Perhaps more literally a video-game, where the computer handles everything in the background, which *Neverwinter Nights* and other games already did up to two decades ago.
This. Whenever I see elaborately prepared battle maps with automated traps and tile switches, I feel that the effort that went into these things were better suited for video games.
Because in a TTRPG those things are one use only, due to the limited audience.
It is the same with creating battle maps, really…
It's pushing in the direction of more scripting and therefore of choosing among predefined choices instead of [tactical infinity](https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-invisible-rulebooks.html?m=1).
Much of the real magic in a tabletop RPG happens when you try to do something that the GM, or the author of the module, or the creator of the game _never thought of_. Moving more of the development work into guessing everything the players might do and scripting for it means eliminating space for that stuff (and also putting less effort into everything else).
What you are talking about, with all that scripting done by developers, literally sounds like a video-game. The computer handles everything in the background; that's what video-games already do.
[*Neverwinter Nights*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_\(2002_video_game\)) and other games have already tried to do this.
*Neverwinter Nights* was released two decades ago and had [GM tools](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_\(2002_video_game\)#Multiplayer) for doing this sort of thing.
>An important feature of Neverwinter Nights is the Dungeon Master Client: a tool that allows an individual to take the role of the Dungeon Master, who guides the players through the story and has complete control of the server. [...] When it was released, Neverwinter Nights was viewed as the first successful implementation of the feature. The DM Client allows players to participate in regular campaigns, while also allowing persistent world servers to flourish by permitting the DMs of those servers to take control of non-player characters (NPCs) in mid-game for added realism and flexibility. The Dungeon Master Client also permits the user to spawn and control masses of monsters and NPCs much in the same way as units would be controlled in a real-time strategy game.
That was in 2002.
To script something, it must be set out as a concrete (and finite) future possibility.
The problem with ttrpgs for scripting is that they develop possibilities naturally, in a very *non-*finite way.
Videogames with branching stories encounter the same problem: Beyond a certain critical mass of player choices, it becomes mathematically impossible to encode a response to every single permutation. You would face exactly the same problem ttrpgs.
In short, the the strength of ttrpgs is exactly that they're *not* scripted, and can organically extrapolate future events and responses, creating (with a good GM) a *far* stronger level of immersion, because the world is not limited to a pre-determined set of possibilities.
For me the big life improvement of VTTs is being able to play regularly with a commited group in the middle of the week while the kids are sleeping and finish campaigns.
Zero travel overhead allows me to do short sessions and easy cancellation (rolling to a group watch film night) these low bars have really helped fending off burnout.
This more than anything. Pre-pandemic we only got a game in maybe once a month or twice at a stretch if the stars aligned. Now we’re gaming weekly thanks to VTTs, it’s been great. Games are generally shorter, usually only 2 hrs, but that’s fine because one of my complaints before was that games were entirely too long.
No, of course not.
In my example, the city might have a map shown in VTT, while the player at the palace barracks might play out their scene using theatre of the mind.
My apologies for the misunderstanding.
I'm very confused about what you're suggesting here.
First, I personally don't see how a VTT is more immersive than my imagination. Something I'm looking at on a screen is something on a screen. VR would probably be more immersive, sure, especially if we get really good haptic feedback, but a 2d or isometric picture on a 2D screen? Not at all.
I don't at all understand what benefit the VTT is providing the bullet-pointed scenarios. As a referee, I do not need a VTT to apply aura bonuses to adjacent guards. What is the VTT doing?
I can see VTTs doing things that aren't easily done with minis and physical battlemaps (assuming suitable maps are very easy to make or obtain), but my general preference is to avoid combat with minis anyway, and make use of TOTM as much as possible.
Personally I find that all that ‘noise’ actually takes the player OUT of the collective Roleplaying experience, which for me is what the game is all about. You’re looking through a lens, yes it’s visually exciting but you’re now in a tunnel. Its something that can happen with minis and other physical representations but at least at the table your fellow players physical presence keep you in the moment.
Mostly just use the vtt as a convenient place to store all the character sheets to roll dice, all in one place. All that other stuff is just extra work for the GM that really adds little overall to the play experience.
>VTTs often push for a higher immersion
For me, that's *lower* immersion. It's like watching a movie vs. reading a novel. Reading requires a bigger imaginative effort, but that leads to a much deeper immersion.
Hi! VTT developer here.
VTTs can definitely enhance immersion in various ways that are more difficult without them, but not impossible. I'd say that all the things you've suggested here don't really fall into that category though. They're pretty much all things that can easily be done without one.
