Best Party Size

[chrisiav]

Nobody has mentioned this but, *especially* if you know your players personally, using voice will give FG a much greater face to face feel since you will have the same chatter as around the table. Generally, the more players you have the more speed advantage you will have from voice over typing.

I hear you but since 1) I play with most of these guys twice a month face to face, and 2) my FG game runs on a weeknight and I have people chattering at me all day, I had this silly notion that it would be nice to play a quiet game of D&D. But I'm slowly coming to the realization that it's probably just a pipe dream unless my group dips down to under 4 players.

[VenomousFiligree]

My preference is for IC text and OOC voice. Imo you can achieve much richer RP with text, especially when playing the opposite sex. The downside is though, as people have pointed out, it's slower.

[JohnD]

At one time I was able to type 55 wpm and even that was slow for a 6 player group.

[Blahness98]

1) What size do you DMs limit your party to? Or do you have any limit? What # of players do you find optimum?

I try to keep my party sizes down to between 4 and 5. As I do a lot of text only games, I find that is the ideal number that I can handle with only text.

2) Am I just setting myself up for failure by restricting my chat to text or does anyone else find the mode viable?

It all depends on how well you can multitask. Voice makes things go quicker, but it does lower the immersion. If you can mix voice and text, you get both immersion and quicker uptake.

5) What tricks do other DMs use to control the flow of the chat window? For example, players love rolling die (I am guilty of it myself) But on FG, random rolls clog up the window. Does the novelty wear off? OR do you DMs have rules regarding rolls or just random OOC chatting?

I have players that don't roll randomly, so I couldn't tell you. I as a player have thrown random rolls by accident, but I usually apologize in OOC about tossing the the roll and stop clicking near the hotkeys. Otherwise, tell your players to toss the rolls out of the chat window so they will not register. That way they can toss as many as they want and they will not register.

[Mask_of_winter]

3) You can drag any unformated text from the chat (before it is sent) and drag and drop it onto a portrait to send it as a whisper.

I give you props for keeping it all typed chat. Unless I played a roleplay-heavy game with a light system (Hillfolk, WoD, etc) there is no way I'd set myself up for this kind of abuse as a GM. I may compromise and do OOC on voice and IC in chat. But never 100%

[damned]

These have all been answered but you are looking for opinions/advice so another set cant hurt!

1) What size do you DMs limit your party to? Or do you have any limit? What # of players do you find optimum?
I like to have a group of 7 because I will almost always have at least 4 that way and the game can go ahead.
A game with 3 or 4 players runs faster for sure.
A game with 6 or 7 can get bogged down even with voice.

2) Am I just setting myself up for failure by restricting my chat to text or does anyone else find the mode viable?
If you want to do chat do as much prep as possible.

3) Is there any mouse control (like a right click on the portrait) that can initiate whispers to make the chat faster? Or is it viable to create shortcut keys for a whisper? And if so, do you need a separate shortcut for each player?
Yes you can drag speech bubbles and story entries and pictures on to portraits for private sharing,

4) In the same vein, can you open up a second chat window or tab os that chat can go in one place and die rolls and what not go in the other?
Nope.

5) What tricks do other DMs use to control the flow of the chat window? For example, players love rolling die (I am guilty of it myself) But on FG, random rolls clog up the window. Does the novelty wear off? OR do you DMs have rules regarding rolls or just random OOC chatting?
Roll outside the chat window if you are just rolling and if they keep it up start throwing bolts of lightning.

[LordEntrails]

I've done all chat before (different platform, years ago. Its possible.) But as mentioned, it's tiring. The only reason I would consider it now is if you plan to go through the chat log and use it to post or document your adventure. Say you do a blog or online journal of your game, then it's worth it.

[damned]

Other reasons why people do text only include Immersion, more socially comfortable with text, cant do voice because they are in noisy/quiet environment.

[Blahness98]

The only reason I would consider it now is if you plan to go through the chat log and use it to post or document your adventure. Say you do a blog or online journal of your game, then it's worth it.

I do this for my players. I may get a little behind with the recaps, but it's fun going back and reading what happened in game to talk about it on a forum or do out of FG RP. Also allows me to remember what happened since the last session since I sometimes forget to take notes.

[Ardem]

On a side note you can set up direct Team Speak hotkeys

You can set up some whispers directly to individuals, they however can also to GM, however you will need to prepare them prior to game time.

I have a number of keys for my Arma group, just like these guys have. This might be able to help you speed up your flow.

here is a tutorial for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337pMAe-sac