Game suggestions for a weekly online group
My weekly D&D group has been running for a number of years now and unfortunately our current DM is suffering from some pretty severe burnout at the moment (both in life and D&D in general). I think ultimately we're going to end up shuttering our D&D campaign, and may well never pick the game up again as we've almost all soured on WotC/Hasbro after the OGL debacle.
This week we entertained ourselves by messing around with image generation (velociraptor nun was a favorite result and became a bit of a running theme through the evening) but the fun in that can only last so long. We've also had some nights playing games like Dead by Daylight and Midnight Ghost Haunt but those are typically games we reserve for around Halloween. We also play some of the Jackbox Party Pack games, but they're only moderately fun to be honest.
We're usually a group of 7, and this particular formation of the friend group has been meeting almost exclusively online and will probably want to continue that way for the foreseeable future. I'd like some suggestions for games we could play together (either video game or TTRPG that works well online) that are: mostly cooperative or at least team based (we're not very competitive), something that won't become repetitive and dry after a couple of sessions (goal-oriented I guess), and something that we don't have to pay a subscription for. The ability to drop in or out as life dictates would be a plus too. Any thoughts?
Solasta is a fun 1-4 player D&D game with multiple campaigns and workshop content. No GM needed.
Risk of Rain 2 is lots of fun, and with mods let's you have more than 4 players. Lots of play through options from grueling to low key.
Lethal company is great for a laugh, easy to start and stop. Everyone dies horribly.
Deep rock galactic is fun, four person co-op, and with mods up to 8. You are dwarves mining in space, brewing beer, and dancing.
Golf It. Multiplayer mini golf with tons of workshop content. Good game to play while socializing on chat.
Valheim. Crafting survival exploration as Vikings. Tons of fun to build and explore together. Supports dedicated server.
Wingspan. Low key relaxing virtual card game for up to 5 players. Game with some competition without it getting stressful. Supports asynchronous games and mobile as well.
Smallands, crafting survival as small fairies with bugs as the major threat. Up to 8 players I think, and very pretty.
Void crew. Up to 4 players piloting a space ship. Lots of fun, with some interesting space battles.
7 days to die. Survival horror crafting with zombie wave mechanic. Fun and sports dedicated servers.
Absolutely throwing my chips on Lethal Company as well, so much fun!
It's normally 4-player but there's an easily installable mod called More Company that allows much larger groups (up to 32 I think!) to play at one time. There's a bunch of other mods as well should you fancy modding the game heavily.
It goes for a visually retro look, imitating a jpeggy, N64 vibe so it'll run on most machines and it's also pretty cheap, only costing £8 or £9 in the UK.
Games are short and the gameplay loop is easily understood so it can be picked up and put down when you want but it's incredible fun and everyone will die in horrible but absolutely hilarious ways.
Emberwind is one of my favorite GM-less systems that has a couple of adventures out that might scratch that TTRPG itch that you might have! I will always stan their studio because they make everything super accessible, designing with ADHD and dyslexia in mind.
A game my DnD group played on off weeks is Goblin Quest which does need a DM but it's so hilarious and simple to learn that I think it's worth mentioning.
Lethal Company can be played with a lot of people with mods too.
Tabletop Simulator might be good for that kind of group too.
Geoguesser might be fun for a couple of sessions, there's probably a way to make it co-op in a way!
I'll come back and edit this reply if I think of more things!
I'm looking up Emberwind - I like the idea of a GMless campaign, I'd be interested to see how that translates into game play. Do they have any VTT modules? If there is a ready-to-play ruleset and assets that can just be plugged into something like Foundry, I'd buy it and give it a try for sure.
Yes actually! I think that if you go to their official campaign pages and this one, you can scroll down and see a map-pack for Roll20! I think you'd still need to buy the actual campaign but it actually shows a bunch of stuff that you can do with it.
Amazing! Thank you for the links, I'm going to forward this to my tabletop group today.
Hope it goes well!! Personally I think Skies of Axia has a bit more interesting mechanics (including a campaign clock) but both are very solid!
A GM-less system does sound intriguing since we tend to struggle to find someone other than our usual DM to run everything. A quick peek at Emberwind has me very interested just based on the art! I'm excited about that one!
Goblin Quest looks cute too, I do enjoy a silly game now and again as a one-off. We've played Everyone is John a few times, even at a party! Good laughs to be found in there for sure.
