Gaming with Google Groups

For this article, we'll focus on Google Groups as a means for you and your gaming group to conveniently communicate. Google Groups is Google's version of mailing lists and community forums as it serves both purposes. It allows members to email the entire group with a single email address. Alternatively, you can post messages directly to the Google Group, and they will be sent as emails to all members. In addition to basic mailing list functionality, your Google Group can be used as medium for basic play-by-post role-playing games.

Google Groups also allows members to create custom pages that members can edit and update, and has a Files section for uploading and sharing files.

To access or create a Google Group, you'll need to create a Google Account.

Creating a Google Account

If you already own a Google Account, you can skip straight to Adding Group Members to Google Contacts below.

Creating a Google Account is easy and free. All you need is either your own email address or simply create a new Gmail account. I recommend creating a Gmail account simply because of the vast amount of features that allow you to more efficiently manage email and keep track of threads. The search function in Gmail is far superior to most other email systems, too, but I digress; you can learn more about Gmail accounts from Google. For the sake of simplicity and moving forward with this article, we'll assume you use your own email address for your account. After all, you can always convert your Google Account to a Gmail account in the future.

To create a Google Account, follow these steps:

1. Go to Google.com. (Easy enough so far.)
2. In the upper right corner of the page, you'll see two links labeled "iGoogle" and "Sign in." (We'll play with iGoogle in a future article). Click "Sign in."
3. A sign-in box will display on the right side of the Google Accounts page. Since we don't have a Google Account yet, we can't sign in, but below that box is a link to "Create an account now." Click that link.
4. The next page is where you enter your information and agree to the terms of service. Upon submitting the information, Google will send a confirmation email to your email address.

Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of a Google Account.

Adding Group Members to Google Contacts

Tip: Google has a Sync application for some mobile devices that will synchronize contacts (and calendars) between your phone and your Google Account.

The next thing you'll want to do is add members of your gaming group to your Google Contacts. This is useful for other Google applications. When you invite members to share those services, Google will automatically suggest contacts from your account as you type their names or email addresses, saving you a lot of typing and time. The minimum information you'll need is name and email address. Feel free to add other information including birthdates, phone numbers, addresses, etc.

Creating a Google Group

After logging in with your Google Account, creating your instance of most Google Services is as easy as visiting that page while logged in. We saw this with Google Contacts, and we'll see it again with Calendar, iGoogle, Google Reader, and some others. Some services require a little bit more information for setting up the service; Google Groups is one of those.

1. Go to Google Groups.
2. On the right side of the page, you will see a button labeled "Create a group." Click that button.
3. A form will be presented to you asking for basic information about your group. As you type in the name, you'll notice the Group's email and Web addressed will begin to fill in. Sending emails to the email address will post the message to the Group Discussions and send emails to members based on their personal email settings. Any replies to such emails are automatically sent to the Group email address, posted in the Discussions under the respective thread, and distributed by email once again. You'll might want to add the email address for your Google Group to Google Contacts.
4. Under "Choose an Access Level," select Restricted. This prevents anyone outside of your group from freely joining without permission.
5. Click the button labeled "Create my group."
6. Note: Invitations to members require they accept before being able to access the group, but adding members grants access to the Google Group immediately.
   The next screen will ask you to invite or add members of the group. This is an example of where adding members of your gaming group to Google Contacts comes in handy. As you begin to type each name or email address, Google will suggest matches. Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to select a contact and press enter for each member you want to add. Verify that the delivery option is set to "Emails."

Now we can start playing with Google Groups.

Post a test message to make sure everyone receives the message. Ask them to reply to the email, and observe how Google Groups behaves with each reply. Be sure to check out the Discussions to observe how threading works, too.

Now you have a convenient way to maintain communications and keep everyone in your gaming group in the loop without worrying about not including someone in the recipient list of an email.

Now that you have the basics of your Google Group established, start playing around with the features, including files and pages. Files allows you to upload useful resources and handouts such as character sheets, campaign guides, character creation guidelines, or houserules.

Explore the "Group settings" of your new Google Group. You can find this on the right side among the Group navigation links. (Only owners and managers can see this link.) Group settings has a number of important tabs that allow you to customize the settings of the Group. The two most important ones are "Access" and "Email delivery."

Access is a critical section where you can control the visibility and and permissions of your group, including joining, posting, inviting, and uploading files. If you have concerns about privacy or anyone messing with the Group, this is where you make the necessary changes.

Email delivery is less critical, but it can help tremendously with easily identifying emails that come from the group by inserting identifying text in the subject of the emails and by customizing the footer. This tab also lets you manage how replies to messages are handled. To best utilize the mailing list feature of Google Groups and ensure everyone is kept in the conversation, keep replies sent to the whole group.

That wraps up the basics of Google Groups. If you have any questions about the features within Google Groups or about this article, please do not hesitate to post them in the comments below.

Do you have any tips and tricks pertaining to the use of Google Groups? Feel free to submit your own ideas in the comments below.

Next: Gaming with Google Calendar

Learn how to share your calendar with your Gaming Group and set up your [always tentative] gaming schedule.