D&D General What Do You Miss Most About Face-to-Face D&D?

[Rhenny]

Being with friends, first and foremost. Also, the fluidity of how the game plays. So much is lost when people can’t read body language, movement and other aspects that online play can’t fully capture.

I like playing online, but the best is when I can gather with old friends and play for longer periods of time in person.

Two summers in a row prior to last year, my buddies and I would have a reunion at a resort in Park City, Utah. We would spend 3-4 nights playing, relaxing, hiking, swimming, eating and drinking. Wow. That was awesome. I miss that.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

The food, obviously!

 

[Zaukrie]

Minis and Terrain
Seems to be way less chatter/fun on the VTT vs in person
The hanging out before
The food people would share

I really miss randomly pulling out terrain and minis and making something spontaneous. You just can't randomly add rooms / caverns in a VTT in the same way during play....

 

[Lanefan]

What do I miss? Pretty much everything.

Virtual play is a poor substitute IMO, very little if any better than not playing at all. And it's far more work for the DM, which is in part why I haven't gone to virtual DMing and remain just a virtual player.

 

[Wasteland Knight]

Minis and Terrain
Seems to be way less chatter/fun on the VTT vs in person
The hanging out before
The food people would share

I really miss randomly pulling out terrain and minis and making something spontaneous. You just can't randomly add rooms / caverns in a VTT in the same way during play....

This is a good point, and a downside of VTT. I don't do random encounters in my VTT game, at least not in the old manner of make a few rolls, whip up a map/terrain and call for initiative. For certain areas or adventures where it makes "sense", I set up a couple of "random" encounters to use ahead of time. Of course this involves preparing appropriate battlemaps and tokens ahead of time.

 

[Wasteland Knight]

What do I miss? Pretty much everything.

Virtual play is a poor substitute IMO, very little if any better than not playing at all. And it's far more work for the DM, which is in part why I haven't gone to virtual DMing and remain just a virtual player.

I'm honestly curious about which system and VTT you are using? Because I went from having zero prior VTT experience of any sort to running a VTT Pathfinder campaign about three weeks ago, and using Roll20 has been pretty painless. I did have some experienced resources I could bounce questions off of and had an experienced VTT player sit down with me for an hour or two "dry run". But frankly, the learning curve was far shallower than I thought it would be.

 

[MNblockhead]

Depends what you are looking for, but I find it easier to whip up an encounter in a VTT. As long as my battlemap-image names are descriptive, I can quickly filter to one I want to use and throw it up MUCH more quickly than I can draw something out or lay down tiles and terrain. Finding and placing tokens are even easier. I mean, I have thousands of 2D plastic and paper minis filed in labeled and alphabetized envelopes, but I still have to pull them out, put them into bases, place them on the map. Even if I use paper tokens/pogs, getting rid of need for bases, it just takes more time to pull out physical items.

Also, many VTTs allow you to draw out a map. Doing so is as easy if not easier than using wet-erase markers and a Chessex mat.

I don't miss my physical terrain and minis because of convenience. I miss them because it becomes a group activity. For certain encounters when playing in person, I would just hand out wet-erase markers, terrain tiles, and/or dungeon dressing and give the players a general description of scene and have them draw/build it. It takes LONGER than a VTT, but it actually gives me MORE time to focus on looking over the monster stats and prepping the monster tactics or giving me some breathing room to get something to eat or drink. And it is fun for the players.

Some VTTs allow the DM to give players the ability to draw on a dungeon map, so they could do something similar. But it just doesn't feel the same as manipulating physical items, handing them to other players, and working together at the same table to create a battle scene.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm honestly curious about which system and VTT you are using? Because I went from having zero prior VTT experience of any sort to running a VTT Pathfinder campaign about three weeks ago, and using Roll20 has been pretty painless. I did have some experienced resources I could bounce questions off of and had an experienced VTT player sit down with me for an hour or two "dry run". But frankly, the learning curve was far shallower than I thought it would be.

Roll20 for maps and dice, discord for voice, no video.

Our rules system is mostly homebrew so roll20 isn't any help there. We're running off our paper character sheets.

 

[Zardnaar]

In person gaming basically.

It's always been about the social aspect.

 

[MarkB]

From gaming in a club at a local community hall, the thing I miss most is the meandering conversations at the end of the session as everyone's getting ready to go home. With most of the online games I've played, once we hit the end of the session we almost always end the voice call within about ten seconds or so.