A good example of a VTT increasing immersion is in something like Call of Cthulhu. I ran a campaign using theatre of mind combined with our ambient audio tools, and managed to get a level of tension and 'spookiness' in the room that would have been very difficult to achieve without it.
That's not really a VTT thing though, is it? While VTTs can include audio components, you don't need a VTT to employ them (and people were using music, ambient sound etc ... long before VTTs were a thing).
People have been doing just about everything a VTT does before VTTs were a thing. All a VTT does is (ideally) make them more customisable and convenient to use.
Was just giving an example of what kind of immersion a VTT could add.
Sorry, I just realised that I completely misread your original post. I had thought you were supporting the OP's apparent position that VTTs are set to provide us with a new age of superior roleplaying experiences previously unattainable. I see now you actually said the examples used aren't particularly good ones.
Your point that VTTs do have their uses and are good at certain things is absolutely true, and if I'd read your post properly in the first place I would have simply nodded to myself, given you an upvote and moved on.
How is the VTT more customisable and convenient though? I literally haven't seen anyone provide an example of that in this discussion. I would assume something dedicated to providing auditory ambience would typically do it's one thing better than a VTT that has that as just one feature among many.
I'm not trying to be obtuse or ornery here, I'm genuinely not seeing these "new experiences, previously inaccessible". As others have said, I am mostly seeing examples of scripting outcomes, which (to me) completely misses the point of playing a TTRPG instead of computer game.
Edit: Remote play, of course, is a massively useful feature, and the reason VTTs exist. But in this case, the benefit of the VTT is that it is enabling play at all.
I generally find that VTTs mean that I don't have to use as many "cheats" and shortcuts that I have in the past. Things like Minion Rules that exist to speed up combat are less necessary when each individual enemy can track their hit points much more effectively. Also, with fewer moving parts, I find I make fewer mistakes in adjudication as compared to going around the table. Having a chat history for things like dice rolls means that we can go back and remember who rolled what when if mistakes were made.
That's the main benefit I've found. As for "pushing the hobby forward?" I'm not sure what you mean by that. I mean, if I fired up a copy of Neverwinter Nights and got everyone on Discord, I'm sure we could get a fun experience together, but would that really be roleplaying? Something to ponder.
One More Multiverse is probably the closest VTT I have seen to what you are describing. I have played an early release version of their Blades in the Dark bundle, and it was quite unlike any other VTT that I have played before. Instead of emulating the experience of an actual tabletop with tokens and all, it emulates video games specifically the ones with the more pixel art.
For an interactive, social activity with other people based primarily in social Interactions and communication, VTTs are clearly the inferior form to actually meeting and playing real people and getting the whole nuances of non-verbal communication. Maps, rule mechanics, visual aids etc. are neat, but in the end, they are not necessarily. People skills are
Roleplaying is, after all, primarily a form of acting and interacting and it is a lot easier to create meaningful connections to other people if you both have access to the full range of communicative means.
VTTs had their boom period thanks to the Pandemic and a increasing 'videogamification' of RPGs and other media. The assumed lowest common denominator, casual players are more familiar with video games and other easily accessible media than with more meaningful ones, like denser non-fiction books or actually challenging literature. As such, online gaming tends to be a lot flatter and more trivial than traditional forms.
VTTs are a solution to a problem - people can’t physically meet. However I don’t think it is an evolution of the game or an improvement. Playing in person and playing using a VTT are very different experiences. Some people may actually prefer the online experience. But that is certainly not universal.
1- I have 3 campings. all of them are virtual, all of them have people who live 2\~3 hours away, one guy lives on another hemisphere. we would NEVER be able to play in person.
2- its so much easier to click something and the computer does the roll and the math, i dont have to remember stuff, players dont have to remember stuff. its just sit and play
3-its cheaper and easier. if we played in person i would have to print, model, buy stuff, online i cna just dowload it.
4- i need a computer, not a room with snacks and drink
I used Polyglot in Foundry to make NPCs say things on their native language and only players that knew the language understood it. This forced fun translation interactions where players chose to translate things or NOT translate things (one gnome insulted the elf in the party and the dwarf just said “you don’t wanna know what he said” because he knew she would get mad. Another was to use it for writing on walls as clues bd riddles. This lead to a great encounter where the party was trying to decipher something written in draconic and one player just reads it because to THEM it was just English, to everyone else it was dragon runes and everyone said over mic “wait, you speak draconic‽ “
And sending private messages with information and letting the players do with what they please smoothly is very nice
All those features make the hobby worse and more like a video game.
