Reply To: [unofficial weekender] Twenty-five years and my life is still trying to get up

[sundancer 42972xp 1]

My promise to only print out new minis when I’ve painted the last lot has long gone out of the window!

I guessed as much 😉

It’s Tuesday and yesterday I had my first interaction with a RPG app called “Roll 20” with a one off session of Aliens with @tuffyears @panzerkaput and @grimwolfuk and I learned something about myself and the way I look at RPGs.

RPGs are a social thing for me. It’s not just the game but also the coming together and all the physical aspects that goes with it. Be it snacking, drinking, taking notes and dice rolling. (Not using minis. That’s just wrong. Don’t @ me!) For obvious reasons I can’t meet with them in person because I’m in another country. So that leaves drinking, snacking and taking notes and rolling dice.

Roll 20 takes that away. Yes it is a helpful tool to some people and it surely has it’s place. Especially on gaming systems requiring special dice that not everybody has for a one-off event.  But not for me. Just sitting and staring at a screen, occasionally clicking on an icon is just boring.  And it doesn’t keep me focused. I start to wander off into the internet and other things because it’s not engaging enough. And that’s unfair to the DM and the other players.

Additionally it’s very hard to use when you only have one ordinary 1080p monitor. Imagine playing a RPG and only being able to see one sheet of paper every time. Not being able to lay out your character sheets or look at the maps the DM is showing while still having your character sheet within your eyes sight or comparing notes with the rulebook. It starts getting to be an exercise in window management. To really be able to use it you either need an ultrawide monitor or a dual monitor setup.

This all being said I like to point out and stress that this is purely the app/website that displeases me and spoils the fun. Neither did our DM nor the other players “fail” me in respect to roleplaying. It was an experiment and Tuffy really did a great job at creating the mood and all but Roll20 just took too much away of what little aspects I like and love about RPG are left in playing it remotely.

Playing a RPG via the means of discord works when the chemistry between the players works and everybody has a grasp of the system they are using. But that is already bear minimum for me personally to keep me involved in a game. And reducing it even more to something what’s basically an MMORPG without shiny graphics is just nothing I can get behind. And I really feel sorry for being so harsh on it but it really annoyed me and still was wandering in my mind when I woke up so it needed to be purged.

So with that out of my system: have a nice day and don’t let them take away your dice! 😉