Playing in Person Is Just Better (for me)

[Reynard]

Caveat: I play online a lot. I have long term gaming friends spread across the country. I am very grateful that there are tools we can use to play together despite that distance.

With that said: I just returned from Carnage Con in Killington VT where I ran 4 sessions (one The One Ring 2E Moria adventure; 3 sessions of a Shadowdark mini con-campaign) and I am reminded just how much better it is to play in person. Worlds better. Impossibly better.

RPGs are inherently a conversation, and all conversations (from a chat with your BFF to a meeting with HR to an academic intellectual debate) are better in person where you can read body language, respond to non-verbal cues and otherwise engage the complete conversation rather than a partial limited form of the conversation.

If you, like me, are mostly stuck playing online because of scheduling and/or distance, I am not trying to convince you to not do that. Those games are good and valuable. But I am suggesting you seek out opportunities to play TTRPGs in person if you have not in a while.

It's so good.

Caveat 2: I realize that there are some people who have a very difficult time with in person interactions and I am not discounting your needs or preferences. If you have anxiety or another situation that makes in person gaming impossible, you deserve good gaming too and I wish you the best.

Caveat 3: In case it needs to be said, this post is my opinion and I understand that not everyone agrees and I am not belittling anyone's preferences.

 

[TwoSix]

Welcome back!

RPGs are inherently a conversation, and all conversations (from a chat with your BFF to a meeting with HR to an academic intellectual debate) are better in person where you can read body language, respond to non-verbal cues and otherwise engage the complete conversation rather than a partial limited form of the conversation.

100% agree. The lack of nonverbal feedback is absolutely huge to me, as well as the inability of most chat software to handle simultaneous conversations.

Small, quiet side conversations, generally in-character, between 2 PCs while other players are handling their turns are really common in my games; it wasn't until I played online that I realized how important they were to help keep my full attention while playing.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

and I am reminded just how much better it is to play in person. Worlds better. Impossibly better.

Caveat 3: In case it needs to be said, this post is my opinion and I understand that not everyone agrees and I am not belittling anyone's preferences.

TLDR; RPGs are like sex; it's better in person. But if that's not your bag, or you can't be there in person, that's okay. We don't judge.

 

[payn]

Welcome back.

I am waffling on the idea. I too felt in person was superior, but the convenience of online play + discord just makes it entirely more productive at the moment. I had a really great in person gaming group that met every other Friday for 10 years. I have not been able to get back to that since covid.

Additionally, I find my Traveller game benefits greatly in the VTT maps I am able to use. The visual cue is just so much better than what I could do at the table in person. Didnt matter as much in fantasy and narrative type games.

I guess im saying I drifted from in person superior to very much depends camp.

 

[DragonLancer]

I played in an online D&D5 campaign during the pandemic and while it scratched that itch for gaming, it wasn't what I enjoyed. I prefer face to face, reading body language and the social aspects too much I think.

 

[aco175]

I have never played online, but think that one day I'll need to. I'm guessing it is like most things and once you try it, it is fine.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Welcome back, by the way. I've missed your threads.

RPGs are inherently a conversation, and all conversations (from a chat with your BFF to a meeting with HR to an academic intellectual debate) are better in person where you can read body language, respond to non-verbal cues and otherwise engage the complete conversation rather than a partial limited form of the conversation.

....

Caveat 2: I realize that there are some people who have a very difficult time with in person interactions and I am not discounting your needs or preferences. If you have anxiety or another situation that makes in person gaming impossible, you deserve good gaming too and I wish you the best.

Caveat 3: In case it needs to be said, this post is my opinion and I understand that not everyone agrees and I am not belittling anyone's preferences.

Acknowledging your caveats above (because I know how annoyed I am when someone qualifies a statement, and then people respond like the qualification wasn't there)...

I think you're understating just how much the variation here in both cases.

1. I met my wife online, courted her online, and didn't physically meet her for nearly two years. In some respects I think body language can sometimes be an impediment, because we tend to have a secondary conversation with people that I'm not convinced either party sometimes wants to be having, and thus will react to communication not intended.

2. When it comes to roleplaying specifically, I think the physical and audible elements of having people around often actually gets in the way. You have to make an effort to work around the fact that the player is far away from the character they're playing in a way that text doesn't do. While my overall gaming experience wasn't as good (for unrelated reasons) I found the roleplaying I had in the environment where I met my wife significantly superior.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Welcome back!



100% agree. The lack of nonverbal feedback is absolutely huge to me, as well as the inability of most chat software to handle simultaneous conversations.

Various channel things can be very helpful there, allowing people to do the equivalent of leaving the room to have a side conversation.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Additionally, I find my Traveller game benefits greatly in the VTT maps I am able to use. The visual cue is just so much better than what I could do at the table in person. Didnt matter as much in fantasy and narrative type games.

There's a compromise you can use there that I did for a period before COVID Happened and we went over to purely remote; use a VTT system (I use Maptool) and project the images on a TV in the room. I started doing this because of how clumsy it was using physical battlemaps because of the layout, but there were a number of other advantages to it, too.

 

[delericho]

I agree. We switched to online play during the pandemic, and it worked a lot better than I'd expected. But it's a very different experience from face-to-face, and the latter is preferable (for me).