What's Wrong with Virtual Tabletop Play?

[Raloc]

My post was in reply to DonTadow, mainly.

Most people aren't saying that using a VTabletop somehow makes the game "not a game" anymore, and/or aren't acting snobbishly, but there are some that have in the extreme. VT games tend to focus more on in character RP than combat from what I've seen (and I've played both for nearly an equal number of years, so unlike most of the naysayers in this thread, I've actually had experience with both styles of play), but that certainly doesn't make it "not a PnP RPG" anymore.

 

[Matchstick]

NWN2 holds NOTHING to a live session for me

I agree. I don't consider Neverwinter to be a virtual tabletop though. The limitations of the game and its graphics constitute limitations that have to be placed on any DM'd game within that program, and limitations don't fit in my definition of D&D. You can't use any monster you want, in any setting you want. You can work around those limitations some, but D&D is a game about imagination (IMO) and it should take place in the imagination (with possibly a little help from a map or two).

I accept that there are people that use this to get a D&D fix, but I would consider it "playing NWN" and not a virtual tabletop that aids in playing D&D online.

 

[Henry]

I accept that there are people that use this to get a D&D fix, but I would consider it "playing NWN" and not a virtual tabletop that aids in playing D&D online.

I agree, but there are people who consider an interface like NWN to be the "next step" in tabletop RPG play, except that their ideal interface would include more voice-support, emotive moves, virtual environment, etc. as opposed to any interface that mimics "sitting at a table with dice." Even if Virtual Tabletop were to get as immersive as a VR-like interface a la NWN, I still wouldn't prefer it -- though I'd still play it for the heck of it. Hell, my bachelor party was four guys in a circle, staring at monitors playing DOOM all night while hurling curses at one another for fragging out -- I don't knock it.

 

[Kid Socrates]

I run both an in-person game and an online game. Both had two players (until an online player decided that he no longer had need of creative pursuits in his life).

The online game is played on the Psionics IRC server using mIRC. We would all open two instances of mIRC, with one as CharacterName or GM (in my case), and the other as our first name. All out of character questions, comments, and jokes were done using the OOC login, and only in-character actions and words were handled through the IC login.

I use a lot of music in my gaming, with each person, place, thing, and event having its own theme. I'm still able to do this using mIRC thanks to the Sounds folder. Before each session I'd send the players a zip file containing the music for that session, and they'd add it to their folder so I could have it play during the session with an IRC command.

One of my players made us a pretty simple dice roller using mIRC scripting. I think he set it up himself, but I'm not sure. Either way, a quick type of /droll 1d20 or /dradd 10d6 gives us fast and furious dice rolls.

The strengths of online gaming for me are as follows:

1) The Man Behind The Curtain.
On more than one occasion since doing online gaming I've ad-libbed an NPC or escalation of a fight or interaction that the players are having. I can page through notes, look up names in my mythology book, or use Google Desktop to find the name of the professor they spoke with 27 sessions ago. While I would call myself a pretty damn good GM, I don't have a great poker face or a perfect memory. This helps me out a lot by not distracting them.

2) He Said/She Said
The King of Homeland is about to send our heroes off to the Land of Early Dismemberment, but the Captain of the Guard feels this is a bad idea, and he and the king discuss this with the players chiming in. It can make for great drama, but also confuse the players with just which NPC is speaking at that moment. Using IRC to game, I just have one login change to "King" and the other to "Guard Captain" and the problem is solved. I find it makes NPC/NPC conversations much easier.

3) Bucket O' Dice
Rolling 15d8 is really fun, but adding it up the sixth time you use that spell is not. Using that script, /dradd 15d8, drops the total on the final line. That saves between 15-120 seconds per turn, depending who's going and how much they're doing. Not everyone is great at fast math, and I have players that are like that.

4) Scheduling
One player works full-time and goes to school full-time, and is battling car trouble. The other player, before leaving the game, attended law school over a thousand miles away. This pretty much was the only way to game.

5) "Marsha!" "John!" "...Marsha, you've got a pretty manly voice there."
A recent session had one player, a swordsman cursed with immortality and a dark past he only recently came to remember and understand, travel to the final resting place of his long-dead lover, a female summoner that he killed a thousand years earlier. The session was a pretty intense and emotional one, with her snapping at him that she thought he -loved- her, but he'd only been using her the entire time and killed her when he had no further use for her. He protested that he'd changed since then, that he understood what happened before, but he knew that was no excuse. This continued for some time, and after the session he told me that he was able to forget it was a 24-year-old guy typing that to him, and that had the session been done in person it would have been considerably less impactful.

I really enjoy online gaming. I think I may try my hand at finding a game after I finish running my current one, and seeing what life is like as a player. It helps that my car sucks and I can't drive further than about 5 miles at a time right now.

 

[Shane_Leahy]

I have been using Fantasy Grounds for running my various D&D games ever since I moved away from the town I was in.

