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.
Jabber, a.k.a. XMPP. It’s decentralized, featureful, standardized, and low on server resources.
Here’s a user’s guide I wrote.
https://contrapunctus.codeberg.page/the-quick-and-easy-guide-to-xmpp.html
Since you mention stuff like “the video isn’t important”, “other services” (plural), I’d consider not just one alternative but several. The big problem with big name social media is that they provide a all-in-one experience that is designed for profit, and as such looks and acts worse than any of its independent parts (not to mention, the sum is artificially made more addictive to users).
- For publishing campaign materials itself, all you need is a filehost or filebin - something like pastebin.com but that allows you to upload and organize any kind of files. Any of the offerings in the FOSS market will do, but if you are going to focus on posting quickie (rich¡) text documents that are easy to build and parse I’d suggest a Markdown-based document bin like Hedgedoc.
- If your campaign is gonna run like a chat, XMPP / Jabber. There’s servers like Prosody or ejabberd that are easy to set up.
- If your campaign is gonna run in web “play by post” mode, any modern web forum system will do, for example Discourse. Heck, even oldie-style web forums might do, like phpBB.
- Voice: Jabber has access to audio IIRC. I’ve also heard very good things about Mumble.
Internet Relay Chat
a technology handed down to use from the ancients.
Video chats though?
don’t be a creep
I’ve never felt a desire to move off old-school IRC.
Funny enough, Skype is dead now, just like ICQ, MSN, and many others. But IRC is still alive. Decentralized protocols <3
Unfortunately, it’s only alive as long as you don’t close your client.
The community had solved this problem decades ago. Of course, bouncers, relays, and other solutions are not for everyone. But there are also modern web clients like https://thelounge.chat/ that always stay online. You can use them pretty much like discord for text chats.
I wrote a somewhat lengthy “Introduction to Matrix/Element” comment for someone here recently. If you arent paranoid, then you can ignore the sections about not using and removing the web client session after account creation. Let me know if you have any trouble.
The comment in question: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/16768943
To use element like discord (with servers and voice channels) you will create a Space(=discord-server) and then add Rooms(=discord-channels) to it.
Normal rooms are usually text only but you can still start a video call (doesnt have video on by default) inside one which all room members will get notified for.
To get something like voice channels you create a “video room” which people can then join and it acts like a voice channel that also has screen sharing and video functionality.
There is full permission management so you can give everyone in the space access to all rooms or use levels like guest/member/moderator/admin/owner etc or you make it invite only. Lots of options.
Matrix. But if you want something that looks and feels exactly like Discord, there is Revolt. It’s FOSS.
If only revolt added federation. Then I’d be behind it 100%
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.
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
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.
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.
Well yeah. Revolt is not really E2EE (yet), so it doesn’t matter. And it is not impossible to build a private messaging app with ActivityPub, see sup from the dev of Pixelfed. It also seems like some people are trying to get E2EE encrypted DMs in Fediverse to be a thing: https://wedistribute.org/2024/05/encrypted-dms-activitypub/
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.
https://revolt.chat/ it is from UK and is GDPR compliant.
Remind me… is that the same UK that currently tries to force apple and google to include governement backdoors into their encryption?
There’s Revolt, if you’re happy being on an empty platform that none of your friends will ever move to.