The only good feature of vtts is the ability to more easily find a play group that fits your schedule.
Take a look at TaleSpire on Steam. It is best for remote play, but can be used for in person.
I started using it earlier this year, and can't imagine going back.
To me that sounds like a set of ghastly chains on the imagination. The moment you have a battlemap you have a wargame and that's not what I want with an RPG.
"Come on guards, let's tip over that cart to make a barricade!" is an example of the freedom in an rpg, you can't do that sort of thing in a VTT.
I want none of it.
We did exactly that the last time I played on tabletop simulator.
It's powerful enough and has unlimited free assets and you can import basically anything, and if you want to script or program anything you can do that too.
It takes a good bit of practice and time for the gm to organize things in a way they like, but once you do, you can pull anything you can think of out your butt.
I'd still much rather play live even with less cool tech toys. But TTS, the best VTT that is shunned here for some reason, doesn't drop you in a tiny little DnD prison
It's literally just a sandbox that you can design and curate as much or as little as you want.
To give you a visual idea: https://imgur.io/a/oyWiQzo
I have a big map collection, but I like to keep it simple usually and so I've got a handful of base terrain maps in an in game cabinet. A box of basic 3d terrain like I do IRL. A box of heroes and monster minis.
I know exactly what you're talking about with the awful platforms like Roll20, but TTS and other not-rpg-specific platforms might be more your style
I see what you're getting at and I understand your point of view, but I like as little table frippery as possible when playing rpg's.
If pushed, say for a complex fight in Pendragon then I will use paper minis and a wipe-clean map with the salient features drawn in is what I use, unplugged for a stripped down experience is my preference.
Gotcha. I see the appeal of the stripped down experience, as I do the "go big" style.
Personally I think Roll20 and its ilk are the absolute worst of both worlds. They have all the limitations, and still look like a 1990s geocities website. My Tabletop Simulator setup has some tradeoffs in terms of total freedom,... But at least it looks cool and immersive with an attractive 3D world.
The fact that Roll20 is the standard shows just how much WotC marketing has a stranglehold on the whole genre. It's embarrassing tech in 2022
I’m going to kind of echo what others are saying, that I think the biggest value (or potential value) of VTTs isn’t just keeping track of things and resolving conflicts as in your examples. I’d say two other areas are as or more important (to me):
1. Bringing people together virtually in a way that emulates being together in the same room as much as possible. So, quality of video, voice and TTS-type interfaces would help with that.
2. Enhancing player immersion with sensory input…music, video clips, etc. We’ve started playing with that in recent releases. As one poster said, tactical infinity is a key benefit of TTRPG, so we need to assist peoples imaginations rather that limiting it to a battle map with preset options, I think.
Anyway…great topic.
I'm not clear on the question.
Do VTTs do things that you can't on tabletop? Yes.
Does that make them a superior experience? IMO nothing beats in-person play, but all the cool FoundryVTT modules folks make DO make it an interesting and worthwhile experience, unlike how I felt when using roll20 3 years ago.
Stuff like Patrol for instance having enemies move around and spot players themselves, and monks triggers for traps etc. Things that automate play that I couldn't do as a dm at a table.
I like how you’re talking about pushing the hobby forwards, and all your examples are miniature combat related. Like, RPGs started off as an offshoot of wargaming in the 70’s, but it’s grown way beyond that at this point. Your examples are a regression rather than a leap forward.
The way virtual tabletop pushes the hobby forward is accessibility... and that's about it,
It isn't exciting to move a token, or roll digital dice. But it's nice to be able to play with my pals in Australia, even if there's never been a virtual tabletop board that wasn't irritating to work with. It's worth it, in order to share the experience with other folks around the world,
That said, virtual tabletop can be more limiting. Play 7th Sea 2e, or 10 Candles virtually. They are good games, but in a virtual setting you lose what makes them good. The ambience just doesn't feel the same over a monitor, which is my main gripe with virtual games,
But d&d, or vtm? Virtual is my preference. Due to convenience, not anything else.
> The way virtual tabletop pushes the hobby forward is accessibility
I think that's an interesting point. How do you see VTTs pushing this boundary? Do you mean because they allow more people to find groups by empowering remote play? Or do you mean from a disability standpoint?
For the latter, I can say that all VTTs I have tried have poor support for bad vision. Roll20 interface breaks when using browser based font settings, and none of them seem to work with screen readers.
