Chat channel usage

[Carlo]

Chat channel usage in this campaign has been generally understood, but I did a quick search and found that it hasn't actually been documented in the house rules. This is one of those things that can vary significantly between different campaigns/DMs, so I thought I would go ahead and put the current Westgate usage down.

-- Talk: Default for normal conversation.
-- Whisper: Use for short-radius (listeners must be adjacent to the speaker) conversations you don't want overheard. There is some flexibility here, as emoting *quietly* or the like in the talk channel is also a possibility, as the DM will recognize that NPCs should not be able to overhear the conversation, even if they can tell one is occurring.
-- Shout: Use for shouts. Since there's no other parties on the server, this is fine for limited use (yelling from behind a door, for example).
-- Party: Use for shouts, but of course this only works if you are partied up, which is not necessarily the default status for everyone in the party (split parties are common). Also can be used for emoting hand gestures when in stealth mode, or very limited conversation. (If a PC is talking/whispering for any length of time, then they are by definition not moving silently.) Party should not be used in combat situations.

Essentially the above is designed to have the chat channels reflect realistic use for speakers/listeners while allowing for limited practical work-arounds as necessary. Comments welcome.

[Vanya Mia]

The issue I have with this is stealth and the way it affects play. I've spent many a time talking only to realise a while later than none of the party can "hear" a word I say because they can't detect stealth. This effectively cuts my character off from communicating with the party at all, unless she foregoes the advantages of stealth, even for the casual banter you get while travelling along.

I don't power-game the feat mechanics. I switch it on and off as much as I reasonably can. I make a point of never communicating via party chat if I am too far away from the group for it to be reasonable, unless by "hand signals". But with these restrictions if I can't use stealth and lose the advantage of an extremely important class feature, or I do and end up not being able to contribute to anything happening.

I'm fairly sure Dermot is heading into this position as I know he beats Shanni's detection fairly often and if he does hers I'm pretty sure Darrow and Aerikoth are going to find it hard too, regardless of level differences, as I build my rogues /well/.

I've played in campaigns for 8 years now using party for communication purposes, mostly to aid the DM see what's happening without having to set up other monitoring options, and find it unlikely a seasoned campaigner will take any more advantage of what they know from party chat than they would from seeing the attack icon under the character portrait and use that as a reason to run to someone's aid.

I'd like to be trusted to behave in this fashion in this campaign too.

[Carlo]

To recap, the main technical issues with Party chat's effect on play are:

1) Combat - it's very easy to lose track of where you are vs. party members, so I ask that it not be used then.

2) Immersion/OOC info - split parties are common and frequently they are doing things that other PCs shouldn't be aware of.

Since what you describe as practical use of Party chat doesn't fall into either category above, I don't see the problem.

[Vanya Mia]

The real problems come up when, such as last active session where Shanni and Dermot were scouting, we were using Party to signal to one another while we were, but that meant Darrow and Rahnee could see what we were signalling. As long as that's not a problem either then all's good.

[Carlo]

I find that sort of thing relatively easy to ignore, so no problem there. It's only if you get into a fight while doing it that the OOC element becomes difficult to handle.