BGDF Discord?

I'm with Rich on this one. I've joined a few game design related Discord servers and they all seem to be firehoses of noise. I think that they could be really useful for quick discussions for some people, but they're way worse for more considered discussion than a forum system like BGDF.

I too suspect that setting one up wouldn't really enhance the BGDF experience, and for those of us who want that sort of discussion environment, there are plenty of options. For instance, Gabe's BDGL has a reasonably lively Discord server.

Hi folks, I'm new here but I think I can offer a well-rounded perspective. Forums and live chat both have their benefits.

Forums are great for slower-moving discussions and topics, for hosting long-form writing such as tutorials, game reviews, and articles, and for linking directly to that content.

Live chat is great for faster-moving conversations, e.g. a back and forth brainstorming session about refining a particular game mechanic. It's great when you have a quick question and need an answer on the order of seconds, not hours.

Board gaming discord servers have provided me invaluable advice on many areas of board game design and prototyping. In return, I've given well-received feedback on graphic design and gameplay mechanisms. I learned about Dice Ruler, a sweet mod for TTS that I'm now using in my digital prototype. And through Discord I've found this great site, so yeah I guess blame Discord for this dissenting opinion. :P

I'm not arguing for a BGDF discord. There are MANY board game discords already, and unnecessary fragmentation damages a community. Here's a sample of more design-oriented servers:

https://discord.gg/WVzY4aN Pangea Games
https://discord.gg/TnQknfV Tabletop Collaboration and Design
https://discord.gg/5hbvZAc Board Game Design Lab (the podcast)
https://discord.gg/ZvkEBEH Kickstarter Table Top Games (not as design-oriented, but still relevant)

Give it a shot and have fun. Discord is ultimately just a means of communication, much like this forum. Use it for what it's best at, and it will become an indispensable part of your toolset.

EDIT: Discord could even drive traffic to this site and encourage more discussion and activity here. If you join a discord and find others looking for things like the game design showdown or other features of this site, send them this way. It would be great if every designer knew about these wonderful resources (both forums and live chat) so they could use the ones that best met their needs.

If it is more useful for immediate discussion, maybe it could be useful for some specific activities like live playtesting. Some people are testing another person's prototype and they are discussing live what is hapenning and asking for rule clarifications to the designer.

I don't know all the capabilities of discord, I think it support Audio right?

Many years ago, I joined a local group of gamers to create a podcast and I ended up participating in 3 "shows", one was a round table about a subject, another one was a duo about game design. And finally a game design challenge show that we gave to people and ourselves. We made a few episode and we had to stop.

With discord, maybe we could create some sort of live podcast where the participant does not sit in the same room. We could choose a subject of discussion, define a date and time and simply talk about it. There is no montage to make since it's live, so less work ... but more errors.

That is another idea of possible application. Now, I think it could be useful if you have a list of specific applications it could be used for. But dressing up that list should be done first.