Rotating Voice & Sidelining in Golarion | World Anvil
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Rotating Voice & Sidelining

This home rule is intended to address a few issues I see with the campaign as we kick off given the size of the group and playing online.   Issues:
  1. We have a large group of players
  2. We will be playing over Discord and not in person
  3. We will be playing a more tactical game than D&D where coordinated conversation on strategy is key (and also where this game is most fun/effective).
  4. Some players are more vocal than others
  5. With a large group, Voice Chat will be a challenge without structure. Voice chat lacks the human social cues that help people join a conversation without stepping on each others voices
  6. With too large a group, PF combats becomes unwieldy for both balance and structure. The fun is lost in the noise.
Solution:   Rotating Voice & Sidelining   How does Rotating Voice work:   Out of Combat there will be one person who is the voice for that scene. That person will be coordinating the different actions and interactions that people want to do. They will be the person I will ask 'What is the party doing' and they, in turn, will map out the plan for the group based on conversations they have with the other players. This role will rotate to the next person in order for the next out of combat scene   In Combat there will be one person who is the Commander for that combat. That person will have the job of coordinating with the the other players on tactics and strategies each round. Their character then will have a Free Action at the beginning of each round to yell orders and tell other characters what to do. This role will rotate to the next person in order for the next combat.   The order for out of combat and in combat rotations are separate.   How does Sidelining work:   If we have more than 6 players online at a session, at the start of a combat we will bring 6 characters into combat and sideline the remainder (should only be one). This is to ensure both a balanced and well paced combat. Sidelined characters cannot participate in the combat and are presumed 'not there' for the purposes of the combat. No sidelining for Boss Battles, everyone fights.   Who gets Sidelined?
  • The Commander from the previous battle
  • Once per game session, a swap can be made for the previous Commander to join. This is used in cases where you are fighting a monster that a character is really effective against, like a cleric with undead.
  What does someone who is Sidelined do? They become the cheerleader of the group, urging them on in the Discord channel.   Shouldn't we just have less people in the group?   I have asked a few people I initially invited to hold off joining for now. We're at 7 players, which is one more than I normally feel comfortable with online. But any DM will tell you its rare to get all players to show up each night, so that problem sorts itself most night. If 7 show up to play, great! We sideline one character each combat like in Volleyball. Even at 6 players, we would have a Voice Chat issue so the Rotating Voice rule is valuable for anything more than 4 players anyway.   But I want to say something funny / clever / sarcastic in the moment and this Rotating Voice thing sucks the fun out.   I am a huge fan of making the game feel like a game by trying to crack up my fellow players. As Sarah will tell you, I don't know when to shut up. So instead of sitting on our comments, lets use the Discord Chatroom more and make that the channel for the meta-commentary about whats happening in game.   Incentive to use chat.   Best comment in Discord gets a Hero Point next game. BTW, Hero points can save your character's life!

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