Discord + Roleplay?

[Triumphant]

Just wondering if there are any groups (Hero, Villain, or in-between) that use discord for voice chat and also for RP.  I'd like to RP combats but using the keyboard to rp while fighting at the same time is apparently beyond my skillset.  😛

[GraspingVileTerror]

A lot do.

I use Element and Teamspeak, personally, due to the severe issues with discord in particular.  But, based on what I see frequently in chats, there is no shortage of discord groups in effect.  You'll probably be spoiled for choice if folks start volunteering their servers.

You may also want to consider searching "discord" here in the forums, specifically tagging this Roleplay board and the Everlasting board.  There may even be some invite links that are still active.

[Triumphant]

Okay, that's encouraging.  Thanks for the tips!  👍

[DrZeus]

I have noticed a good deal of people using discord.  To some this is a good thing, to others, not so much.

Whatever method you use is going to limit your interactions.  In my case, I saw a supergroup that would have been perfect for a character.  I inquired only to find out they use discord, which eliminates me as a member.  While you may have the drawback of not being able to type quickly... I have the drawback of rarely playing a character with a voice even remotely like my own.  People like me... we're not looking for a discord server, we just want to have more immersion while we play the game, so roleplay is natural, but that only works if we type instead of use our own voices, which don't match the characters in any way.

I'm curious what percentage of people use discord compared to not.  Since each one seems to limit your interactions, which one is more limiting I wonder?

[Magairlín]

Did they say they used the voice chat? The SGs I've found so far mainly use discord for text.

[Triumphant]

On 7/31/2021 at 12:42 PM, DrZeus said:

I have noticed a good deal of people using discord.  To some this is a good thing, to others, not so much.

Whatever method you use is going to limit your interactions.  In my case, I saw a supergroup that would have been perfect for a character.  I inquired only to find out they use discord, which eliminates me as a member.  While you may have the drawback of not being able to type quickly... I have the drawback of rarely playing a character with a voice even remotely like my own.  People like me... we're not looking for a discord server, we just want to have more immersion while we play the game, so roleplay is natural, but that only works if we type instead of use our own voices, which don't match the characters in any way.

I'm curious what percentage of people use discord compared to not.  Since each one seems to limit your interactions, which one is more limiting I wonder?

 

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from there.  I do sometimes play female characters and as I'm male IRL (with a masculine voice) I can see how that might be discombobulating to some people (although, most of my female characters are butch, muscular, wrecking machines, so I'm pretty much okay with it, personally).  I also actually prefer RP through typing.  I communicate better through the written word, than through speaking.  Typing speed is not so much my problem but, rather, multi-tasking typing and fighting at the same time (I have to pause in combat to emote/speak and it throws my off my combat game).  As far as percentages that use discord for voice, I have no idea.  Most RP groups seems to communicate through text, as far as I can tell.  I could very well be wrong about that, though.

3 hours ago, Magairlín said:

Did they say they used the voice chat? The SGs I've found so far mainly use discord for text.

That seems strange to me.  Why add the complexity of discord?  The in-game chat function is right there on the same screen and perfectly functional and you can create dedicated channels for whatever purpose you need.

[GraspingVileTerror]

It's been my understanding, @Triumphant, that most people here who use discord do so because they don't like to use these official forums for coordinating, planning, sharing, and file distribution during off-hours, despite the forums having robust tools for all of those purposes.

Personal preference also plays a large part.  Peer pressure plays an even larger one.  Social media tends to operate in waves of popularity.  If discord had signed that deal with microsoft a few months ago, we'd probably see a number of users pointedly migrating away, and then it would be a slow drain over time that ramps up.  Like what happened with Skype.   Poor, poor Skype.

[chase]

3 hours ago, Triumphant said:

 

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from there.  I do sometimes play female characters and as I'm male IRL (with a masculine voice) I can see how that might be discombobulating to some people (although, most of my female characters are butch, muscular, wrecking machines, so I'm pretty much okay with it, personally).  I also actually prefer RP through typing.  I communicate better through the written word, than through speaking.  Typing speed is not so much my problem but, rather, multi-tasking typing and fighting at the same time (I have to pause in combat to emote/speak and it throws my off my combat game).  As far as percentages that use discord for voice, I have no idea.  Most RP groups seems to communicate through text, as far as I can tell.  I could very well be wrong about that, though.

That seems strange to me.  Why add the complexity of discord?  The in-game chat function is right there on the same screen and perfectly functional and you can create dedicated channels for whatever purpose you need.

As a male that plays a lot of female characters, text chat's been my experience too.   

As someone who also used to play with a community of deaf players, I kinda have a bias against voice from there.  Early in MMO lives, deaf players felt uniquely enabled by online games' text chat, and I watched them go through a great deal of anxiety when guilds moved to TeamSpeak or Ventrilo or other early services.   Many of them played up to that point without ever being "outed" as having a hearing impairment and they reveled in not needing any special treatment.    The advent of online voice chat really shook many of them, and I kinda inherited that aversion by proxy.

