No, what I want to talk about is how it's influenced game play, and not always positively. For example, one of the annoying things is that my group, normally more interested in ROLE playing, spent an inordinate amount of time (for them anyway) in combat, even choosing combat over other solutions as their go-to, until we started taking stock of what was happening and consciously made efforts to avoid it. Admittedly, this is also Torg's fault. Because of its card and Possibility point resource management, and its Drama Deck-run rounds, the card game/board game player brain activates and makes one think in terms of combat rounds and combat resources. However, this is exacerbated by the VTT platform.
Expectations are created by the VTT platform in the same way that taking miniatures out at a physical table would. "This is a battle map, there will be a fight." "There's a token, this character is important to the plot and/or a threat (and vice-versa)." And in the GM's mind, there's far more motivation to railroad the characters because 1) you don't want all the work you put into creating a scene to go to waste, and 2) you don't have a scene, tokens, etc. ready for the left turn your players want to take. You can set stuff up on the fly, on a generic screen saver map, but it could cause delays as you input numbers (though you could still forgo the automation for those scenes). And what you don't use now, you can always repurpose later. Still, it stings.
Aside from the practical aspects (which isn't what this article is about), are there POSITIVE modifications to one's play style that are inspired by the VTT platform? There's a certain collective immersion that happens when players are all looking at the same art (whether location, character token or hand-out), which puts them on the same page (as the GM) and reduces confusion around the table, but more than that, I think it can INSPIRE play.
I'll explain. The GM throws up a battle map, just something he found online, a generic city street with parked cars, storefronts, rooftop paraphernalia, etc. He didn't come up with it himself, but having to fit the location in his scenario has already changed it. Oh, there's a pizza place on the map, let's make it the spot where the PCs have to meet their contact. But then the players get a hold of it, and wanting to ambush the bad guys, their eyes fall on a giant billboard on a nearby rooftop. Maybe they can hide behind THAT. In a "theater of the mind" situation, this could still happen, but a player would have to think of it, imagining the billboard out of whole cloth (and I would allow it), unless they assumed it WASN'T there because it wasn't part of the opening description. With the VTT propping up an image, players are perhaps more limited to what they see (but don't have to be), but at a glance, become aware of more options, including those you never thought of. While tokens contain less information, they could still change one's approach to the character because of their expression, stance or fashions, inspiring a performance from the GM (or player, as their PCs have tokens too), or a social interaction from the players.
Throw in special effects (weather, invisible tokens becoming visible and vice-versa, music and sound effects, and you can "inspire" a lot of things that might be missed in a strict imaginarium.
What about you? Do you play online using a Virtual Table Top (Foundry, Roll20, etc.)? And if so, has it changed your instincts vis-à-vis role-playing?
Comments
Also, we can stop in the middle of a combat, leave the “figures” as they were on the map, and pick right up next week… or next next week…
Second, thinking back to the past three-and-a-half years of role-playing, I am forced to agree with your suppositions because they are accurate. Indeed, my mindset has begun to evolve back to playing in a tabletop mindset, attempting better to set the scene for my players through written introductions -which I tend to botch, a lot- that aid them to see what is there, help them to ask clarifying questions, and aids the group in developing a fuller, more immersive experience for ALL OF US, including me. My Friends help me to develop the scene on the screen better than the map and/or my description(s) and I tend to think ideas flow well. Indeed, my Friends and I have now been playing long enough that I feel we've more or less returned to the ROLE-playing feel of the game, rather than ROLL-playing all the time.
Thank you for this article, again, as it has gel'd my own thoughts about whether or not I have been running the game more ROLE than ROLL; the answer to that is easy... we started out more ROLL, but we're truly returning to the ROLE aspect. I feel it's much easier for me to present environment to my Friends and have them respond/react more appropriately. NPCs and opposition of all kinds are easier to track and bring back around which, I feel, makes for a far more immersive story, in the end.
But no, I don't think it does get it the way. If you can have fun on a zoom call or whatever, you can have fun role-playing online. I've played with trusting ppl with dice rolls on the other end of the call. I've played with some ppl present and others online. I've played with discord bots doing the rolls. And I've played now a year with a virtual table top. I would say that it works better with automation because that frees up the part of your brain that has to interpret rolls, look up stats and so forth. The flip side is that you can't as easily fudge rolls so sometimes fights go too long, too hard, or the reverse. But things like slipping a found item right onto a character sheet are pretty smooth and easy.
For me, it's like gaining a separate hobby - that of finding/crafting images for flavor, locations and tokens - which I have to indulge in as prep for the actual game. You can keep it pretty simple, obviously, but I've always done a lot of flavor prep (soundtracks, hand-outs, "fake" websites...), so that's fine. But once the game is on, and you've reminded yourself it's NOT a video game (as per the article), it's much the same as it always was. With no VTT support, you just have to figure out how you'll do certain things (musical atmosphere, dice rolls, card play, etc.), but speaking, describing, acting, these don't change. One possible hiccup is "reading the room", which is easier to do in person, and online, you don't always know if a player is paying attention or looking something else up on the internet. That said, it's pretty easy to allow characters areas of expertise by handing them links, or just allowing them to research - they've got their search tool right there in front of them.
I hope I've at least somewhat answered the question.
My local convention since the pandemic has had to change location to a licenced club environment from hitherto a school environment. As mediums go, several games running concurrently within one space doesn't seem to bother D+D/Pathfinder players too much, but it's generally adverse to a ROLE playing experience.
And so, swings and round-a-bouts, the online medium actually seems to offer benefits as regards to interpersonal relations over at least some forms of face-to-face play. :D
I primarily play in real-life tabletop, and I've certainly encountered that phenomena of "map + minis must mean a fight" (or the opposite "no minis must mean there's no danger"). I've tried to break my players of that assumption by making it clear that, until Initiative is rolled, no option is off the table. In addition, I try to keep my pre-drawn maps and piles of tokens hidden so I can bring them out if necessary but don't invite meta-gaming about them. And last, I never complain about my encounter prep being "wasted" if a situation is resolved peacefully (and still award XP for overcoming it).
I've played some virtual tabletop games, and although I can see the advantages (it's easy to have massive distances for battles, for example), I think what I actually miss the most is the social element: the before-session chatter and after-session clean-up and just getting to know people beyond the game. That's not impossible with virtual games, but I found there's a lot more temptation to log on a minute before the session starts and log-off a minute after it ends.
Second, we still get in early for chatter, and stay after to wind things down, so that's still part of our table, virtual or not.