D&D On Google Wave

Jon Stokes at the Opposable Thumbs blog relates his experience using Google Wave as a platform for Dungeons and Dragons — the true test of success for any new communications technology. A post at Spirits of Eden lists some of Wave's strengths for gaming. Quoting: "The few games I'm following typically have at least three waves: one for recruiting and general discussion, another for out-of-character interactions ('table talk'), and the main wave where the actual in-character gaming takes place. Individual players are also encouraged to start waves between themselves for any conversations that the GM shouldn't be privy to. Character sheets can be posted in a private wave between a player and the GM, and character biographies can go anywhere where the other players can get access to them. The waves are persistent, accessible to anyone who's added to them, and include the ability to track changes, so they ultimately work quite well as a medium for the non-tactical parts of an RPG. A newcomer can jump right in and get up-to-speed on past interactions, and a GM or industrious player can constantly maintain the official record of play by going back and fixing errors, formatting text, adding and deleting material, and reorganizing posts."

Comments

Re:Great!

[polle404]

yeah, i was thinking of that one as well...

http://bash.org/?104383

Not going to catch on

[thenextstevejobs]

Those of us with beta accounts are familiar with the fact that its slow, clumsy and unexciting.

Sort of sad how everyone is shitting themselves because they found ONE decent use for Wave. A dedicated program for D&D, which dedicated players would rather use than a general tool shoehorned into D&D and stuck in the damn browser, would be much better.

I used to like Google's products because they were simple and responsive. This is what I would expect out of a startup, not a company with resources and experience like Google.

They've probably already realized this is a failed experiment, and they'd be better off shoving it under the rug now than pushing forward as if this is the next Google Search or Mail.

Re:Not going to catch on

[D Ninja]

Those of us with beta accounts are familiar with the fact that its slow, clumsy and unexciting.

Well, it's an alpha (preview, in Google terms) account first off.

Second, I do agree that it feels slow and a bit clumsy. Of course, I'm willing to forgive that because it's alpha. I realize not everybody will be.

As for its uses, however, well, I don't want to speak to that until more people join it. Right now, it's kind of pointless just to chat back and forth between two people. However, I can see huge advantages in project planning and management, developer discussion, etc. Nothing is worse than having to wade through conversations in e-mails that are scattered across multiple threads and I can't figure out what the heck is going on. And that's just one use that I can think of. I know there are plenty more (especially as you start bringing in gadgets).

Yeah, Wave was sold pretty well, but realize that not that many people are using it yet. It still has a long way to go before it is considered "complete" by anybody's standards, much less Google's.

Re:Not going to catch on

[Anonymous Coward]

"Those of us with beta accounts are familiar with the fact that its slow, clumsy, and unexciting"

Please don't post drivel that tries to paint broad strokes about a platform like this. On Chrome, I've found the platform very responsible (especially over the last few weeks). The only major exception being for ridiculously large waves. Unlike email, it takes time to fetch all the little bits and pieces of data and assemble them. The wave protocol needs to have a "check-in" or "lock" point where it just generates the whole wave once it reaches a certain point. That's really been the ONLY part that I've had trouble with.

I've found Wave exceptionally useful for small and mid-sized team coordination. It's better than Chat, and a hell of a lot better than Email. Its a meeting that takes notes itself (and let's face it, despite how important this is who actually makes the time to do it?).

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Most of these problems are minimal, and hopefully will be solved with some effort on Google's part. However, more to the point is the fact that the entire PLATFORM is open sources. Hell, there's even a java text-based client that ships with the FedOne server. Since this is Slashdot, and we're all open source minded here, I'll simply say: "Don't like Google's client? Stop being retard, get the source and MAKE YOUR OWN."

Wave is an amazing protocol and a worthwhile technology exploration. It would benefit the community if people actually stopped making excuses and started participating in efforts to help move the technology forward.

Privacy and the real-time web

[giladpn]

Google Wave has one huge advantage IMO.

Lots of us get along fine with email, for 1:1 and 1:n communication, mailing lists, the works. So OK email misses the "wall" or "real time web" effect were everybody can see what everyone else is posting. But email works.
And the really big deal about email is the standards - I can use outlook yesterday, gmail today, and yahoo mail tomorrow. I can move my stuff among vendors and keep my stuff from years back. Because everyone must stick to standards.

Trouble is there is an insidious conspiracy to make email uncool. Its led by the hordes of Facebook-ers and lately Tweet-ers. Like, I mean, do you really want to spend your life tweet-ing your latest embarrasing whatever to the world at large? But lets face it - the pressure is on bigtime. If you're not there you don't exist. Talk about peer pressure - the most obvious success of the social realtime web is the use of peer pressure to force everyone on board.:-(

Now along comes wave. Google Wave is basically email on steroids, with a "wall / real time web" capability thrown in. You can be totally private or you can be totally public or any combo in between. Nice. And oh yes you also get media richness.
And the Facebook-ers and Tweet-ers can't claim its uncool; actually you can one-up 'em - they're old hat.

Finally. Privacy is back (at least when you want it).
Now they just need to reintroduce standards. Is anyone listening?

Re:Privacy and the real-time web

[Anonymous Coward]

Before it was even released, Wave had already done far more for standardization than Facebook and Twitter combined over the entirety of their existence. The protocols are all there for anyone to implement (with the explicit exception of patent trolls).

Re:More like forums, really

[etore]

Try Fantasy Grounds first though. It's got realistic dice, tools, maps the works for pretty much any major pen & paper RPG since there are quite a few rulesets available.

Re:More like forums, really

[Abreu]

Try Fantasy Grounds first though. It's got realistic dice, tools, maps the works for pretty much any major pen & paper RPG since there are quite a few rulesets available.

Why try proprietary software when there's an excellent Free Software option that you can customize to your needs?