It works great. We use it and voice chat along with a message board. I find that there is more role-playing now then before. Part of this is because of the message board, we do some playbypost there where the players can get focussed on themselves without having to take away time from the other players.

And even though we don't play for as long as we did in person, we get just as much done. We get on, focus on the game and then finish up. No travelling, no cleaning up, etc.

Yes it takes more some more time to get things ready, but I enjoy it.

Now would I play face to face, yes if I could. I like the style better, I like making terrain, using minitures, props, etc. but playing with a virtual tabletop is a good replacement.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I like to sit in the same room with my buddies and game, drink a few beers, and have fun. Online isn't bad, but I don't find it as fun as sitting at the same table.

QFT. I game almost solely online, since moving away from my group and this has been my experience. I enjoy gaming online, but I enjoy gaming face to face WAY more.

 

[Matchstick]

I agree, but there are people who consider an interface like NWN to be the "next step" in tabletop RPG play, except that their ideal interface would include more voice-support, emotive moves, virtual environment, etc. as opposed to any interface that mimics "sitting at a table with dice." Even if Virtual Tabletop were to get as immersive as a VR-like interface a la NWN, I still wouldn't prefer it -- though I'd still play it for the heck of it. Hell, my bachelor party was four guys in a circle, staring at monitors playing DOOM all night while hurling curses at one another for fragging out -- I don't knock it.

I'm of the same mind. And to be clear I wasn't knocking NWN at all, I just don't consider it to be a virtual tabletop.

I don't think Virtual Reality is the next step in RPG play. I think it'll be a step at some point far far in the future (could be the Lawnmower Man method, or the Dream Park method, I hope for the latter), but not as the next step. Or even the step after the next step.

At a place I used to work we considered playing Quake on the company network after work hours were over "team building time", though you'd never know it from the taunting and cussing.

 

[Festivus]

If I had to choose between "virtual D&D" and "no D&D" I would choose "no D&D." Particularly as DM. I wouldn't want to run such a game -- it just sounds like no fun at all. I don't think I'd want to be a player either. The pace, the interactions, the fluidity of communication all suffer online.

I don't totally agree with this opinion.

I play both online and face to face. My preference is face to face just for the human interaction bit (seeing friends, getting away from wife and kids for a bit), but it's got it's drawbacks too. Getting a group of people together to play on a regular schedule has it's challenges if you are in my age bracket with wife and kids who also want your attention... lack of players in a geographic area is another. One of my players moved to Nevada, the other commutes every two weeks 30+ miles to come to the game.

My online game has superior attendance, hardly ever does someone miss a session. Many of us have kids (or sheep) to attend to, making travelling to a game difficult at times. What it lacks is that human interaction thing... you tend to start thinking of the players as computer controlled at times. What helps with this is a voice chat application like Ventrilo, where you can hear human voices speak with each other. It's really quite amazing how much more efficient an online game becomes when you add voice. What it lacks is body language... you can't see a facial expression so sometimes things get taken with the wrong context.

I will say that the online game tends to be much more focussed on the game itself, and players tend to roleplay a bit more online (where you can't see them blush I guess), whereas tabletop there always seems to be some conversation about how something in the current adventure reminds someone of Expedition to Barrier Peaks or some such.

Choosing between no D&D at all and online D&D... I'll take online any day... as long as I can have voice chat with it too.

 

[JoeBlank]

I've been playing chat-based online games (RPGA games mostly) for 5 years. The upside is that it lets me play regularly with friends that are scattered all over the country, and, as some have said, it's better than not playing with them at all. The downsides are that it *is* slower (an RPGA module that'd take 3-4 hours F2F usually takes 6-7 hours online), and the overall experience just isn't quite as enjoyable as being together. Another thing that I notice is that most people tend to multi-task at their computer to fill in the slow times during the game; the problem frequently emerges that, when it's Player X's turn, Player X is busy doing an e-mail or paying bills, and it slows things down even more.

Take out the RPGA bits and this says it pretty well for me. I prefer face-to-face, but without virtual tabletop play I might never have played 3.x at all. It keeps me in touch with friends I have known for over 30 years, who are now spread about the country. At least one of them I have not seen in person more than twice in the past 10 years.

 

[Merkuri]

The limitations of [Neverwinter Nights] and its graphics constitute limitations that have to be placed on any DM'd game within that program, and limitations don't fit in my definition of D&D. You can't use any monster you want, in any setting you want. You can work around those limitations some, but D&D is a game about imagination (IMO) and it should take place in the imagination (with possibly a little help from a map or two).

Hear hear! I'll take a map, non-animated minis, and text chat any day over NWW for all the reasons above.

I play D&D to exercise my imagination. I don't need a program to take away my imagination's job.

Nothing can scare or awe you as much as your own imagination. Anything with graphics is therefore less scary/awe-inspiring than a good description.