VTT have affected my purchasing habits. You?

[Doc_Klueless]

Some background: I'm a rules reader. I admit it. I don't do a lot of playing or running of games anymore. Mostly this has to do with work and helping care for my elderly parents. It also has to do with finding a group to play with on my funky healthcare-provider schedule. So I gravitated from Face-to-Face to Online. Once I made that transition, I went in search of a VTT that worked for me. I spent a couple or three years running/playing on Roll20. And then I reopened FG which I bought when it was a very rough, early cut in 2004. Now I mostly use that. But just about any VTT will do for me.

On to the meat of the thread:
When I look at a new game that I'm thinking about reading, one of the first questions that enter my head is: Is there a VTT ruleset for it? And, if not, is it coming soon?

If the answer is No and not any time soon, I'll typically pass on it. I don't have the time to read a ruleset that I'm not going to be able to use with minimal effort. That's one of the main reasons I still play/run D&D. BOTH of the major VTT have a D&D5e ruleset that allows me to drag and drop information on to character sheets, encounters, treasure parcels, etc. Savage Worlds on FG is the same way. Etc., Etc.

So, when I became curious about Mythras and Modiphius' 2d20 system, one of my priority google searches was "Does FG have a ruleset for it? Does Roll20 have at least a character sheet for it?" before I even began reading on the games themselves.

So here's the question: Have VTT affected your purchasing habits? If so, why? If not, why not?

I'm curious during this time of Staying At Home on my days off.

 

[BabbageUK]

I'm fortunate enough to have both face to face and online sessions (different groups) [and of course the face to face one has to meet online for the meantime]. I've been using variouos VTTs for a long time and it doesn't affect my buying habits. I think it's mostly because I rarely go deeper than the surface of maps and tokens, sometimes using the initiative trackers - if any. The rest is all old school; books, physical dice and printed character sheets. We've been friends for many decades and trust all of us to roll truthfully. I guess that makes us fortunate.

 

[Shiroiken]

I normally play on a VTT, and it hasn't changed my buying habits. I like to customize things, and I've found that the VTT items don't normally fit my needs. I just buy the books I need, and create what I need.

 

[Umbran]

I've only just started using a VTT in the past couple weeks, and that's only as a player.

Most of the games I run work pretty well as Theater of the Mind, as their combat systems don't rely heavily on positioning. And I don't generally run games for people I don't trust to not cheat on me.

So, I don't foresee much impact on my buying going forward - I don't need the map, and I don't need the rules enforcement. I need a videoconference, maybe a vague map.

 

[dragoner]

Lemon Curry, mmm, sounds good. I also take care of my Babushka, though that is a cultural thing, she would be lost without her family.
I just bought the 101 BITS (British Isles Traveller Support) bundle:

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Because a player in the online game I run mentioned a cargo that might have come from the supplement 101 Cargoes. Definitely worth it, generic enough to be used for any system. I thought I might have bought them before, except maybe they are on an old hard drive, because I didn't find them again when I looked.

 

[ccs]

VTTs haven't affected my purchases to date.
Maybe someday in the future though. If that day ever comes then I'll look into what'll best run the games I'm interested in.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Well, numbers don't lie. I'm as special as my mom always said I was! LoL.

Thanks for feeding my curiosity!

 

[atanakar]

No change to buying habits of RPGs. VTT compatibility is not a criteria for me. I still use a Chessex mat and erasable pen with miniatures with Skype. I won't invest time learning VTT apps because as soon as things get back to normal we will play face-to-face. We play rpgs to get away from the computer and we play with pen & paper character sheets.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

@atanakar , nice setup. I can see your point.

 

[atanakar]

@atanakar , nice setup. I can see your point.

Thanks. Works really well. We did two 3-hour sessions. I trust players to do the dice rolls manually. One guy uses a dice roller but I don't insist on it.

I looked at Roll20. I just don't want to spend time pre-game to draw and import stuff for the game. I spend that time thinking about the story and possible ramifications of the PCs actions during the last game.