That said, I have joinedvoice chat in a few  RP communities.   It was... odd.  Perhaps it was because many of us DID have voices that different from appearance/species in game, but we rarely spoke in-character.     It tended to replace tells and OOC text (unless we were privately conspiring against another player), and if there was any guildie present in the channel but not in the game area, they could ask those people to send tells to different people if they were too busy typing dialigue to respond rapidly.   It was a place to get quick answers, ("'what's the emote for x again?") not serious RP.

I'm sure there are RP groups with more capable voice actors trying to speak all IC, but I (thankfully) haven't found em.

[GraspingVileTerror]

I run virtual tabletop roleplay campaigns, originally through Skype, then through a few other VOIP services, and lately on Element.  I loathe my voice, and would change it if that were easy to do.  But roleplay is very important to me, and pursuing it through VOIP has enabled a lot of opportunities which don't easily exist through pure text.

 

I've tried to do accents or to modulate my voice for different characters, but I suck at it.  I'll never be a voice acting professional.  So, instead, I speak plainly and try to vocalize as a narrator.  Less of speaking as my characters, and more getting in to the characters' minds, then having the "voice of god" relaying the characters' thoughts, actions, and words.  It's been the sort of compartmentalization that's allowed me to not only get in to character really deeply without having to awkwardly change my voice on the fly, but also helped me to better slip between multiple characters while GMing.

Although, I have learnt to be especially careful to delineate between which characters are speaking in a scene with multiple characters.  It had been confusing for my players before I really drove home the point when one character's speech ended and another's started.  Or worse, when one character interrupted another.

 

Disclaimer:  I understand that what has worked for me is no way indicative of what might work for anyone else.  But if you happen to be someone undecided on the merits of roleplaying through VOIP, then perhaps this perspective may be helpful to you.

[Crazyleo]

I've always used Discord ever since I've discovered it. Most Discord servers that I go on have channels used for posting (mostly as an evolution of forums from way back) AND for voice. So just because you don't use voice chat (I don't); it does not preclude you on using Discord.

 

[Magairlín]

16 hours ago, Triumphant said:

That seems strange to me.  Why add the complexity of discord?  The in-game chat function is right there on the same screen and perfectly functional and you can create dedicated channels for whatever purpose you need.

Discord lets us share pictures and links, and chat when we're away from the computer. It's not just for RP, it's a social space.

[Triumphant]

17 hours ago, chase said:

As a male that plays a lot of female characters, text chat's been my experience too.   

As someone who also used to play with a community of deaf players, I kinda have a bias against voice from there.  Early in MMO lives, deaf players felt uniquely enabled by online games' text chat, and I watched them go through a great deal of anxiety when guilds moved to TeamSpeak or Ventrilo or other early services.   Many of them played up to that point without ever being "outed" as having a hearing impairment and they reveled in not needing any special treatment.    The advent of online voice chat really shook many of them, and I kinda inherited that aversion by proxy.

That said, I have joinedvoice chat in a few  RP communities.   It was... odd.  Perhaps it was because many of us DID have voices that different from appearance/species in game, but we rarely spoke in-character.     It tended to replace tells and OOC text (unless we were privately conspiring against another player), and if there was any guildie present in the channel but not in the game area, they could ask those people to send tells to different people if they were too busy typing dialigue to respond rapidly.   It was a place to get quick answers, ("'what's the emote for x again?") not serious RP.

I'm sure there are RP groups with more capable voice actors trying to speak all IC, but I (thankfully) haven't found em.

 

I hadn't considered hearing impaired players, Chase.  That does make a certain amount of sense.

 

3 hours ago, Magairlín said:

Discord lets us share pictures and links, and chat when we're away from the computer. It's not just for RP, it's a social space.

 

Sure.  I can see that.  Most SG's have discord for that purpose.  It just still seems odd to use it for in-game text, rather than use the built-in game chat, if or no other reason that during public RP, nearby players/characters not in your group would simply perceive you as milling around silently, which seems odd to me.  Also, having to switch from the display to discord display to read msgs would feel cludgy and inconvenient to me, especially during team combat.  But, hey, such things are subjective.

[teamtr]

On 8/1/2021 at 9:47 PM, chase said:

That said, I have joinedvoice chat in a few  RP communities.   It was... odd.  Perhaps it was because many of us DID have voices that different from appearance/species in game, but we rarely spoke in-character.     It tended to replace tells and OOC text (unless we were privately conspiring against another player), and if there was any guildie present in the channel but not in the game area, they could ask those people to send tells to different people if they were too busy typing dialigue to respond rapidly.   It was a place to get quick answers, ("'what's the emote for x again?") not serious RP.

 

If I'm in a group that occasionally RPs, but also does OOC content like WoW raiding, then voice is fine for me, but I try to avoid voice chat in groups that I purely RP in. I just don't like knowing what the people I RP with look or sound like IRL, as you said it differs from appearances in-game and drags me out of the immersion a bit when I'm trying to unwind after a long day of IRL garbage. Maybe I want to pretend all the people I interact with in-game are just magically demons and vampires IRL, thank you very much.

