Roleplaying online?

[alias_sqbr]

Would anyone be interested in some low-key online 'table-top' roleplaying during my daytime? I've dipped my feet into TTRPGs in the past and had a lot of fun, but unfortunately all the existing games I've encountered have been offline (not practical for health reasons) or in the middle of my night. So I guess it's time for me to organise a game myself, unless any of you know of some suitable games I might be able to join.

This post is just me poking the idea and seeing if anyone's potentially interested, if I get some interest and an initial sense of people's preferences then I'll try and organise something more solid.

My limitations

I'm only really awake like... 10am-5pm Perth time (UTC+8) which is like 7pm-2am Pacific Daylight Time in the US. Sorry non-nightowl Americans!

Also my health issues mean I can only play for an hour or so without a break, and have moderate odds of needing to cancel any given session.

Game Types

One option is two player games with someone who doesn't mind me needing breaks and intermittent rescheduling, since rescheduling with one other person isn't too bad. I've only played a two player game once, with a stranger, and it was a bit nerve wracking, but the fact it was a (perfectly nice!) random stranger who didn't know I was sick beforehand didn't help.

Another solution is 3+ player games where me (and thus my character) sometimes being missing or taking a break wouldn't interfere with the gameplay too much, eg playing like...a droid that shorts out intermittently and misses parts of the action, and if I as a player don't quite follow what happened while I was away then neither does the character, making that part of my roleplaying rather than everyone else needing to try and catch me up perfectly. The last time I tried roleplaying I carefully set up a character where this would work... and then almost everyone BUT me cancelled for unrelated reasons, and the game never happened, lol. But designing the character was fun!

Part of the appeal of roleplaying for me is as a sort of group social thing so I'm not especially looking at asynchronous stuff like playing by email, but that could also be fun, and would obviously make timezones less of an issue.

I'm open to most types of system/setup/game including video/voice/text-only etc. I'm more interested in collaborative storytelling and 'failure' as an opportunity to tell a different story than beating challenges. I'm not opposed in principle to paying for a module etc but obviously free is better!

Short one shots seem like a nice way to dip my feet into the whole thing but I'm not opposed to a longer campaign.

Possible specific games

Two relevant collections of recs I happened upon recently:

Newbie friendly games, mostly light and GM-less

One sitting fantasy tabletop RPGs for adult beginners

Most of these sound like they could be fun. I like most kinds of scifi/fantasy/heists etc.

But I'm not into zombies/pandemics, protecting kids/teens, playing a child (playing an older teen is ok but not my favourite thing), or anything with sex or romance baked into the gameplay (other players doing romance is fine I just don't think it's for me). Overall, while the setting/plot doesn't have to be sweetness and light I'm not up for anything super depressing or disturbing, and am easily squicked by sexual stuff.

Final Thoughts
I'm pretty new to all this and very open to working with other people who haven't roleplayed much/at all or have their own other complicated needs etc. I'm open to playing with people I don't know super well as long as they're cool with my health limitations.

SO. Anyone interested? Any other useful thoughts?

If people are interested I might take a while to reply to comments and organise anything but I'll do my best! And if noone's up for it that's ok, it was good to write it all out and give it a shot, hopefully the stars will align for me and roleplaying some other time. And if any of you get inspired to, like, run a 5 hour zombie sex romp at 3am Perth time then I just hope you have fun without me ;P

Comments

[cassildra]

Hi.I'm American Eastern time and sleep a lot, so I'm not a candidate, but I have a clarifying question if you don't mind. When you say a correspondence game (I forget the exact words you used, my apologies), are you meaning something by actual postal mail, or does that include play by post or play by email games? Basically, I'm asking if it has to happen in "real time" instead of asynchronously.

Thanks,and good luck!

[alias_sqbr]

The word "asynchronous" is actually what I meant, so thanks, I'll edit the post! I don't mean actual postal mail, just anything asynchronous like play by email etc.

