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This week’s topic is about being a good participant in a game or class. FGC is a teaching college, and because of this, our one-shot games are made to help new players develop their skills as a player. This can sometimes make some sessions a little longer than if everyone was an old pro. Players may need a little more time to take their turn when in combat, and sometimes the DM may be learning as well, and need a little extra time to do his/her job as well.
Good habits to make
Be on time.
Probably the number one thing that you should always do when participating in a game (or class) is to be on time. When playing in a class, you should leave extra time to find out the alias for joining the game, plus if there is a password, it’s good to get that ahead of time as well. Most times the DM will PM you this information 30 minutes to an hour prior to the game start. If he/she is allowing you to bring in a character, it would be good to have already uploaded your.xml sheet to the DM (best time would be when you request to play in the game)
Having the extra time will allow you to go over your character sheet if you’ve picked from one of the DM’s pre-generated characters, or look over your own character after choosing it from the PC tab.
Use the AFK notice if you’re going to be gone for from your computer.
While waiting in between turns in combat, especially if the table has a larger number of players. If you’ve just taken your turn and you need to step away, use the AFK notice. To activate it, you will just right click on your portrait in the upper left corner of the screen, and choose the “hand” symbol. This will display a clock symbol over your portrait, and give notice in the chat window that you have gone AFK. When you return, don’t forget to right click on your portrait again to display the message that you have returned.
Use the Push to Talk option in Discord
Sometimes you will have a lot of background noise going on wherever you are when you are gaming. Be it TVs or music playing in the background, or other people talking amongst each other, other people in your game do not need to hear it. To fix this problem, make sure to activate the “Push to Talk” option in Discord. To do this, look in the bottom left cover where you see your Discord Icon. To the right of this you’ll see three symbols. A microphone, a set of headphones and a little gear symbol. Left click on the gear and in the next window, on the left, choose Voice & Video. At the top you’ll see Voice Settings. Make sure your to choose your headphone option for your input and output, then scroll down. Under Input mode, you have two options. Either Voice Activity or Push to Talk. Click on the square for “Push to Talk.” Under that you will see a Shortcut option. This is the key on your keyboard you will hold down in order to talk. I recommend using the ← as this key is not used for anything in Fantasy Grounds. Click on the X to escape and go back to your chat window in Discord.
Pay attention when the DM is talking
Like I previously mentioned when playing with new players, sometimes the DM will have to help them with one thing or another when it’s their turn. If there are a lot of players, as I mentioned in #1 above, it can take a while before you get your next turn. I recommend staying within the game and listening to what is going on. If you are new yourself, you could learn something you didn’t already know, and if you aren’t new, you should be aware of what is going on. It’s especially important to pay attention when the DM is loading a new map, so you can see where your token will be placed, and you can resize the window, if the map is especially large for your screen size. You could also miss the DM saying that the party is surprised by a nasty monster, and you want to be ready to roll initiative and think of what you will do when it is your turn.
Have fun!
Playing RPG games in Fantasy Grounds is all about having fun. If you’re not having fun, why are you here? Even if the game isn’t what you were hoping, you can have fun while roleplaying your character. Not saying to try to take over all the talking or to be obnoxious, but immersing yourself into your character can be great fun. And your latest party (or classmates, if in a class) could be your next good friend.
I hope this helps you with learning good practices of being a player. Do you have a subject you’d like me to cover in the “FG College Times?” Send me an email to LadyShel and hopefully we will cover your topic suggestion in an upcoming article.
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