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Author Topic: Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?  (Read 2533 times)

Greentongue

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« on: April 11, 2020, 02:04:24 PM »
With Google to find what's out there already and virtual tabletop apps, has how you game changed?

ffilz

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2020, 04:26:31 PM »
Quote from: Greentongue;1126513
With 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.

Eirikrautha

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2020, 12:50:37 PM »
Quote from: Greentongue;1126513
With 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.

TimothyWestwind

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2020, 01:42:41 PM »
Quote from: Eirikrautha;1126617
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.

Does the system you use require maps? I play with Roll20 and we still do everything with theatre of mind.
Sword & Sorcery in Southeast Asia during the last Ice Age: https://sundaland-rpg-setting.blogspot.com/ Lots of tools and resources to build your own setting.

Greentongue

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2020, 06:54:18 AM »
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.

nDervish

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2020, 08:48:08 AM »
Quote from: Eirikrautha;1126617
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.


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.

estar

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2020, 09:30:23 AM »
Quote from: Eirikrautha;1126617
After 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.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4261[/ATTACH]

Shawn Driscoll

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2020, 12:47:04 PM »
Quote from: Greentongue;1126513
With 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.

trechriron

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2020, 01:47:27 PM »
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.
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Abraxus

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2020, 02:13:56 PM »
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.

lordmalachdrim

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2020, 03:23:13 PM »
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.

PencilBoy99

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #11 on: April 13, 2020, 04:45:13 PM »
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.

Eirikrautha

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #12 on: April 13, 2020, 08:51:42 PM »
Quote from: TimothyWestwind;1126618
Does 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.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2020, 11:06:27 PM by Eirikrautha »

Eirikrautha

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #13 on: April 13, 2020, 08:56:57 PM »
Quote from: estar;1126705
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.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4261[/ATTACH]

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!")...

Philotomy Jurament

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Has Using Online Tools Changed How You Play or Run Games?
« Reply #14 on: April 13, 2020, 09:25:57 PM »
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 problem is not that power corrupts, but that the corruptible are irresistibly drawn to the pursuit of power. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.