With Google to find what's out there already and virtual tabletop apps, has how you game changed?
Quote from: Greentongue;1126513With Google to find what's out there already and virtual tabletop apps, has how you game changed?
As you say, Google helps me research stuff when I'm in a researchy mood. Or to find game ready resources.
Online publishing has made much more game ready material available to me, and I have been able to acquire stuff originally long out of print. And the availability of free or very low cost stuff that in the old days if it was even available, was only discovered if you went to the right convention, or the author was local, or it was published in an APA (or advertised there, I have one game that I bought from someone who shared about their game in an APA).
Play by post gaming has gotten me through times when I simply wasn't available for an evening of play, and Roll20 has allowed me to have live gaming without having to find a place to play or hope I can find players who can respect my wife enough to come to my home which wouldn't necessarily work with children anyway (it's better to not have guests after their bedtime).
The short of it: virtual gaming allows me to continue to play, online publishing allows me to continue to purchase stuff on a budget, Google lets me find stuff, gaming ready or research.
Quote from: Greentongue;1126513With Google to find what's out there already and virtual tabletop apps, has how you game changed?
A couple of ways, some positive, some negative.
First, since I mainly play with the same people I played with in the 80's (and they are spread all over the country), it's one of the reasons I can game at all. Without Skype and roll20, I probably would be gaming much less frequently. It also has enabled some of the group (who are not as into the "minutia" of the systems we play) to fill out an electronic sheet and let the sheet/software calculate the modifiers and results. We have been able to switch games pretty easily, where before there was always a long learning curve for certain members of the group.
On the down side, as a GM/DM, certain features of online play have shaped our games as well. After using some free or module-based professional maps for combat encounters, the game has become less free-form. Because there is so much extra work creating and setting up tokens, finding maps, etc., the games are more about the characters moving from set-piece to set-piece, rather than exploration or players doing whatever they want. So online games really have created an incentive to railroad as a DM. Likewise, players have become more visual focused. Rather than asking what is in a room (and maybe finding a creative way to use it), they default to what is shown on the map. Combat has become more "boardgamey" and less cinematic (or theater of the mind), and so some of the players have become more centered on tactical abilities for their characters rather than strategic abilities. I'm trying to change this a little (using tools that let me draw maps on the fly and such), but I can definitely see the difference.
Quote from: Eirikrautha;1126617A couple of ways, some positive, some negative.
First, since I mainly play with the same people I played with in the 80's (and they are spread all over the country), it's one of the reasons I can game at all. Without Skype and roll20, I probably would be gaming much less frequently. It also has enabled some of the group (who are not as into the "minutia" of the systems we play) to fill out an electronic sheet and let the sheet/software calculate the modifiers and results. We have been able to switch games pretty easily, where before there was always a long learning curve for certain members of the group.
On the down side, as a GM/DM, certain features of online play have shaped our games as well. After using some free or module-based professional maps for combat encounters, the game has become less free-form. Because there is so much extra work creating and setting up tokens, finding maps, etc., the games are more about the characters moving from set-piece to set-piece, rather than exploration or players doing whatever they want. So online games really have created an incentive to railroad as a DM. Likewise, players have become more visual focused. Rather than asking what is in a room (and maybe finding a creative way to use it), they default to what is shown on the map. Combat has become more "boardgamey" and less cinematic (or theater of the mind), and so some of the players have become more centered on tactical abilities for their characters rather than strategic abilities. I'm trying to change this a little (using tools that let me draw maps on the fly and such), but I can definitely see the difference.
Does the system you use require maps? I play with Roll20 and we still do everything with theatre of mind.
Maybe use Tabletop Simulator? It just a table.
Well, you can add as much "over the top" stuff as you want but you can also just have a table some paper and some dice.
Easiest way to play RPGs online - TTS Simple mode. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3VErxcD9hc&app=desktop)
Quote from: Eirikrautha;1126617On the down side, as a GM/DM, certain features of online play have shaped our games as well. After using some free or module-based professional maps for combat encounters, the game has become less free-form. Because there is so much extra work creating and setting up tokens, finding maps, etc., the games are more about the characters moving from set-piece to set-piece, rather than exploration or players doing whatever they want. So online games really have created an incentive to railroad as a DM. Likewise, players have become more visual focused. Rather than asking what is in a room (and maybe finding a creative way to use it), they default to what is shown on the map. Combat has become more "boardgamey" and less cinematic (or theater of the mind), and so some of the players have become more centered on tactical abilities for their characters rather than strategic abilities. I'm trying to change this a little (using tools that let me draw maps on the fly and such), but I can definitely see the difference.
