VTT/online-play Etiquette and Horror Stories

[MNblockhead]

One of the most annoying things players can do is moving their token around the map to explore while I am handling another player and their character's actions. It's disrespectful not only to me but the other players. It's so annoying and common that I might just forgo maps for players and just have them for my own reference.

What VTT are you using? Does it allow you to pause the game to prevent movement? For example, in Foundry you just hit the space bar and it pauses the game, preventing tokens from being moved.

 

[aramis erak]

I had to mention to one player that if he was going to have side conversations with another (his wife) could he please mute? Ironically, the problem with one other player is he's really good about that, but not always so good at turning mute back off when he's done.

My guy with low bandwidth often forgets he has push-to-talk on...

 

[aramis erak]

"Insists on rolling physical dice when everyone else rolls in the VTT"

This jsut shows how different tables are. We roll physical dice with VTT rolls optional. Why? Dice are more fun.

Not when the needed dice are non-standard and out of "print"...
Or when players can't be arsed to learn a d6 conversion table that's used constantly.
Or you have a player whom the group knows they lie about their dice... Especially if the group is big on the game side of RPGs.

I had one FTF player who never lied about the direction of the roll, just whether it was a crit or not... In pendragon, we made him use a 2" diameter d20... Suddenly, his rolls were statistically plausible.

Another player was nearly blind - he literally was guessing the blob... astrocytoma in the visual cortex and optic nerve. by the lockdown, he was only good for the first 100 minutes of session, but we humored him anyway, because we knew that crazy old soldier was dying and quick. He just turned NPC after 9pm. (This was during lockdown. using the die-roller was the first time I could trust his rolls... in the 5 years I knew him.) We usually ran 150 to 200 minutes of play during lockdown. He didn't live to see the end of lockdown.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, it helps to have good bandwidth and high-quality headsets, which not everyone can afford. We use Discord and push-to-talk really helps. It is much easier and more natural than trying to constantly click the mute button on and off during the game. But even push to talk only gets you so far.

I'm using Discord these days and have thought about that, but I suspect I'd just have people who regularly forgot to push.

If you have lag, it is just really difficult to avoid. I've had to use Discord on some pretty poor connections and I've been very impressed. I've never experienced lag in the years we've been using it. When there is a bandwidth issue you might get garbled sound but I don't recall ever having lag.

I didn't get lag, but we got dropped words sometimes.

 

[payn]

Just put on this mask and start taking notes in a notebook.
View attachment 409507
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1831563411/sigmund-freud-realistic-helmet-mask?ls=s&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=sigmund+freud+mask&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&content_source=eeb8f7ac987b7ed0a68464704e700d5623ad7c7c%3A1831563411&organic_search_click=1&logging_key=eeb8f7ac987b7ed0a68464704e700d5623ad7c7c:1831563411

Im not a cat...

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

Not a problem without automatic lighting and vision control. In the one I use, if you move a token into a fog-of-war area, you don't see anything you didn't see before.

What VTT are you using? Does it allow you to pause the game to prevent movement? For example, in Foundry you just hit the space bar and it pauses the game, preventing tokens from being moved.

I know I could absolutely fiddle with the applications to solve this problem... but it doesn't change the fact the behavior is pretty juvenile.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I know I could absolutely fiddle with the applications to solve this problem... but it doesn't change the fact the behavior is pretty juvenile.

I was just reacting because I don't think terms where this would even be useful, but then, there are all kinds of things people have issues with related to VTTs that end up making no sense to me either because I don't need the VTT to do X, or don't even want it to.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My only real horror story is of my own main group and all of us being awful, in that, during the pandemic, we first tried using Discord as our way of communicating to play D&D online, and oh my god, it was far, far too easy to post memes in Discord (it practically demands that you do!), and we just all kept doing it and then saying we'd stop and then five minutes later someone would find a super-apposite one for what was happening in the game and post it and we'd all crack up and the game's atmosphere would be vapourized, and this just kept happening despite us all swearing we'd stop.

I partially blame pandemic madness but when we switched to using Google chat thing for sound/video and Roll20 for rolling/rules it deleted the problem so I guess sometimes technology can solve people being awful idiots. Even if I am those people.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I have had an issue with "overly comfortable" dress, but that guy has enough red flags for a CCP parade.

The rest are more hypothetical problems than recurring issues for me.

 

[Lanefan]

One thing to add to the list - the GM not having stuff ready. Sucks when the game halts while the GM preps an NPC or map. Or the map doesn't match the scenario because the GM couldn't/didn't find the proper map. Also not finding a decent token for NPCs and continually using one of the default tokens.

Can't blame the DM if the players have their characters go to unforeseen or unexpected places all the time. Roll20 (which is what we use) isn't great for on-the-fly mapping - or so says our DM, and I fully believe him.

As an IT support person, I know that getting audio and video stuff to work correctly can be a PITA. The base OS controls are often not well documented and often hard to find. Not to mention Windows often allows setting adjustments at the driver level, basic OS level and 3rd party software level, all at the same time. Sometimes worth it to schedule an out of game time slot to test various things if someone continues to have problems.

We use discord for audio (no cameras, and I'm glad of that!) and it's terrible. At one time or another every one of us has had (or is still having) problems with it.

That said, I'm not at all a fan of online play at the best of times and consider it a very poor substitute for the real thing. As such, I'm not all that willing to invest any money into it in terms of updating the fairly old tech I have which for everything else I need works just fine.