What's Wrong with Virtual Tabletop Play?

[Craw Hammerfist]

Do not call me arrogant for not wanting to try something I have neither a need nor a want to deal with.

You aren't the target for the arrogant comment. It is the attitude expressed by others -- who have not tried a VGT -- that VGTs are inherently inferior that comes across as arrogant. I am particularly amused by the crowd who says they would rather just not play at all than to play on a VGT. I'm betting those who said as much haven't actually been faced with the choice. It is easy to say "I'd just quit." when you have a regular game. It is unlikely that anyone who lost his F2F game and had thrown the D&D monkey off his back enough to simply quit playing would bother hanging out on this forum.

The pros and cons of F2F v VGT have been covered thoroughly. However, snikle (no caps, I learn old man) raises an interesting point about VGTs. Combining a VGT with your F2F game makes for one hell of a neat session. If you haven't drooled over the projected map setup depicted at d20SRD.org, then you ought to check it out. As cool as that looks, the description of how the projected map works sounds clunky and time consuming for the DM. That's where the new VGTs come in. They are user friendly and fast. Maps on the fly, spell effects, tokens, fog of war, move tracking, dice rolling (ok, I like to roll the dice at the table, but I'm old) these are the things that ADD to the gaming experience. The feature lists are going to grow exponentially.

VGTs are here. As gamers, we have the opportunity to influence the features that are next to come. As an old school gamer, I can recognize the beauty of a thick dwarven brogue at the table, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see a sweetass digital map on that table, replete with the bloody corpses my Dwarf just felled. Hey! DM! Update the damned map -- and pass me the last slice of pizza.

 

[Kepli Sire]

If that's the case then I think some of these statements are being read with implications the writer did not mean. But even a statement of fact doesn't make it an arrogant stament. For me, it is a fact that Virtual play is inferior to face to face.

LOL that cannot be a fact, it's an opinion. That you post it like that makes it clear you really believe that though
I still like to invite you to come to iCon and look around. If VT's are not good enough for someone with your strong opinion of them, you could discuss that at the conference and perhaps even help us improve the VT's out there.

 

[Crothian]

LOL that cannot be a fact, it's an opinion. That you post it like that makes it clear you really believe that though
I still like to invite you to come to iCon and look around. If VT's are not good enough for someone with your strong opinion of them, you could discuss that at the conference and perhaps even help us improve the VT's out there.

I know it is an opinion, it was posted as a joke. I don't have a strong opinion about VT's I just know what I like and what about gaming works for me. I don't like battle maps and that is one of the biggest features of VT's. I also don't run D&D or anything d20 based. It just happens that a lot of the features for VT's are not a part of the game I run. That though doesn't mean it is not great for someone else's situation.

 

[Kepli Sire]

I know it is an opinion, it was posted as a joke. I don't have a strong opinion about VT's I just know what I like and what about gaming works for me. I don't like battle maps and that is one of the biggest features of VT's. I also don't run D&D or anything d20 based. It just happens that a lot of the features for VT's are not a part of the game I run. That though doesn't mean it is not great for someone else's situation.

gotcha ...

The invitation stands though

 

[Raloc]

You aren't the target for the arrogant comment. It is the attitude expressed by others -- who have not tried a VGT -- that VGTs are inherently inferior that comes across as arrogant. I am particularly amused by the crowd who says they would rather just not play at all than to play on a VGT. I'm betting those who said as much haven't actually been faced with the choice. It is easy to say "I'd just quit." when you have a regular game. It is unlikely that anyone who lost his F2F game and had thrown the D&D monkey off his back enough to simply quit playing would bother hanging out on this forum.

The pros and cons of F2F v VGT have been covered thoroughly. However, snikle (no caps, I learn old man) raises an interesting point about VGTs. Combining a VGT with your F2F game makes for one hell of a neat session. If you haven't drooled over the projected map setup depicted at d20SRD.org, then you ought to check it out. As cool as that looks, the description of how the projected map works sounds clunky and time consuming for the DM. That's where the new VGTs come in. They are user friendly and fast. Maps on the fly, spell effects, tokens, fog of war, move tracking, dice rolling (ok, I like to roll the dice at the table, but I'm old) these are the things that ADD to the gaming experience. The feature lists are going to grow exponentially.