[hebethen]

I think it might not be as discrepan...t as all that with the timezones? According to the converters I'm looking at, 10am Perth time/AWST is only 7pm US PDT (10pm EDT).

[alias_sqbr]

double checks Hey you're right, thanks!

[hebethen]

Huzzah, hopefully that opens things up even more :)

I am in deep skepticism of my own ability to commit to anything beyond a one-shot, but if you're ever thinking of a morning game, hmu!

I have had a nice experience with the Fiasco system, which is a GMless storygame geared toward oneshot play. It's pretty rules light but I'm not sure if it might be too much on that side -- some people do prefer to have more crunch in their teeth with their games, I know.

[alias_sqbr]

Do you mean your morning or mine?

Looking at the Fiasco rules I think that's one of the few systems I've actually played! It was pretty fun.

[hebethen]

Oh right, yep, your morning for sure -- I think mine would be pushing up against your hours of rest.

Hell yeah \o/

[lea_hazel]

Our restrictions and interests align pretty well. It would be easiest at the later end of the range, e.g. 2pm for you is 9am for me. This would probably clash with any night-owl Americans.

Funnily, I did this exact calculation often as a teen, but it was much easier to get by on less sleep, then.

[alias_sqbr]

Great! Turns out I screwed up the timezone calculation for Americans and at least one has expressed interest, I'll wait a bit and see if anyone else comments (though I'm about to go to bed so anyone checking the internet in the next few hours is probably disqualified by default...)

[kiezh]

I'm in Eastern US time but both a night-owl and chronically ill with an erratic sleep schedule - I'm often awake during your daytime. I would be interested if you are organizing something! (I have very little organizational capacity myself, sadly.)

Most of my recent TTRPG experience has been playing D&D with an online group (on roll20), but I've enjoyed some one-shots in other systems and am interested in trying more. I like sf/f and am not a fan of horror or dark stories with downer endings. (Too much like RL! I need my escapism.)

Those recs look very interesting! I'll have to check them out in detail but from some quick clicking it looks like I own "i'm sorry did you say street magic" from a itch.io bundle I bought years ago...

[alias_sqbr]

Excellent! "i'm sorry did you say street magic" does look interesting. checks sweet, I own it too. Along with a bazillion other TTRPGs from bundles, now that I think about it, I should poke around my itchio account.

[kiezh]

Those bundles have *so much* stuff in them! I've generally focused on whatever puzzle games they have and didn't pay attention to the giant pile of indie TTRPG stuff, but maybe it's time to change that.

[alias_sqbr]

I was just thinking the same thing!

[shadaras]

I hope you find some folk to play with! :)

Your awake times coincide pretty perfectly with my asleep times, which is kind of neat but means I wouldn't be able to play.

I will also say: rules-light/gmless doesn't always mean a game is easier to play as a beginner? Sometimes it's helpful to have rules pushing you in specific directions, or to have someone designated as the facilitator whose role is to Make Things Happen when people are stuck or unsure what to do. But, in the end, the best game to play is the game the whole table wants to play! That excitement will make it happen.

[alias_sqbr]

nods I'm certainly open to a GMed and/or rule heavy game! These are just the recs I happened to stumble upon.

[got_quiet]

Logistics prevent me from joining, but if you would like to try out any of the RPGS in this itch.io bundle I can get you the files. I don't think everything in that filter is tabletop but many of them are short and interesting tabletop games that might be interesting oneshots.

[alias_sqbr]

Ooh! I actually own those two bundles myself, as well as a couple of others, but was not aware of that website, so this is really useful, thanks!

[got_quiet]

Oh good, and yeah, that bundle website is /extremely/ helpful for finding games. I hope you find something fun!

[cosmicjellyfish]

Belatedly: I'd be interested in this! I'm on UK time (though that may change later in the year) and those hours should work for me.

[alias_sqbr]

Excellent!