D&D General What Do You Miss Most About Face-to-Face D&D?

[Shiroiken]

I've been using VTT for much longer than the quarantine, and for the most part it doesn't bother me. However, the one thing I miss is the physical acting. The DM who uses facial expressions and body language to express more information than you can get with just voice and descriptions.

 

[iserith]

I miss trying to get 6 adults in the same place at the same time via dozens of emails or texts trying to sort it out.

 

[Kurotowa]

Rolling physical dice. We've got a decent video chat setup that's a little clumsy but serves the purpose. A dice roller app, however, is no substitute for cupping a handful of platonic solids and chucking them into my dice try. It's a small thing, but I miss it.

 

[Haldrik]

Hanging out with friends.

 

[oreofox]

I haven't played in-person D&D since 2006. However, I do miss physical dice, physical character sheets, and everyone actually paying attention. There's no way to know if everyone in the voice chat is not "surfing the web", watching videos, playing a video game, or doing something else other than paying attention to the game.

I have been guilty of doing this, though only once things took a downward course. Basically only when someone new joins in, and the dynamic of the game completely changes, because almost always the new person chooses power and overshadows one or more of the original characters. This happened to me during my previous group I played in. Quickly lost interest, phoned it in while doing other stuff, before finally just dropping out.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Beer. (We play at a brewery.)

 

[GlassJaw]

Using miniatures and sharing beer. But because of miniatures and sharing beer, we make way more progress playing online. Go figure.

 

[schneeland]

Mostly hanging out with people I don't meet regularly otherwise. I don't mind playing online and in fact have found to enjoy it more than I thought (we just play with Discord or Skype, but still use physical character sheets and dice, though, so it's not completely digital), but generally 2020 has established that even as an introvert, there's a lower boundary of social interaction where, once it's crossed, I start to feel uncomfortable (at least over time).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I hate playing online. I hate watching videos of people playing online. I hate dice apps. I hate electronic character sheets.

I don´t like watching people play D&D, and I don´t like rolling Dice with a generator or using a VTT. But playing online just rolling dice the normal way just works fine.
We are playing one group on skype, which works well enough actually and one face to face. In both groups I miss a big table where all are sitting, drink a beer and have fun together. Although skype is very focussed, a bit of the interaction is lost.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I don´t like watching people play D&D, and I don´t like rolling Dice with a generator or using a VTT. But playing online just rolling dice the normal way just works fine.

I've actually been finding I really enjoy the VTT, if only the map & tokens. If we could combine that with sitting around a table rolling real dice, it would be perfect.

Or, really, just the map but with real minis on it. (Yes, I know there have been some attempts to do exactly this.)