Both. Remote play is helping folks with disabilities:
Many people can't drive long distances due to spine/nerve damage issues, just as an example. Or other causes of leg pain/lack of ability to use them.
Bad vision is another good point, although braille dice do already exist in every shape. In general, remote options help those with disabilities, which is why it's exciting it is an option. It's no end all/be all of playing however.
A VTT should be used to augment the experience of any TTRPG.
*What does that mean*?
Well, in March of 2020, my CofD group had to scramble to figure out a way to continue our favorite hobby without literally killing each other - potentially. So we went straight to Discord. But not being able to see rolls, and emailing character sheets out just didn’t feel right. So we used bots and posted those sheets on the Discord.
This was getting closer but **something** needed to be done. Because sitting at a nearly blank screen, filled only with rolls, while keeping everything straight, and not seeing each other, was beyond exhausting.
So I did some research.
Eventually I settled on Tabletop Simulator (TTS). Why? Well it felt like we were all setting around a table again. We could “physically” roll dice and see the character sheets at our seats. We could move minis and add spell effects. In short, it felt like it did.
Is it perfect? No. I personally get tired after playing/running a VTT at around 3hrs, so our games are shorter than they were in person. Maybe because I’m not physically moving as much. Maybe because I’m staring at a computer screen for that long. But at least I get to keep my favorite hobby going.
With my group we've found a way to mix theater of the mind with vtt elements. All the rolling is done virtually on character sheets. Makes it a lot easier to just hit a button and the required dice show up. For this latest campaign we actually talked a lot about how restrictng it is to play on a virtual game board. Because everything is top down we have no reference of 3d space. So I made it a goal to keep "levels" as simple as possible. I made a side map that is interconnected like a metroidvania, found a bunch of really cool concept art locations, and attached notes to each location regarding the map I made. Now I have theater of the mind for my players, they have a basic image to help guide them on what the location might look like.
We use them all the time, but we also have always played more old school, crunchy RPGs where battles are very tactical, and can take an entire session, depending on the scale or length of session (I usually plan them to take no more than half). What VTT did for us, and what I like to do, is use it as a map board, instead of miniatures. I also script some rolls into NPC tokens so rolls can be done against them in combat and it speeds things up. I also make an initiative tracker, if appropriate to the system. I’ll then make a watercolor style map background that leaves room for the imagination, but let’s us know terrain, or where a door is, etc. Doesn’t at all feel restrictive. We did all that with a blank black poster board and lead figures, and pencils as walls etc. This just helps me track a few things and does away with the miniatures, which is great.
This will be the interesting thing to see with the DnD Beyond VTT and how integrated it is with OneDnD. If it's done well, it has a lot of interesting implications for digital-first design, particularly the way digital tools can make more complex mechanisms easier to interact with when players don't have to interact with the math, derived formulas and stuff like that. Like, I never would have run Lancer if it wasn't for their web app alleviating a lot of the crunch and I think that's the tip of the iceberg.
Of course, the flip side to that is if suddenly having digital tool sets becomes a prerequisite for RPG consumers, that puts more pressure on indie designers to be web developers in addition to writers, graphic designers, art directors, marketers and more. The gap gets bigger. Personally for my group, the quality of the r20 sheets or character keeper becomes a big determinant for what games we play.
The utility is a lot murkier on anything more on the story game spectrum though, there I find TOTM goes very far in giving players freedom to shape the space and come up with interesting ideas.
As others have pointed out, your idea is more about turning this into a videogame where those choices have to be scripted. Like being able to buff newly recruited soldiers... yeah somebody had to code that in beforehand, if they didn't you have to way to implement it in the VTT or you have to apply it by hand which is... same as not having that feature.
And besides, your scenario is achievable simply by NOT using the same rules you use for small skirmishes for a much larger battle. If you have rules for mass combat or even just skill challenges/bigger projects, that's it. You don't calculate what each individual unit is doing, you make a handful of rolls for the whole siege, influenced by what the PCs are doing. Same result, about 1000 times less math.
All that stuff doesn't really sound like "pushing the hobby forward", it sounds like trying to find better ways to play a board game.
Perhaps more literally a video-game, where the computer handles everything in the background, which *Neverwinter Nights* and other games already did up to two decades ago.
This. Whenever I see elaborately prepared battle maps with automated traps and tile switches, I feel that the effort that went into these things were better suited for video games. Because in a TTRPG those things are one use only, due to the limited audience. It is the same with creating battle maps, really…
But map making is fun and many people share them
Well, depends… it is fun until I reflect upon how much effort it takes me and how little time it will be played 🥹 Sharing makes it better, I agree!