 

As a sort of funny aside, one of my old WoW guilds had a hearing-impaired player who couldn't use voice. We were all quick to post instructions and battle plans in the raid chat for him, and he had other methods of keeping on top of things, which was great. But oh my god, the wails and shouting that happened one time when we all, in voice, decided to call off on starting a boss fight, but we forgot to tell him, so we watched him just merrily continue on and aggro the boss, thinking it was a normal pull like always? Hilarious. We all died so hard.

[Blackbird71]

On 7/31/2021 at 10:42 AM, DrZeus said:

I have noticed a good deal of people using discord.  To some this is a good thing, to others, not so much.

Whatever method you use is going to limit your interactions.  In my case, I saw a supergroup that would have been perfect for a character.  I inquired only to find out they use discord, which eliminates me as a member.  While you may have the drawback of not being able to type quickly... I have the drawback of rarely playing a character with a voice even remotely like my own.  People like me... we're not looking for a discord server, we just want to have more immersion while we play the game, so roleplay is natural, but that only works if we type instead of use our own voices, which don't match the characters in any way.

I'm curious what percentage of people use discord compared to not.  Since each one seems to limit your interactions, which one is more limiting I wonder?

 

On 8/1/2021 at 3:05 PM, Triumphant said:

That seems strange to me.  Why add the complexity of discord?  The in-game chat function is right there on the same screen and perfectly functional and you can create dedicated channels for whatever purpose you need.

 

Our SG makes heavy use of Discord for RP, but we don't use voice chat at all.  It doesn't replace in-game RP; rather it's a space for additional and supplemental RP outside of the game.  A lot of our players only have certain times of the day they can get in game, but they can jump into Discord by computer or phone almost any time, and it adds a lot of flexibility to the RP and provides more opportunities to build characters' stories with more depth than we could ever get with just in-game chat.  Plus with Discord, there's a record of the RP, so it makes it easy for others to catch up on stories and know what's going on.  We even keep spaces in Discord for updating brief tidbits of things that happen in-game so that those who weren't present can keep up to speed on events.

 

This of course is all on top of the social and organizational applications of Discord.  I really don't think an SG like ours could function without Discord or a similar platform.  Maybe if we had our own forums, but forums can lack the immediacy and ease of use of Discord communications.

Edited August 7, 2021 by Blackbird71

[Triumphant]

Ah, I see the advantage.  If you have limited play time you can RP by doing a sort of play-by-post on your discord channel.  Okay, I can grok that.  😁👍

[Blackbird71]

13 hours ago, Triumphant said:

Ah, I see the advantage.  If you have limited play time you can RP by doing a sort of play-by-post on your discord channel.  Okay, I can grok that.  😁👍

 

It also lends itself well to more long-form storytelling.  The RP scenes in game more often end up being supplemental pieces of larger arcs planned and told through Discord.  Often we'll do major plots in Discord, with elements of those plots inspiring some in-game RP, and then the plot culminates in an AE mission as the climax.

[Triumphant]

Cool.  😎

[GM Kal]

City of Community discord has a extensive setup for Discord based RP for anyone to use, that has dice rollers, and "Tupperbot" utility that allows use of alts if you have multiple characters, or want a specific bio and picture for your character. It's not an official Homecoming thing, and not specifically associated with any group; the Cape Radio folks run it.

A link is pinned in the HC Discord channel #Evelasting-RP

But, activity is currently lacking.

[Greycat]

My own experience - I was a bit hesitant to get on Discord. But pre-Discord, some of my SGs had their own websites (well, forums,) and we got extensive out-of-game RP on that. That... pretty much evolved into what I see with current groups on Discord - no voice needed - plus, of course, just general chatting and such.

[Genia]

On 8/2/2021 at 4:47 AM, chase said:

As a male that plays a lot of female characters, text chat's been my experience too.   

As someone who also used to play with a community of deaf players, I kinda have a bias against voice from there.  Early in MMO lives, deaf players felt uniquely enabled by online games' text chat, and I watched them go through a great deal of anxiety when guilds moved to TeamSpeak or Ventrilo or other early services.   Many of them played up to that point without ever being "outed" as having a hearing impairment and they reveled in not needing any special treatment.    The advent of online voice chat really shook many of them, and I kinda inherited that aversion by proxy.

That said, I have joinedvoice chat in a few  RP communities.   It was... odd.  Perhaps it was because many of us DID have voices that different from appearance/species in game, but we rarely spoke in-character.     It tended to replace tells and OOC text (unless we were privately conspiring against another player), and if there was any guildie present in the channel but not in the game area, they could ask those people to send tells to different people if they were too busy typing dialigue to respond rapidly.   It was a place to get quick answers, ("'what's the emote for x again?") not serious RP.

I'm sure there are RP groups with more capable voice actors trying to speak all IC, but I (thankfully) haven't found em.

 

As a visually impaired player (yes, we exist) I am on the opposite end of this spectrum. Anything that takes the burden off of the visual load and is transferred to auditory channels, like instructions, coordination and strategy, makes life ever so much easier.

 

I can't roleplay in voice, however - suspension of disbelief is impossible.