While I have tried to do a WoD game online before, most my RP experience comes from my local group.  Online formats up till now mostly involved forums, chats, VOIP and shared presentation programs.  Each having it’s own advantages but there was no common preference between them.  Google might change this with one of their latest programs, Google Wave.

The basic format is that of a Live Forum or Message-board.  Using forum terms, you can make new topics and invite only the people you want to read/reply to it.  The good is that you can keep discussions private while Forums are broadcasts of your posts.   This can all be done by any user, no need to setup a forum.  Moderate it from unknown users and general upkeep work is almost nullified.  I found this post by Ben Parr to be helpful in explaining the programs basics.  I will be speaking more about it’s impact specifically to running a RP on it so please review  that before reading on.

I am running a play test nWoD game on GWave to see how well it works out.  So far the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks of using it instead of  the other formats.  There are already dice roller Bots created to roll dice on command, making it easy to handle dice rolling for players and the ST.  It is simple to make wavelets to manage story arcs and discussions, including private ones.  To keep the threads clean, you can copy the transcript to plain text and save it in a document.  Which you can even attach to the Wave after.  Then delete posts so you can continue a clean discussion.

One of the main missing elements right now is Moderation.  Anyone can edit any other’s posts, though it marks who did what.  Other people can delete your posts entirely.  Once you add a contact to the discussion, you can’t remove them.  Making the entire thing a honor system.  This drawback is still manageable in small groups, which I wouldn’t expect a RP to have more than 7 or 8 in the Wave.  One thing of note is that Google will be releasing the program so other people can Host it.  This should give more control over moderation of Waves but that is still to be seen.

Currently it is on invite only in order to get access.  So bug friends or contacts if you want to try it yourself.