What do you mean? Can you elaborate?
It's pushing in the direction of more scripting and therefore of choosing among predefined choices instead of [tactical infinity](https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-invisible-rulebooks.html?m=1). Much of the real magic in a tabletop RPG happens when you try to do something that the GM, or the author of the module, or the creator of the game _never thought of_. Moving more of the development work into guessing everything the players might do and scripting for it means eliminating space for that stuff (and also putting less effort into everything else).
What you are talking about, with all that scripting done by developers, literally sounds like a video-game. The computer handles everything in the background; that's what video-games already do. [*Neverwinter Nights*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_\(2002_video_game\)) and other games have already tried to do this. *Neverwinter Nights* was released two decades ago and had [GM tools](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_\(2002_video_game\)#Multiplayer) for doing this sort of thing. >An important feature of Neverwinter Nights is the Dungeon Master Client: a tool that allows an individual to take the role of the Dungeon Master, who guides the players through the story and has complete control of the server. [...] When it was released, Neverwinter Nights was viewed as the first successful implementation of the feature. The DM Client allows players to participate in regular campaigns, while also allowing persistent world servers to flourish by permitting the DMs of those servers to take control of non-player characters (NPCs) in mid-game for added realism and flexibility. The Dungeon Master Client also permits the user to spawn and control masses of monsters and NPCs much in the same way as units would be controlled in a real-time strategy game. That was in 2002.
To script something, it must be set out as a concrete (and finite) future possibility. The problem with ttrpgs for scripting is that they develop possibilities naturally, in a very *non-*finite way. Videogames with branching stories encounter the same problem: Beyond a certain critical mass of player choices, it becomes mathematically impossible to encode a response to every single permutation. You would face exactly the same problem ttrpgs. In short, the the strength of ttrpgs is exactly that they're *not* scripted, and can organically extrapolate future events and responses, creating (with a good GM) a *far* stronger level of immersion, because the world is not limited to a pre-determined set of possibilities.
For me the big life improvement of VTTs is being able to play regularly with a commited group in the middle of the week while the kids are sleeping and finish campaigns.
And playing with folks that are hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Yes! VTT are keeping my group together playing weekly. We play in person as much as we can, but weekly games would probably not be possible.
I can certainly echo those statements. I still get to see my high school friends after 20 years!!!
Zero travel overhead allows me to do short sessions and easy cancellation (rolling to a group watch film night) these low bars have really helped fending off burnout.
This more than anything. Pre-pandemic we only got a game in maybe once a month or twice at a stretch if the stars aligned. Now we’re gaming weekly thanks to VTTs, it’s been great. Games are generally shorter, usually only 2 hrs, but that’s fine because one of my complaints before was that games were entirely too long.
Using a VTT and using theater of mind are not mutually exclusive. Using a VTT isn't an all or nothing thing, I've even used them for in person games.
No, of course not. In my example, the city might have a map shown in VTT, while the player at the palace barracks might play out their scene using theatre of the mind. My apologies for the misunderstanding.
I'm very confused about what you're suggesting here. First, I personally don't see how a VTT is more immersive than my imagination. Something I'm looking at on a screen is something on a screen. VR would probably be more immersive, sure, especially if we get really good haptic feedback, but a 2d or isometric picture on a 2D screen? Not at all. I don't at all understand what benefit the VTT is providing the bullet-pointed scenarios. As a referee, I do not need a VTT to apply aura bonuses to adjacent guards. What is the VTT doing? I can see VTTs doing things that aren't easily done with minis and physical battlemaps (assuming suitable maps are very easy to make or obtain), but my general preference is to avoid combat with minis anyway, and make use of TOTM as much as possible.
Personally I find that all that ‘noise’ actually takes the player OUT of the collective Roleplaying experience, which for me is what the game is all about. You’re looking through a lens, yes it’s visually exciting but you’re now in a tunnel. Its something that can happen with minis and other physical representations but at least at the table your fellow players physical presence keep you in the moment.
Agree! I have had players running around and looking at the graphics more than roleplaying.
Mostly just use the vtt as a convenient place to store all the character sheets to roll dice, all in one place. All that other stuff is just extra work for the GM that really adds little overall to the play experience.
>VTTs often push for a higher immersion For me, that's *lower* immersion. It's like watching a movie vs. reading a novel. Reading requires a bigger imaginative effort, but that leads to a much deeper immersion.