I've skewed towards pure TOTM ever since I was running a Savage Worlds session and it got bogged down in players trying to optimize where to stand so that their cone-AoE attacks could hit the most enemies. When we switched to online gaming last month, I doubled-down on TOTM and decided not to even look at any kind of VTT (we're just doing straight google hangouts) because I expected the prep requirements for making maps, tokens, etc. on a VTT to encourage railroading the players from set-piece to set-piece. Nice to see that my concerns were accurate, though unfortunate to hear that you've gotten (unwillingly) caught up in it yourself.
Quote from: Eirikrautha;1126617After using some free or module-based professional maps for combat encounters, the game has become less free-form.
I don't have this issue. While I use specific maps of location, I have several generic maps I use with the things I use most often invisible on the hidden layer. Pretty much the same technique I used with face to face with battlemats and miniatures.
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Quote from: Greentongue;1126513With Google to find what's out there already and virtual tabletop apps, has how you game changed?
I've written my own gaming tools. In some respects, they do the inspiration for me. Huge time-saver.
I'm switching over to roll20 from Map Tools. I don't have to carry my setup around to run a game. Also, I have things right at my fingertips so I feel like things can go a tad faster. Things like Fantasy Name Generator, or just a quick Google search (as mentioned above). Also, sharing a picture to help convey an idea is super simple with a VTT. It's really growing on me.
Probably switching over to RollD20 and/or Discord as the only way to play and run. I was getting tired of trailing by public transport. I am close to a subway station yet the DM insists on playing at a players house one hour away. As well to me at least just feels like playing with a table and no real difference. As well if one is good with Excel Macros it is really easy to play Pathfinder as one can program a macro to include all one character bonuses and all is calculated for you. As the novelty factor has not worn off for me at least for being able to play from Canada with other people across the US from the comfort of one home.
We'v been using Fantasy Grounds for years when we are not able to make it to the table (mostly during the holidays). Only issue with online play we found is it is easy to get distracted with all that is the internet.
I already disliked tactical combat (where I as a GM needed to build a big combat map, keep track in detail of where everyone was, know lots of combat rules) so I'm even pushing my SW game to more abstract combat.
Quote from: TimothyWestwind;1126618Does the system you use require maps? I play with Roll20 and we still do everything with theatre of mind.
We mainly do either D&D 5e or Savage Worlds (Deadlands right now). The expectations came when one of us DMed a WotC module that came with detailed maps. It was so new that we all started to incorporate them in our own adventures. It snowballed after a while.
Quote from: estar;1126705I don't have this issue. While I use specific maps of location, I have several generic maps I use with the things I use most often invisible on the hidden layer. Pretty much the same technique I used with face to face with battlemats and miniatures.
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Heh. Multiply what you have by a hundred. I've got a map that is nothing but all of the monsters I've ever run (as tokens with stats built-in) that I flip to and copy-paste, and I import it into every adventure. I've got the generic "road," "inn," "forest," and "town square" maps. I've even got a Wacom tablet that I can draw on to make maps on the fly (which works pretty well in roll20). The problem seems to be that players stop listening and start looking every time I put something on the screen. Well, that and the hours of prep (that gets thrown by the wayside as soon as the players go, "Hey, let's forget this and go over there!")...
Online tools have zero impact on how I run or play games, but an enormous impact on how I research and prepare to run games (e.g., Google, Wikipedia, Inkscape, GIMP, PDFs, text editor, et cetera).
(Right after I first got an iPad I used it at the table while I was running games -- mostly to display pictures and such to the players -- but somewhere along the line I stopped doing that.)
The only "online tool" I use routinely is the Crawler Companion app.
Mainly research is the only thing online does for me, though I do write/prepare mostly in electronic documents (not online).
I've recently investigated most or all of the online options, for what seems like the 10th time. It makes me even more interested in not using anything electronic at all during play. When Table Top Simulator goes on sale again, I might try that for some board or card games, and go from there. But if I open up an RPG campaign that way, it will be to supplement what I'm already doing, not a replacement for it.
Quote from: Greentongue;1126513With Google to find what's out there already and virtual tabletop apps, has how you game changed?
I started running online D&D games a few years ago. The main difference for me is that I'll do the dungeon mapping. I would never do this with a normal home group, but online, I have found that, at least for me, the referee/mapper back-and-forth is more confusing, cumbersome and ponderous and also loses other players' attention way more easily. I'd rather just draw what they see as they progress than waste time clarifying again and again and again and then catching people up again and again. In real life, I've never found it to be an issue, but online requires some compromises and this is where I make mine.
