D&D General 'Playing D&D' (Without Playing D&D)

[Tales and Chronicles]

I spend most of that time talking here on ENworld, or designing rules variations that will probably never see the light of day.

Worldbuilding is fun but I dont spend that much time on it. I do love firing up the old-ish video games (BG, NWN or IWD).

 

[CleverNickName]

Not a single cosplayer in the group?

I must be blessed with an unusual abundance of cosplayers in my social circle--over the years I've had several players create costumes of their characters. I guess it's a lot less common than my friends have led me to believe.

 

[MNblockhead]

The only VTT option was "creating macros for the VTT", which is a bit strange, considering of all the things DMs do to customize their setup and prep games in VTTs, creating macros is likely not a top activity. I chose it just to represent "configuring and prepping games in a VTT." For me that includes reading up on and testing new community-made mods, prepping maps, creating tokens and stat blocks for custom and third-party content monsters, and simulating battles between the PCs and enemies for key encounters.

 

[Stormonu]

Eh, posting here, working on my custom monsters/races/classes/etc., perusing rulebooks...

But mostly daydreaming about new story/campaign ideas.

... and sometimes stomping around the house thinking as the adventure's villian and how they're going to deal with the PCs. Especially as Strahd....

 

[R_J_K75]

I chose it just to represent "configuring and prepping games in a VTT.

I played in a game about 10 years ago using Fantasy Grounds and didn't particularly care for it. When the pandemic started in March/April 2020 we switched to Roll20 for about 2 months until we all decided that we'd rather risk getting COVID than suffer through the VTT interface. We went back to in person in June of 2020. We played outside in my garage to mitigate that possibility of getting COVID. In both instances the learning curve for both me as the DM and the players was just more effort than we were willing to put into it. Not to mention Roll20 had its short comings as far as it not working on lower end laptops. I always spent more time setting up the adventure, maps, tokens, etc than I did on the actual adventure and the game suffered. I couldn't even imagine trying to mod it and write your own macros. I decided I'd rather spend my off time between games on writing good scenarios than learning a program and we missed the tabletop experience of hanging out, having drinks and playing D&D. I'm not knocking VTT's they just weren't for us. I feel that if I'm going to expend energy on D&D outside of game time, I want it to make our game better, and fortunately our group is rules light so that makes prep easier than in years passed.

 

[CleverNickName]

As far as the distinction between VTT and pencil gaming goes:

We switched to Roll20 at the beginning of the pandemic, then moved to Foundry for about a year before switching back to Roll20. And even though people are starting to meet together more frequently and in larger groups, we decided that we would stick to virtual tabletop for the foreseeable future. It's just not worth the hassle of finding babysitters, driving across town in heavy traffic, coordinating meals, etc.

As long as the technology continues to improve, and more features continue to be added to VTTs, and more games/content becomes available in digital format (I saw that Roll20 now has support for AD&D 1E and AD&D 2E rules systems), I don't think we will ever go back to in-person gaming.

So most of the "worldbuilding," "drawing maps," "writing houserules," etc., that I voted for are being built, drawn, and written in my VTT game on Roll20. I rarely touch a real pencil nowadays.

 

[el-remmen]

This thread reminds me of one I started back in August of 2021: "Prep is Not Play. . . Or Is It?"

 

[Umbran]

I must be blessed with an unusual abundance of cosplayers in my social circle--over the years I've had several players create costumes of their characters. I guess it's a lot less common than my friends have led me to believe.

It was my impression that doing original characters is a smaller segment of the cosplay hobby.

Not to mention that cosplay is a really time consuming hobby. I dunno how much crossover you'll get between serious cosplayers, and people spending lots of time on messageboards.

 

[R_J_K75]

It's just not worth the hassle of finding babysitters, driving across town in heavy traffic, coordinating meals, etc.

This is totally understandable. I live in a smaller city so traffic is rather forgiving most of the times, unless you got caught in the Blizzard of '77. (Good article on that about how the Sabres made the hockey game the next day.) I have it good as we play at my house and the one player lives 3 blocks away and the other is my next-door neighbor. We have often talked about and considered implementing a touch screen, or just a VTT mirrored on a TV in the room. Just havent got there yet. We mostly play TotME these days, I havent used a battle mat a minis in at least 6 months. I can see the benefits of a VTT but as I said upthread just not for us insofar as the learning curve. Unless everyone in the group is willing to use off time to learn the UI then its not worth it.

I saw that Roll20 now has support for AD&D 1E and AD&D 2E rules systems

This is interesting. We ended our game last night about 7 and were setting up the TV for the MNF game (Bills crushed the Titans) and we started critiquing last night's D&D game and we got on the topic of playing 2E. That was so many years ago I forgot all the non d20 nuances as far as dice mechanics went. That was a time when I would spend a lot of time coming up with character concepts. Kits were great and I'd like to see those come back. But Im surprised that Roll20 is supporting these editions now.

 

[CleverNickName]

This is interesting. We ended our game last night about 7 and were setting up the TV for the MNF game (Bills crushed the Titans) and we started critiquing last night's D&D game and we got on the topic of playing 2E. That was so many years ago I forgot all the non d20 nuances as far as dice mechanics went. That was a time when I would spend a lot of time coming up with character concepts. Kits were great and I'd like to see those come back. But Im surprised that Roll20 is supporting these editions now.

It's pretty understandable, what with all the chatter about OSR games and "the way D&D used to be" on the Internet.

Roll20 Supports AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, D&D 3.5E, D&D 4E, and D&D 5E. They still don't have official support for B/X, BECM, or RC, but I'm optimistic that it'll be added eventually. As for OSR games, Roll20 supports Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry. It also has a generic "OSR" category that contains a lot of the tools and instructions for setting up nearly any retro-clone...and I've used those tools to set up a BECM game with my high school buddies a while back.

And the list of non-D&D games supported on Roll20 is extensive: BESM, Call of Cthulhu, Chronos, Covert Ops, Cyberpunk, Cypher, D00 Lite, Dark Heresy, Earthdawn, Esper Genesis, Fate, Fate Core, Fading Suns, GURPS 4th Edition, OneDice, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, Shadowrun, Star Frontiers, Star Trek, Star Wars D6 and Star Wars RPG, Starfinder, The One Ring, Tinyd6, Traveller 5E, Vampire the Masquerade 5E, Warhammer, World of Darkness, and about a dozen more that I didn't even recognize.

I think Roll20 is a lot bigger and more versatile than folks give it credit for.