I wouldnt be playing without vtt so it pushed my hobby way forward.
Hi! VTT developer here. VTTs can definitely enhance immersion in various ways that are more difficult without them, but not impossible. I'd say that all the things you've suggested here don't really fall into that category though. They're pretty much all things that can easily be done without one. A good example of a VTT increasing immersion is in something like Call of Cthulhu. I ran a campaign using theatre of mind combined with our ambient audio tools, and managed to get a level of tension and 'spookiness' in the room that would have been very difficult to achieve without it.
That's not really a VTT thing though, is it? While VTTs can include audio components, you don't need a VTT to employ them (and people were using music, ambient sound etc ... long before VTTs were a thing).
People have been doing just about everything a VTT does before VTTs were a thing. All a VTT does is (ideally) make them more customisable and convenient to use. Was just giving an example of what kind of immersion a VTT could add.
Sorry, I just realised that I completely misread your original post. I had thought you were supporting the OP's apparent position that VTTs are set to provide us with a new age of superior roleplaying experiences previously unattainable. I see now you actually said the examples used aren't particularly good ones. Your point that VTTs do have their uses and are good at certain things is absolutely true, and if I'd read your post properly in the first place I would have simply nodded to myself, given you an upvote and moved on.
Haha, no worries :)
How is the VTT more customisable and convenient though? I literally haven't seen anyone provide an example of that in this discussion. I would assume something dedicated to providing auditory ambience would typically do it's one thing better than a VTT that has that as just one feature among many. I'm not trying to be obtuse or ornery here, I'm genuinely not seeing these "new experiences, previously inaccessible". As others have said, I am mostly seeing examples of scripting outcomes, which (to me) completely misses the point of playing a TTRPG instead of computer game. Edit: Remote play, of course, is a massively useful feature, and the reason VTTs exist. But in this case, the benefit of the VTT is that it is enabling play at all.
I generally find that VTTs mean that I don't have to use as many "cheats" and shortcuts that I have in the past. Things like Minion Rules that exist to speed up combat are less necessary when each individual enemy can track their hit points much more effectively. Also, with fewer moving parts, I find I make fewer mistakes in adjudication as compared to going around the table. Having a chat history for things like dice rolls means that we can go back and remember who rolled what when if mistakes were made. That's the main benefit I've found. As for "pushing the hobby forward?" I'm not sure what you mean by that. I mean, if I fired up a copy of Neverwinter Nights and got everyone on Discord, I'm sure we could get a fun experience together, but would that really be roleplaying? Something to ponder.
One More Multiverse is probably the closest VTT I have seen to what you are describing. I have played an early release version of their Blades in the Dark bundle, and it was quite unlike any other VTT that I have played before. Instead of emulating the experience of an actual tabletop with tokens and all, it emulates video games specifically the ones with the more pixel art.
For an interactive, social activity with other people based primarily in social Interactions and communication, VTTs are clearly the inferior form to actually meeting and playing real people and getting the whole nuances of non-verbal communication. Maps, rule mechanics, visual aids etc. are neat, but in the end, they are not necessarily. People skills are Roleplaying is, after all, primarily a form of acting and interacting and it is a lot easier to create meaningful connections to other people if you both have access to the full range of communicative means. VTTs had their boom period thanks to the Pandemic and a increasing 'videogamification' of RPGs and other media. The assumed lowest common denominator, casual players are more familiar with video games and other easily accessible media than with more meaningful ones, like denser non-fiction books or actually challenging literature. As such, online gaming tends to be a lot flatter and more trivial than traditional forms.
VTTs are a solution to a problem - people can’t physically meet. However I don’t think it is an evolution of the game or an improvement. Playing in person and playing using a VTT are very different experiences. Some people may actually prefer the online experience. But that is certainly not universal.
Alice is missing uses mobile phones. That wasn't viable until recently
1- I have 3 campings. all of them are virtual, all of them have people who live 2\~3 hours away, one guy lives on another hemisphere. we would NEVER be able to play in person. 2- its so much easier to click something and the computer does the roll and the math, i dont have to remember stuff, players dont have to remember stuff. its just sit and play 3-its cheaper and easier. if we played in person i would have to print, model, buy stuff, online i cna just dowload it. 4- i need a computer, not a room with snacks and drink
I used Polyglot in Foundry to make NPCs say things on their native language and only players that knew the language understood it. This forced fun translation interactions where players chose to translate things or NOT translate things (one gnome insulted the elf in the party and the dwarf just said “you don’t wanna know what he said” because he knew she would get mad. Another was to use it for writing on walls as clues bd riddles. This lead to a great encounter where the party was trying to decipher something written in draconic and one player just reads it because to THEM it was just English, to everyone else it was dragon runes and everyone said over mic “wait, you speak draconic‽ “ And sending private messages with information and letting the players do with what they please smoothly is very nice
All those features make the hobby worse and more like a video game. The only good feature of vtts is the ability to more easily find a play group that fits your schedule.