I've been running my weekly game on my new Discord server I set up.
I don't like it. Sure it has a lot of features, but ultimately it gets in the way of the intimacy of face-to-face. I feel like I'm roleplaying through a curtain.
But on the plus-side, my video-gaming friends (who don't do tabletop) play Vermintide and Deathwing and other stuff, on Discord. So it's becoming kind of a social hub for me and a few disparate groups of friends to cross-pollinate.
Quote from: tenbones;1126809I feel like I'm roleplaying through a curtain.
Some people might actually prefer that aspect when playing characters that do not resemble themselves.
Quote from: Greentongue;1126824Some people might actually prefer that aspect when playing characters that do not resemble themselves.
I can't recall in the decades I've been running games... for literally hundreds of players... where anyone resembled their character (unless they were playing themselves). I will fully admit that if someone had those kinds of issues where they couldn't sit across from me and feel comfortable about playing a character they created because they didn't resemble them... fearing what I might think of them - after so many years of doing this... I wouldn't *want* that person in my group.
They have issues I prefer not to deal with. And if they can't feel good about themselves simply to play a game of makebelieve with me, then I certainly don't want to invite the ensuing other issues into my game and spoil it for everyone else.
But I do understand your point... to a point. I tend to lean towards the idea that if as a player you're wanting to play something so... "odd" in direct relation to your personal image... there is a degree of trust you have to have in your GM. This is precisely why I don't want such people in my group. You don't jump into a game wanting to play some snowflakey PC, with a new GM until you do the sniff-test. ESPECIALLY if you got "issues". The virtual screen is a two-way street. It's harder to do the sniff-test, and it also makes it harder to "connect" with players interpersonally. Body language, and a multitude of things that I prefer in real-life interactions are lost.
Again, this is what we got for now. On the plus side... it does open me up to being able to play with a lot of people from "everywhere" else... so it's something I'm not discarding.
I've been playing on Roll20 for the past few weeks. Personally, I can't stand it. I only play on it because its my friends and its a campaign we've been playing for almost a decade. The Fog of War feature is fucking awful; to roll for attacks or saves or whatever you have to clumsily switch between the character sheet and then the chat to see your result. With games with exploding dice, its a goddamn chore.
I don't know about other online aids. I tried play by post years ago and didn't like that either.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1126803Mainly research is the only thing online does for me, though I do write/prepare mostly in electronic documents (not online).
Well yes, if we're counting that, I do a lot of that too.
Quote from: everloss;1127101I've been playing on Roll20 for the past few weeks. Personally, I can't stand it. I only play on it because its my friends and its a campaign we've been playing for almost a decade. The Fog of War feature is fucking awful; to roll for attacks or saves or whatever you have to clumsily switch between the character sheet and then the chat to see your result. With games with exploding dice, its a goddamn chore.
I don't know about other online aids. I tried play by post years ago and didn't like that either.
Character sheets don't obscure the chat unless it some custom sheet with an insane width like the hack that was done to the Pendragon sheets. Otherwise you would have to drag the sheet over the chat area for it be obscured.
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How is exploding dice a chore? Are you rolling a die and then rolling another when a 6 or 10 comes or something. Either the sheet should be doing that or use the dice engine in chat.
QuoteExploding Dice
Roll20 supports exploding dice -- you may also know it as "rule of 6", "rule of 10s", or "acing" depending on your game system. With exploding dice, if you roll the maximum number on the dice (a 6 with a d6, a 10 with a d10, etc.) you get to re-roll again and add the additional roll to your total for that roll. If the additional roll is also a maximum number, you get to keep rolling!
To perform a roll with exploding dice, just add an exclamation point after the number of sides in the formula. For example, /roll 3d6! would roll 3 d6 dice with exploding re-rolls. You can also define the exploding point for the dice using the greater-than and less-than symbols. For example, /roll 3d6!>4 would explode on any dice greater-than or equal-to 4. /roll 3d6!3 would explode only if a 3 is rolled
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We've now had two sessions of my DCC campaign virtually, with the players using Roll20 as the interface. It does seem to work well, though we only use it very basically, to record their character sheets, roll dice, and for Boyboy's player to make really shitty maps.
I've never really used any online tools, unless you count material I've borrowed from various blog posts or forums. The most I've done is used a searchable pdf on my Kindle for convenience sake.