The sequential turn problem
The single biggest difference between a room and a call is that a room supports parallel conversation and a call does not. In a room, twelve people can talk in four simultaneous conversations; on a call, twelve people form a queue. Any activity built on going round the group inherits that queue, and the eleventh person has been waiting twenty minutes.
The fix is structural: either keep the group small, or use breakout rooms, or move contribution into a parallel channel — chat, a shared document, a board where everyone writes at once. Almost every remote activity that works does one of those three things.
This is also why the written forms of activities often work better remotely than the spoken forms, even though the spoken form is better in person. Writing is parallel; speech on a call is not.
Silence is not failure
Facilitators new to remote sessions fill silence, because a quiet call feels like a broken call. The result is that nobody else gets a chance to start, and the facilitator ends up doing seventy per cent of the talking.
When you ask a question, count to ten in your head before you say anything else. It will feel unbearable the first three times. People will answer.
Build silence into the design explicitly: 'three minutes to write, muted, I will tell you when time is up'. Announced silence does not feel like a dead call, and it produces far better material than thinking aloud.
Camera rules, stated once
Decide the camera expectation, say it when you send the invitation, and do not revisit it in the session. 'Cameras on if you can, no explanation needed if you cannot' covers almost every case and removes the running negotiation that otherwise consumes ten minutes.
For activities built on reading a room — anything about trust or difficult subjects — cameras matter and it is fair to say so in advance so people can choose whether to attend. For everything else they matter much less than facilitators think.
Be aware that the people most likely to have a reason not to show their background are often the people with the least control over their circumstances. A hard camera rule is not a neutral policy.
Time zones are a design constraint, not a scheduling problem
If your team spans more than about six hours, there is no good time, only a least-bad one — and whoever drew the short straw will be at their worst for every session if the time never moves.
Rotate the pain. If a session must be synchronous, alternate which region takes the awkward slot, and say out loud that you are doing it.
Better, design some rituals to be asynchronous by default. A written round posted in a channel over a day is worse than a live round in quality and much better in participation, and participation is usually what you were short of.
A short list of things that genuinely work on a call
Activities where everyone writes at once and reveals simultaneously. Breakout pairs with a tight brief and a broadcast timer. Anything with a shared visual artefact being built live. Short rounds with a published speaking order so nobody is frozen waiting to be picked.
And a short list of what does not: physical games translated to mime, anything requiring fast verbal reaction, long sequential rounds, and any activity whose charm was the room it was in.