VGTs are here. As gamers, we have the opportunity to influence the features that are next to come. As an old school gamer, I can recognize the beauty of a thick dwarven brogue at the table, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see a sweetass digital map on that table, replete with the bloody corpses my Dwarf just felled. Hey! DM! Update the damned map -- and pass me the last slice of pizza.

QFT. People that say "I'd rather have no hobby at all than use a VT!!!!" without having had to go without OR having used such a thing with a reliable and experienced group don't know what they're talking about.

 

[Dracorat]

I say "Why not do both at the same time?":

http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?t=1225

/wave Heya Trevor.

For those people who want a good example of how a VT could increase your D&D productivity, definitely check the link out.

 

[Ancellus]

Would I rather play face-to-face ? Of course.
Do I miss the non-rpg elements of tabletop gaming ? Yes.
Do I miss actually seeing players fidget and sweat (great post !) ? Yes

But ... I have a full job that amounts to over 60 hours a week, I drive 90 miles every day, I have a young family, my University gaming group is now spread over at least three continents and having lived in two different countries over the past ten years ... VGT's have been a saviour.

I still play rugby (of a sort ... at my advanced age, low animal cunning is now of more importance than brute force and ignorance) and my job involves people ... don't all our jobs ? So I don't mind sitting in front of a PC screen for 3-4 hours but I realise that for those people who work more intimately with a computer, this is an issue.

If you are lucky enough to be able to invest the time or have "geographical" advantages then I guess you have no need of a VGT BUT, frankly some of the posts under this thread have been rather arrogant. Of course, that is just a personal opinion.

My own experiences over the past two years have been wholly positive both in terms of fun and role playing.

One other feature that I don't think has been touched on ... I run a few VGT games and over the past year have had players in Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, USA, Canada, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Iceland, China, the Netherlands, India, Poland and Norway. All but 3 are still playing. I'm not sure what players think of the game that I run ... I think they are pretty good (of course ) but I do get a buzz out of chatting to people in so many different countries. Though not quite like the informal banter that face-to-face games generate, the OOC stuff before a game formally starts (and during) is terrific.

 

[Bagpuss]

I'm curious why you think that. It's pretty much the opposite of my experience. I find that most people are much better at staying in character and are much more focused on the game during online sessions. It's easier to believe that 300 pound fat guy with a beard is really a hot elf when you cannot actually see him.

Having run a game online I would have to say this is one of the key advantages it's much easier to stay in character. The disadvantage is you then lack the OOC banter and some of the social occasion of tabletop games.

 

[dougmander]

I only recently started a virtual tabletop campaign, and I really love it. I use modular tiles, 3-D "minis" for the NPCs and monsters, and I'm constantly adding bells and whistles. I love being able to copy and paste the chat history at the end of each session to maintain a chronicle of the campaign; the game board is always exactly as we left it the previous week. It doesn't feel like a compromise or next-best-thing to face-to-face play. We use dice rollers but not any kind of DM management tool; the buffs, hp, and all that is still done by hand.

See my sig file for screenshots.

 

[sunbeam60]

I'm another happy user of Fantasy Grounds (FG). Before FG arrived, I hadn't played roleplaying (RP) games in 8 years - before that I'd been playing for 10 years.

For me, and my players and a lot of other users of virtual gaming tables (VGT), the discussion isn't about whether RP by VGT is RP or not, but whether we get any play time or not.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's a matter of survival for us. Or at least that's how it started out. Now, we don't even think about it. We use FG, which has better sheets, map and measurement tools than we would have in in the real world, and Skype together and since we're all on high bandwidth connections, there's no lag. We simply forget it's there.

I would have signed the VGTs-suck petition 2 years ago; now, It Just Works. Sure, I don't get to look at what pizzas everyone else has ordered, but we do get pizzas and pop nonetheless and it's all just so seamless.

I'm not affiliated with FG in any way, but I dare anyone knocking VGTs to have a go at high bandwidth FG and say they didn't have as much fun as sitting on a real table.