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Streaming RPGs - First Steps

This week I've started preparing for an online streamed Starfinder game. Because I've been looking through so many resources, this seems like a good time to outline what steps I've taken. It can be hard to figure out how to start streaming a game.

First, I needed players! Last week on Twitter I put out an open call for players. That worked well for me because I have a certain amount of reach on Twitter now.

I set up a Discord server to plan the game and coordinate the pre-play items, like sharing safety tools we would use and the rules for Stafinder. I invited each potential player to the server. The benefit was allowing open discussion of the game on a private service. This could have been a Twitter or Facebook Messenger group message but I wanted to use Discord for voice during the game, so it seemed like a good time to learn Discord.

An additional benefit of Discord is having multiple channels, which allowed me to use one for General Chat, one for Character Creation notes and one for Game Planning.

Starfinder became the game of choice for the stream based on a few factors:
  1. I am interested in the game! Always a good start.
  2. The rules are available in a System Resource Document online. This makes it so much easier to incorporate players and allow them to know how the game will function.
  3. It's not over-saturated but it is new. Many people are playing Starfinder but it seems like a game you can play and stand out a bit. I also appreciate the direction that the design team took in using existing Pathfinder to craft Starfinder. It's simpler and more direct but still has a lot of flavor and  options.
Once I had the Discord set up I followed an article from Roll20.net on how to set up OBS for streaming. I incorporated my Twitch stream key and got rolling. Streaming worked fine; to add voice I used the Discord OBS Streamkit overlay. This added a voice widget to the OBS scene. I turned off the visibility on this.

Next I worked on creating an overlay. I had an idea of how many cameras I wanted to use so I laid out these views on the OBS scene using Browser Sources, then created the overlay. I did this with GIMP, a graphic program that is free for Linux, Mac and Windows. This let me import an image and cut holes in it. I matched those holes to the Browser Sources.

So I have a OBS overlay with proper Discord voice channel support. I have a main window that can display the Roll20 screen or another web browser source. Next will be adding video to the player and GM windows.

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