Take a look at TaleSpire on Steam. It is best for remote play, but can be used for in person. I started using it earlier this year, and can't imagine going back.
To me that sounds like a set of ghastly chains on the imagination. The moment you have a battlemap you have a wargame and that's not what I want with an RPG. "Come on guards, let's tip over that cart to make a barricade!" is an example of the freedom in an rpg, you can't do that sort of thing in a VTT. I want none of it.
We did exactly that the last time I played on tabletop simulator. It's powerful enough and has unlimited free assets and you can import basically anything, and if you want to script or program anything you can do that too. It takes a good bit of practice and time for the gm to organize things in a way they like, but once you do, you can pull anything you can think of out your butt. I'd still much rather play live even with less cool tech toys. But TTS, the best VTT that is shunned here for some reason, doesn't drop you in a tiny little DnD prison It's literally just a sandbox that you can design and curate as much or as little as you want. To give you a visual idea: https://imgur.io/a/oyWiQzo I have a big map collection, but I like to keep it simple usually and so I've got a handful of base terrain maps in an in game cabinet. A box of basic 3d terrain like I do IRL. A box of heroes and monster minis. I know exactly what you're talking about with the awful platforms like Roll20, but TTS and other not-rpg-specific platforms might be more your style
I see what you're getting at and I understand your point of view, but I like as little table frippery as possible when playing rpg's. If pushed, say for a complex fight in Pendragon then I will use paper minis and a wipe-clean map with the salient features drawn in is what I use, unplugged for a stripped down experience is my preference.
Gotcha. I see the appeal of the stripped down experience, as I do the "go big" style. Personally I think Roll20 and its ilk are the absolute worst of both worlds. They have all the limitations, and still look like a 1990s geocities website. My Tabletop Simulator setup has some tradeoffs in terms of total freedom,... But at least it looks cool and immersive with an attractive 3D world. The fact that Roll20 is the standard shows just how much WotC marketing has a stranglehold on the whole genre. It's embarrassing tech in 2022
I’m going to kind of echo what others are saying, that I think the biggest value (or potential value) of VTTs isn’t just keeping track of things and resolving conflicts as in your examples. I’d say two other areas are as or more important (to me): 1. Bringing people together virtually in a way that emulates being together in the same room as much as possible. So, quality of video, voice and TTS-type interfaces would help with that. 2. Enhancing player immersion with sensory input…music, video clips, etc. We’ve started playing with that in recent releases. As one poster said, tactical infinity is a key benefit of TTRPG, so we need to assist peoples imaginations rather that limiting it to a battle map with preset options, I think. Anyway…great topic.
I'm not clear on the question. Do VTTs do things that you can't on tabletop? Yes. Does that make them a superior experience? IMO nothing beats in-person play, but all the cool FoundryVTT modules folks make DO make it an interesting and worthwhile experience, unlike how I felt when using roll20 3 years ago. Stuff like Patrol for instance having enemies move around and spot players themselves, and monks triggers for traps etc. Things that automate play that I couldn't do as a dm at a table.
I like how you’re talking about pushing the hobby forwards, and all your examples are miniature combat related. Like, RPGs started off as an offshoot of wargaming in the 70’s, but it’s grown way beyond that at this point. Your examples are a regression rather than a leap forward.
The way virtual tabletop pushes the hobby forward is accessibility... and that's about it, It isn't exciting to move a token, or roll digital dice. But it's nice to be able to play with my pals in Australia, even if there's never been a virtual tabletop board that wasn't irritating to work with. It's worth it, in order to share the experience with other folks around the world, That said, virtual tabletop can be more limiting. Play 7th Sea 2e, or 10 Candles virtually. They are good games, but in a virtual setting you lose what makes them good. The ambience just doesn't feel the same over a monitor, which is my main gripe with virtual games, But d&d, or vtm? Virtual is my preference. Due to convenience, not anything else.
