I don’t really like discord, but my gaming group have been using it for rpg stuff. Chat channels, video calls and easy to setup bots have all been really useful.

But I get the feeling the enshitification is going to get worse, so I was looking for somewhere else to migrate to. The video stuff isn’t as important, we could switch easily to other services. But before I start a new campaign, and spend time setting up bots with routines for rolling dice and calculating tables, I’d like to do it somewhere that isn’t in talks for an IPO.

I’m not really up on stuff like this, so I don’t know if there’s some obvious similar choices or an alternative medium that I haven’t considered.

  • LegoBrickOnFire@jlai.lu
    0·
    6 hours ago

    During the pandemic, discord has been a lifeline for me and I did not find alternatives that had a specific feature that may appear irrelevant but that I found deeply comforting: When people are hanging out in a vocal channel, you can see them. It was not much, but it was the closest we had to going to university and seeing groups of friends just chilling together.

    There are many other platforms for text and vocal chats, but this is a feature I am still looking for.

    Prove me wrong !

  • other_cat@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    24 hours ago

    You know, I’m gonna be the oddball suggestion here.

    Forums. What forums? I don’t know, the last time I used them was proboards back in 2010 so I’m sure I’m out of the loop on the options, but I do miss forums sometimes. That was where I ran RPGs, back in the day.

    • Acamon@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      14 hours ago

      We are considering a seperate play by post game using some of the forums and sites set up for that. But having a voice and video chat with friends, with easy options for adding dice and game management bots is appealing.

      • other_cat@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        8 hours ago

        Yeah, I hear you. And even if you post at lightning speed, there’s something about forums that just feels slower compared to the speed posting in a chatroom can get you.

      • asudox@lemmy.asudox.devM
        0·
        1 day ago

        In the FAQ, they state that federation is not in their roadmap, but if someone can do it, then they are willing to merge it. Since Revolt is written in Rust, we can use Lemmy devs’ activitypub federation crate. I might take a look at it someday.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
          0·
          1 day ago

          I’ve even thought about it, but I don’t know rust and right now just don’t have the time, but it seems like it’d be fairly simple. Matrix and revolt have a lot in common, it’s just translating between the two

          • asudox@lemmy.asudox.devM
            0·
            1 day ago

            Oh no like I meant using ActivityPub to federate between different Revolt instances or even other future software that might be an alternative to Discord and is federated using ActivityPub.

            • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
              0·
              1 day ago

              Oh, yeah no activitypub isn’t meant for private messaging. It’s great for things like mastodon and lemmy, but there is zero privacy, it’s meant to blast out to anyone who wants to listen. Messaging the best standards right now are Matrix and XMPP.

                • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
                  0·
                  1 day ago

                  Yes, but if you need a truck, use a truck. If you need a car, use a car. They both do similar things, but the reason it’s taking a while for that stuff is because the protocol was not built for that in mind. They’re two different use cases. You’re not the first to have the idea here, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. Use each protocol for what they’re good at. ActivityPub was designed to be a great social network protocol. Matrix and XMPP were both built to be great secure messaging protocols. Trying to shoehorn either one into a use case it wasn’t meant to be results in a subpar experience.

                  What would be neat is if the Lemmy Client added a messaging protocol with it, so it could be both a matrix and a lemmy server. Each user gets their own Matrix handle out of the gate, so DMs are actually Matrix DMs. Then you could also open any matrix client with it too. The clients I have no problem with them being dual purpose, the protocols though, those are very specific.

  • tatann@lemm.ee
    0·
    1 day ago

    I think Element/Matrix could do the trick

    At least that’s what I intend to do with some friends for our gaming sessions and daily mindless chat

  • Rappe@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    I mean, our friend group still uses IRC. Go back to the roots, discord is merely a fancy IRC anyway. Quakenet is still up and running, working as smoothly as ever! (So at least one netsplit* a day… :D)

  • mlflexer@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    Matrix? I think you can setup text channels and also do voice/video/screen sharing in the channels as well if you’re using element, though I havn’t been able to convince my friends to jump ship yet, so don’t know how it compares to discord

    • dfyx@lemmy.helios42.deEnglish
      0·
      1 day ago

      Remind me… is that the same UK that currently tries to force apple and google to include governement backdoors into their encryption?