Emberwind is sooo beautiful. I'm happy that I bought the actual physical books because the artwork is incredible. It's actually pretty interesting! The GM system basically relies on dice to figure out what monsters do, and then the dialogue and stuff is mostly a choose your own adventure style thing. It's really fun even solo.
Goblin Quest made me laugh so hard that I cried playing with my friends. Not to get too railroad-y but you get 5 goblins to play as (in sequence which is even funnier) and my goblins were Who, What, Where, When, and Kevin, all with their own little quirks. Make of that as you will.
Just thought of another random tabletop-ish game that is a GM-less system. I played it with a friend a couple of years ago, called Kingdom Death: Monster. I think you can play it on Tabletop Simulator.
Fair warning, it's a very heavy, very depressing game, but it seems to be pretty well loved by the community.
ccing @evye as well just because they mentioned they like the idea of GMless as well :)
Oh man, I had started a game of KD:M with a couple of friends probably 5+ years ago but we only ever had one session and I'm so sad we didn't continue because we were off to a good start! We fought the lion a couple of times and just kept getting lucky hits. We ended up with almost all of its special drops and didn't loose any characters in the process, it was a miracle!
loool i feel like that's a common story with that game specifically, it's kinda exhausting to play tbh.
Another one I thought of was Fiasco! Also One Last Job. Your prompt really got my brain going with some ideas and I'm excited to get together with friends this year to try all these games haha.
Oooh, thanks for the tap-in! I'll take a peek - not sure how my vtt group would feel about a heavy game, most of the shenanigans in our current 5e campaign are the narrative equivalent of a rubber chicken factory. Still worth a look, though!
Haha totally valid! I linked a couple of other ones in another comment above^
A few options that my own little group has been playing:
Earth Defense Force 5
Risk of Rain 2
Deep Rock Galactic
Lethal Company
These are all co-op games with varying degrees of player engagement and mechanic complexity, but they're the ones being fired up the most often in VC.
Sorry for the brevity, as I'm on mobile at the moment, I'll give a more detailed description of each game when I get home from work.
Lots of fun games on Tabletop Simulator. My friends and I really enjoyed Gloomhaven and Slay the Spire which were both created on TTS by the original devs.
I've been playing Elden Ring with up to 5 others using the seamless co-op mod. It can be a bit buggy at times but it's been one of the greatest gaming experiences I've had.
I love Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes! We've found that it's the most fun in VR where everyone can be right around the person disarming the bomb without seeing the screen. But yeah, the replayability does come down a bit after you start to essentially memorize sections of the manual.
I particularly love that accessing the bomb defusal manual is done by accessing www.bombmanual.com which can't not put your IP address on a list somewhere, I'm sure.
I have a video gaming group of 6 that likes to work together, so I can tell you the biggest issue is finding co-op games that more that 4 players can play together on. The games we have had fun with are:
Any favorites on Tabletop Simulator? I've been looking into Board Game Arena since it's more automated.
Secret Hitler is one of the better-balanced mafia games if you like social deduction. Very good TTS implementation.
There are some MtG setups that pull from scryfall or other card databases. You can probably find any card game of your choice - there's even a Megaman Battle Network TCG implementation, which keeps the game alive...
Gloomhaven Digital!
If you regularly have 7 or more people, then that's just enough to enjoy Blood on the Clocktower (Shut up and Sit Down Review). There's an online version that incorporates webcams and voice chat, and it plays pretty well remotely. It plays best at 8 or 9, but works with 7. It does require one person to be a neutral storyteller/moderator, but that's also kind of fun in its own right. BOTC is probably my favorite game, and I never turn down an opportunity to play it. So if you and your crew needed someone to run a few games while you're learning the ropes, I might know a guy who could help out (spoiler: its me).
Interesting, I'll check it out! At worst, it could become another party game for when there are way too many people around to play a more traditionally sized board game. We've played a lot of Werewolf in our day, but a new spin might help make it fresh again.
Nice. If you guys are familiar with and enjoy the Werewolf style social deduction, then botc will be a hit.
Online board games are solid. Dominion has a good client with some paid but VERY cheap features, Codenames has a good client, and Gartic Phone is a fantastic Telestrations clone with a ton of great modes and sharing options to take advantage of having a client.
That's awesome, I'm going to throw Gartic Phone into the hat as an offering for sure. Thanks for the suggestion!