Using IRC for online tabletop - questions reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imaginary-Owl · 2020-01-04 15:34 Hello everyone, I used to use IRC a long time ago to play in online RPGs, using dice bots to simulate a Dungeons and Dragons-like experience. My goal is to set up a similar game, but it's been 15 years since then so there are a lot of new technical requirements to take into account. Also, I never delved into the technical side of IRC any deeper than registering my own channels and setting up cut scripts in mIRC (or that one time I fumbled my way through setting up ZNC) so I'm feeling a little lost. Here is the setup that I would like in an ideal scenario: \- I am not hosting the IRC server itself but connecting to an already established server where I have 2-3 channels for the game \- users come to the site I have built for the game and can access the chat directly \- the actual play sessions are fully logged and can be read back by users (log files stored on my website) \- a dice roller bot is connected and active in the channels 24/7 \- some amount of mobile-friendliness as there are some players who would have to play by mobile; this would mean message scrollback due to the way mobile clients disconnect frequently unless I am mistaken on this \- as little setup required of the individual user as possible; I am trying to bring in people who are not familiar with IRC but love using Discord, and I don't want to tell them they have to each set up a bouncer, etc. (now if someone didn't care about scrollback and such obviously they could just download their client of choice and join as normal) What I have looked at so far: thelounge - this hits most of the marks! The problem I'm having is I can't install it because I have a shared hosting plan. I set up a droplet on DigitalOcean, but I can't seem to figure out how to get a subdomain pointed to it from my current domain. The instructions indicate that I would be setting all my nameservers to DO's? (basically the site is mydomain.com and I want thelounge at chat.mydomain.com but the former is hosted at my host and the latter is hosted at digitalocean) But this isn't really an IRC issue so I digress... Convos - I haven't delved too deeply into this, it looks neat though. How does it compare to thelounge? I expect I would have similar issues as thelounge re: getting it installed/nameservers, though... I know there are dice roller bots out there, but I don't know how to host them. Could I set one up in a DigitalOcean droplet? Currently the test game is on a Discord server, so that's why I have so many concerns about message scrollback and user friendliness. I like the features of Discord but I want control over the chat logs, I want people to be able to change nicknames without it affecting the prior messages, I'd like to take advantage of the potential traffic from hosting it on an already populated roleplaying server, and the old dicebot I used to use on IRC was way better than everything I've found offered for Discord. I would appreciate any thoughts or advice anyone might have! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- seiyria · 2020-01-04 19:08 Since you already plan on storing logs, Discord is still fine for this. Log the users current nickname, message, timestamp, etc via a custom bot. You can even have the bot serve a web interface to browse it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imaginary-Owl · 2020-01-04 19:44 I thought about doing that (or rather, finding a bot that functions close enough since my coding skills aren't up to snuff), but I've had reservations about Discord's stability issues, in addition to other comparatively minor annoyances (nickname handling, avatars, the way action tags are displayed, etc.). I suppose a lot of it is down to nostalgia, so I guess it's not like I *can't* run it on Discord if all other alternatives fail. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- stillfun · 2020-01-04 19:52 The Lounge sounds like a good option. Maybe try to install it first on your own machine or somewhere where it is easy to test it out, so that you get a feeling how it can be used. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rainbownerdsgirl · 2020-01-04 21:15 I used to play in one of these a long time ago, it was really fun! What is your theme going to be? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imaginary-Owl · 2020-01-04 21:41 It's a cyberpunk/fantasy game similar to Shadowrun, but with an original setting and different options for character races and classes, focused of course on the world of mercenaries, criminals, and the fringes of a dystopian society ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ProgVal · 2020-01-05 01:16 > but I can't seem to figure out how to get a subdomain pointed to it from my current domain. The instructions indicate that I would be setting all my nameservers to DO's? (basically the site is mydomain.com and I want thelounge at chat.mydomain.com but the former is hosted at my host and the latter is hosted at digitalocean) If the domain is managed by a provider that isn't completely shit, you can set subdomains to point to any IP address. Look for A and AAAA records. > Could I set one up in a DigitalOcean droplet? Yes. A droplet is a virtual computer so you can set up any bot on it (assuming it supports Linux). > I know there are dice roller bots out there, but I don't know how to host them. Self-plug: install instructions of the IRC bot I maintain: https://limnoria.readthedocs.io/en/latest/use/install.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imaginary-Owl · 2020-01-05 02:08 Thanks so much! I found the A record and got everything pointing in the right direction. I'll definitely check out your bot as well!