, he was going to have to head back out on some runs. At least he still had Oda, the Nibiran was smart, and loyal, enough to take his pay before letting Brossu loose in the bars and gambling dens. Having heard rumours of potential salvage options in the rift he was going to need more crew if turning a profit was likely... hopefully those adverts he'd put out would attract more than down and out space junk...
Rev had been lurking around with the more unsavory types of the station, earning some extra credits in illegal brawls. He recently knocked out a Louhos who underestimated his claims of advanced training and genes. He had spent most of his earning to stay under the radar as possible, he had been spending too much time on the station which made him nervous. "Finally found some info on a job for a crew," Vaina, his AI and friend, suddenly interrupts him as he was cleaning his weapons in his room. "Hmm...not sure if I'm up for a crew." He says a bit lazily as his focus remains on his weapons. "You better be, you need to get moving. And a voidjammer is the best place for that." Vaina states very strongly. Rev suddenly puts his weapons back together and gets up. Taking a deep breath he mutters, "Right." Vaina brings the information up as Rev puts his gear on. The last thing to be put on is his Vibro bladed spear, in its dagger mode, which he holsters at his side very carefully. He heads out looking to talk with who ever posted the advert for the open crew positions.
It certainly isn't what was asked. But it's also not true. You get as much fun as you put in. If you find that you can't stand to read, or alt-tab to play Hearthstone, or a clicker in the background, yeah: probably not very fun. If you participate however, have an active voice chat discussing what's going on and providing feedback, and a good group then... there's no reason it can't be entertaining.Natty said:
Text only is quite boring but eh, that's not what you wanted
I do this for literally all of my games; most of my players have stated that they prefer this method, as it's a bit more immersive, and helps improve the speed.Carl T said:
Huh. I had always assumed that text-only was just that. Can someone say more about how voice is used with that?
a) How do you prevent slow writers from "falling off from the train"?Both of these are actually pretty simple: stop playing games where the idea of "Splitting the Party" is bad. Give all of your players something to do. Or play in a game where you bend the rules; "Talking is a free action" - take an example from comics, manga, cartoons, anime: let characters say absurd things, have conversations in the midst of combat. Players don't care about 'turns' in that manner. If you want to enforce realism, make sure you're good at multi-tasking.
- A slow writer starts to write something that her/his character does in this situation. It can end up taking 15+ minutes even to get going. In the meanwhile the rest of the players are moving on. Or does the player indicate, that they have something to say and the rest just sit there waiting?
b) How do you handle in-character dialogue?
- In my campaigns we can end up having discussions of 30+ minutes between even PCs let alone between NPCs and the party. If we had those in writing, one of those discussions would easily take few whole sessions