One Year of VTT Play

[Sithlord]

Pandemic aside, you can still do all of this. A lot of people do. Until the pandemic, that's how I've always played (and taught others to play). There's just more variety now. Some of my players will always show up with dice and a sheet. Heck, right now, while we're playing online, most of us still roll real dice.

Only in some people's minds does more options make the old options "obsolete".

One of my players used to miss the game every time he had to fly away for work - I expect that now that we've learned to play online, we'll just have one of us bring a laptop when he misses and have him play by zoom while the rest of us play at the table. That'll be nice.

I know people still do. I do it. I’m just worried how this trend will be over the next 20 years if everyone is expected to show up to play with a tablet. I am very far from a teen today. And I am looking at having a table built that can be used as an electronic map with miniatures so I don’t have to make physical maps anymore.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I know people still do. I do it. I’m just worried how this trend will be over the next 20 years if everyone is expected to show up to play with a tablet. I am very far from a teen today. And I am looking at having a table built that can be used as an electronic map with miniatures so I don’t have to make physical maps anymore.

The part where you and I are diverging is the "everyone is expected" part. Why would that happen? Rule one is "play nice with others". If someone, anyone does not WANT to do it that way, then they shouldn't have to. Why are you worried about people having more tools to accomplish the same goals? (As an aside, I love to make physical maps, but I think I know what kind of table you mean, and those things are awesome. Have fun with that!)

 

[Sithlord]

The part where you and I are diverging is the "everyone is expected" part. Why would that happen? Rule one is "play nice with others". If someone, anyone does not WANT to do it that way, then they shouldn't have to. Why are you worried about people having more tools to accomplish the same goals? (As an aside, I love to make physical maps, but I think I know what kind of table you mean, and those things are awesome. Have fun with that!)

Not that this was meant to be a topic of great debate. I just fear over the next few decades this could evolve into an expensive sport like polo that u don’t see poor kids playing for obvious reasons. Not saying it will happen. But I definitely see that it will happen to an extend. Basically u may not be able to play in an area where all the kids are using tablets and you don’t have one. I know now kids that don’t play with other kids for LAN parties because they don’t have the tools. I see a social divide coming from where I wish it wouldn’t. Oh they are the kids that play with pen and pencil because they are too poor for tablets and electronic tables kind of thing. Or they just won’t play at all.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Not that this was meant to be a topic of great debate. I just fear over the next few decades this could evolve into an expensive sport like polo that u don’t see poor kids playing for obvious reasons. Not saying it will happen. But I definitely see that it will happen to an extend. Basically u may not be able to play in an area where all the kids are using tablets and you don’t have one. I know now kids that don’t play with other kids for LAN parties because they don’t have the tools. I see a social divide coming from where I wish it wouldn’t. Oh they are the kids that play with pen and pencil because they are too poor for tablets and electronic tables kind of thing. Or they just won’t play at all.

I know how easily things on the internet can seem like debate when it's just a calm discussion. I was just curious to know more about your position, which you've provided. Thanks! I don't think there's much danger of any of that, but if there was, I agree that it would be a bad thing.

The only people I could see acting that way would have to be classist jerks, so I wouldn't want to play with them anyway. I know every group that I've ever played with (including many hundreds of players at my store) have been of an extremely wide variety of financial stability. I've met a few difficult jerks over the years, but I've never met anyone who held anything at all over the other players in that sort of way, thankfully.

Hopefully your fears will never come to pass (in the very least in any widespread way!)

 

[Sithlord]

I know how easily things on the internet can seem like debate when it's just a calm discussion. I was just curious to know more about your position, which you've provided. Thanks! I don't think there's much danger of any of that, but if there was, I agree that it would be a bad thing.

The only people I could see acting that way would have to be classist jerks, so I wouldn't want to play with them anyway. I know every group that I've ever played with (including many hundreds of players at my store) have been of an extremely wide variety of financial stability. I've met a few difficult jerks over the years, but I've never met anyone who held anything at all over the other players in that sort of way, thankfully.

Hopefully your fears will never come to pass (in the very least in any widespread way!)

It’s honestly why i feel guilty with the table that is being built for me where the top is a tv screen that will be used for miniatures. Lol.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It’s honestly why i feel guilty with the table that is being built for me where the top is a tv screen that will be used for miniatures. Lol.

One of the guys that plays at my store built a portable one of those right before the pandemic. I only saw it in use a few times (in games that I wasn't available to play in, unfortunately) before we had to shut down the games area. It was pretty sweet. He had animated maps (the rivers flowed and the trees swayed in the wind) but they still put down regular miniatures on the one-inch grid.

It was pretty awesome.

The price of miniatures keep going up (I've sold them for 27 years, so I remember when they were MUCH cheaper than they are now!) but set-ups like that table keep getting cheaper (at least relative to inflation). So who knows? Maybe more people will be able to afford these things in the future. At least it only takes one for the whole table.

 

[S'mon]

I think my gaming rate has been about the same, with two sessions a week typically, although the kind of game has changed - VTT makes sandboxing and multi-group campaign in the Gygaxian mold far easier to run, so that's what I've been doing - Forgotten Realms Campaigns

Instead of spending £4.50 on a pewter mini or two Deep Cuts plastic minis, I've been spending $4.99 on Gabriel Pickard map sets at about the same rate.