Kilgon the Sharpshooter (Playing Online Without a VTT)

Yesterday, we played Stars Without Number. D&D meets classic scifi. A nice and simple old school approach that leaves lots of room for roleplay and creativity.

We had players in Canada, U.S., and Germany. We used Zoom with a whiteboard, and our Dice Service that Wizards of Adventure have access to. I also used Freebooter to whip up a quick character.

My guy was Kilgon, the group’s muscle and a good shot with laser pistols. Here’s his character sheet.

Mike, our GM, did a great job. Our mission was a quintessential 5 Room Dungeon to find a guy and the datapad he stole. The guy fled into The Tower, which was guarded by poisonous gas and killer bots. We were also following the Nestus Man (think Florida Man, but galactically worse) who had a 4 hour head start on scooping our bounty.

Here’s a screenshot of our bot battle. We nearly lost James, our doc. But a quick Gilligan’s Island needle of liquid scifi adrenaline brought him back.

It was my first time using an online whiteboard for virtual gaming and it worked great. I’ll be using this again in the future.

  • Emojis for PCs and enemies.
  • Easy basic map drawing with shapes and lines.
  • Text boxes for init, damage, foe traits, etc.

We also used the simple Dice Service that Jochen built:

It allows you to create a Room and players can join the Room. Everyone can enter their character name or nickname. And then all dice rolls are logged for easy review.

The Dice Service supports a wide range of roll types, including:

  • 1d6, 2d8, 2d12+3, 10d20-42, 1d24.
  • 1H/2d20 and 1L/2d20 to roll for advantage or disadvantage.
  • Run Fudge or FATE via 4dF.
  • Instant birth dates with 1d30, 1d12, 1d100+1900.
  • Count successes with 4d6 [5+] that checks if four six-sided dice rolled any 5s or higher.
  • Exploding dice ala 3d10* (i.e. reroll tens and add reroll to result).
  • 1d{Red|Orange|Yellow|Green|Blue|Violet} that rolls a “color” die for easy weather or morale checks.
  • 2dB and 2dS that roll for Hero Body and Stun damage.

We ended the session by defeating the bots and gaining access to The Tower. Our one-shot will become two, and we’ll play next weekend to find out what happens.

If you need a fast and simple way to play online, try a whiteboard feature in the meeting app of your choice and combo with the Wizard of Adventure Dice Service for easy rolling.

Not a Wizard of Adventure yet? Click here to level up your GMing today.

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

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