Miro is an online whiteboard and collaboration tool. It was designed for office workers to scribble out ideas on virtual post-it notes and draw lines between them, like a mix of Visio and a conspiracy board.
It’s also great for online RPGs.
I first encountered Miro when running A Complicated Profession, an ENNIE-nominated game I will always sing the praises of. In Complicated Profession, you are a retired bounty hunter making a new life on a cruise ship. Your character sheet is one half what you were and one half what you are now, and you slot them into each other to show your skillset.
A Complicated Profession has an official Miro board complete with rules, reference cards, and everything you need to play.
This weekend, I used Miro for a game of i’m sorry did you say street magic, a storytelling game about building a city together. More than virtual tabletops like Roll20, Miro has the ability for everyone to create and move around bits of text. There’s no default dice roller (thouh there may be a module for one, it seems to have a robust addin marketplace), but for lightweight or collaborative games, Miro is perfect.
I don’t see myself using it for most RPGs, but for a storytelling game, or something like Fiasco, Miro is a great tool to quickly spin up some notecards everyone can see.
We created a floating city, prone to floods, with large high rises where wealthy elites live. A place of fantasy and magic. A place of humanity.
Visitors to the city would inevitably end up at the Door, a restaurant that floated on a door in the docks district. The only place where the noise of the docks can be tuned out by those who don’t hear it every day. A place to grab din among the din.
The diner is run by two twin brothers who are never seen at the same time. They show their appreciation for their customers in their own ways — one with words, and one with food. No one leaves hungry.
Our city has a library, a place with Too Many Books. It has a statue that looks like an upended toilet, but is actually load bearing, the only thing keeping the enormous snooty community of Ocean Heights viable.
We told a story of the Flood, a pouring of broth and beef spun out from the broth and beef between the brothers. They fought, no one knows over what (but of course they speculate), and the whole city feels the divide. Some say the food at the Door has never been as good as it was before the storm, but visitors can’t imagine it ever being better.
Cities change. Especially this one, where if you believe in something hard enough, it becomes true. More so here than in any other city. There’s an essence to this place. A spirit. It’s listening. It’s spinning. It’s changing.
Stop on by when you’re around.