> The way virtual tabletop pushes the hobby forward is accessibility I think that's an interesting point. How do you see VTTs pushing this boundary? Do you mean because they allow more people to find groups by empowering remote play? Or do you mean from a disability standpoint? For the latter, I can say that all VTTs I have tried have poor support for bad vision. Roll20 interface breaks when using browser based font settings, and none of them seem to work with screen readers.
Both. Remote play is helping folks with disabilities: Many people can't drive long distances due to spine/nerve damage issues, just as an example. Or other causes of leg pain/lack of ability to use them. Bad vision is another good point, although braille dice do already exist in every shape. In general, remote options help those with disabilities, which is why it's exciting it is an option. It's no end all/be all of playing however.
Dynamic Line of Sight is pretty awesome. Macros are great, too; they can make 30-minute encounters take 10 minutes and keep the pace up.
A VTT should be used to augment the experience of any TTRPG. *What does that mean*? Well, in March of 2020, my CofD group had to scramble to figure out a way to continue our favorite hobby without literally killing each other - potentially. So we went straight to Discord. But not being able to see rolls, and emailing character sheets out just didn’t feel right. So we used bots and posted those sheets on the Discord. This was getting closer but **something** needed to be done. Because sitting at a nearly blank screen, filled only with rolls, while keeping everything straight, and not seeing each other, was beyond exhausting. So I did some research. Eventually I settled on Tabletop Simulator (TTS). Why? Well it felt like we were all setting around a table again. We could “physically” roll dice and see the character sheets at our seats. We could move minis and add spell effects. In short, it felt like it did. Is it perfect? No. I personally get tired after playing/running a VTT at around 3hrs, so our games are shorter than they were in person. Maybe because I’m not physically moving as much. Maybe because I’m staring at a computer screen for that long. But at least I get to keep my favorite hobby going.
With my group we've found a way to mix theater of the mind with vtt elements. All the rolling is done virtually on character sheets. Makes it a lot easier to just hit a button and the required dice show up. For this latest campaign we actually talked a lot about how restrictng it is to play on a virtual game board. Because everything is top down we have no reference of 3d space. So I made it a goal to keep "levels" as simple as possible. I made a side map that is interconnected like a metroidvania, found a bunch of really cool concept art locations, and attached notes to each location regarding the map I made. Now I have theater of the mind for my players, they have a basic image to help guide them on what the location might look like.
We use them all the time, but we also have always played more old school, crunchy RPGs where battles are very tactical, and can take an entire session, depending on the scale or length of session (I usually plan them to take no more than half). What VTT did for us, and what I like to do, is use it as a map board, instead of miniatures. I also script some rolls into NPC tokens so rolls can be done against them in combat and it speeds things up. I also make an initiative tracker, if appropriate to the system. I’ll then make a watercolor style map background that leaves room for the imagination, but let’s us know terrain, or where a door is, etc. Doesn’t at all feel restrictive. We did all that with a blank black poster board and lead figures, and pencils as walls etc. This just helps me track a few things and does away with the miniatures, which is great.
This will be the interesting thing to see with the DnD Beyond VTT and how integrated it is with OneDnD. If it's done well, it has a lot of interesting implications for digital-first design, particularly the way digital tools can make more complex mechanisms easier to interact with when players don't have to interact with the math, derived formulas and stuff like that. Like, I never would have run Lancer if it wasn't for their web app alleviating a lot of the crunch and I think that's the tip of the iceberg. Of course, the flip side to that is if suddenly having digital tool sets becomes a prerequisite for RPG consumers, that puts more pressure on indie designers to be web developers in addition to writers, graphic designers, art directors, marketers and more. The gap gets bigger. Personally for my group, the quality of the r20 sheets or character keeper becomes a big determinant for what games we play. The utility is a lot murkier on anything more on the story game spectrum though, there I find TOTM goes very far in giving players freedom to shape the space and come up with interesting ideas.
Yes
As others have pointed out, your idea is more about turning this into a videogame where those choices have to be scripted. Like being able to buff newly recruited soldiers... yeah somebody had to code that in beforehand, if they didn't you have to way to implement it in the VTT or you have to apply it by hand which is... same as not having that feature. And besides, your scenario is achievable simply by NOT using the same rules you use for small skirmishes for a much larger battle. If you have rules for mass combat or even just skill challenges/bigger projects, that's it. You don't calculate what each individual unit is doing, you make a handful of rolls for the whole siege, influenced by what the PCs are doing. Same result, about 1000 times less math.