Best options for online play for students

#1

For those of you who have read my posts before you will be well aware that I run games for students at school as a skills based learning activity. This year we can’t sit around the table and will instead be playing on some sort of hand held tablet. I’m here to pick the shield walls brains on the best way to play online.

The big hang ups are that it needs to be a “school safe” site that won’t have to use personal information or the ability for anyone outside the group to join in. I also have almost 0 prep time and have been able to make things up on the fly with a whiteboard so whatever I use would have to be able to be set up quick. For that I’m thinking of using Zones which seem to be a popular trend recently but I’m still a little hazy on the details so advice or links on that would be helpful too.

Other options might be where I draw a map on a vertical whiteboard and magnetize their player tokens and have them call out where they want to move but I could see this getting messy quick.

Any ideas on how people have been playing while socially distancing are welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Looten

#2

Before I bit the bullet and played via Roll20, we played simply using video conference software. If the school balks at Zoom (though you can password protect your sessions week to week), then use any school or state approved conferencing platform that allows you to share your desktop: Cisco meetings, etc.

From your desktop, all you have to do is load your images or maps in your favorite video editing software. I’ve used photoshop, GIMP, and Paint Shop Pro. Add a layer for the map background, and then paste in each token as a layer. As players play, they just have to state where they want to move, and you can move the tokens for them. You can also add other elements to other layers: encroaching fog, rising lava, etc. If you go look at Hank’s super early ICRPG games, he ran the games this way using google Hangouts (you’ll see him asking players where they want to move and then moving the tokens for players).

Bottom line, as long as you can get players together using video conference software, you can play a game. If you can share your screen, then you can do all kinds of things from sharing images to running tactical battle maps without having fancy software.

Finally, Roll20 would certainly work for maps and tokens as well. The accounts are free, and each student would have his or her own login, but it won’t work on an iPad unless you have a paid account.

#3

Great tips! I’ll check out some of his early work to see if I can nab any ideas and see how fast I can implement your suggestions. I’ve been back and forth on roll20 but maybe the school would be willing to foot the bill if they end up with ipads. Thanks you!