Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 93-Virtual Tabletop Tips

Episode Date: October 3, 2021

Is your game moving online or staying online longer than you expected?  Mine are staying online for a while so I compiled a list of tips that can help you and your game while using Virtual Tabletops (VTTs).   Music is: Smooth Lovin by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4379-smooth-lovin License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. Online is still different, and whether you think it's better, worse, or equivalent, it's still something that you have to get used to if you do move to a digital tabletop. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 93 of the Taking20 Podcast. This week, all about tips for running your game on a virtual tabletop. This week's sponsor, Pizza. I love my local pizza companies. They all really deliver.

Please leave us a like and a rating wherever you found my little podcast. It helps the podcast grow, and I would greatly appreciate it. I will freely admit, when this whole COVID mess started, I thought we'd be back to gaming in person by now. I never would have expected that however many months we are into this thing, it would still be risky to meet in person.

People in all of my local gaming groups are taking care of elderly parents or have children at home that can't be vaccinated yet. Hell, I have a weakened immune system and I'm at a higher risk for hospitalization if I get COVID, and I've been vaccinated. But each gaming group has discussed the risks, and we've all agreed to stay remote for now. So to my local groups, if you're listening, I love you all so much. We'll get together again in person soon. But it does look like a lot of us will be playing online for the foreseeable future. Maybe this episode is about a year too late, but hopefully it'll help some of you going forward as a lot of us are going to have to keep gaming online. Now I want to start this whole episode by saying that this episode is not here to contribute to the virtual tabletop wars. I've DM'd or played games on Roll20, Foundry,

and Fantasy Grounds. All three have their merits and their weaknesses, and I've had successful games on all three. There are scads of other examples of VTTs, Dungeon Fog, Map Tool, Astral, there are so many others. I'm not going to tell you to use one or another. Every single one of them that you can find are good at some things and bad at others. Every single one of them that you can find are good at some things and bad at others. You may love Astral and think Fantasy Grounds is garbage. You may use Roll20 because you think Foundry is too dynamic and unsettled right now. You'll die on the hilltop that Tabletop Simulator is far better than all the others.

Good for you. Good for all of you. That's not the point of this episode. Don't at me. Do people still say don't at me? I teach college, but I'm still woefully out of you. That's not the point of this episode. Don't at me. Do people still say don't at me? I teach college, but I'm still woefully out of touch. I'd say don't be a hater, but I know people don't say that shit anymore. I'm such a square, daddy-o. There are definite challenges when moving your game to the virtual tabletop. I mean, even crusty, old, bitter, veteran, angry, gassy people like me aren't immune to these challenges.

I'd almost even argue it's harder for veteran players and GMs to make the move to the virtual tabletop when we're so used to in-person gaming. In-person gaming, it has a certain feel and a rhythm to it. Everyone can hear the DM equally. We can see each other's faces. We have separate side conversations when there's a one-on-one role-playing moment or interaction with the DM. Just the way we interact with each other while we're gaming online is just different. The loss of tactile feeling like moving miniatures, physically rolling dice, and sharing snacks just makes it feel different. The interface between you and the entire game has to change. Some players like online better. They like the variety of online and electronic assets that are available

compared to the physical assets, which may be more expensive. Whether or not that's you, online is still different, and whether you think it's better, worse, or equivalent, it's still something that you have to get used to if you do move to a digital tabletop. Interactions between the player and the GM are different. Online, generally only one person can speak at a time and be heard. Gaming online, you lose that ability to have multiple conversations going at once unless people

go to different rooms or use different solutions. It becomes harder for players to coordinate their actions or for GMs to reveal information to a single PC where other PCs can overhear it. Over the course of many sessions together, you'll figure out how your table can communicate effectively, but it will likely be slower and more difficult no matter how long you game online. Most virtual tabletop integrated voice solutions just aren't great. Yet. When I originally wrote this bullet point, I was a little more harsh. But some VTTs like Roll20 have the capability to carry audio and or video between the DM and the players. It is convenient to have your tabletop and your audio provided by a single application, but be prepared for a less than stellar experience.

be prepared for a less than stellar experience. I envision that one day a voice solution and a virtual tabletop will merge, providing a really great integrated audio and video solution. I'm just sure as hell not there yet. Someone is listening to this right now and saying, we use Foundry's audio and it's great. I'm glad it's working for you. My groups were just underwhelmed by the voice quality,

frequent disconnections, and poor user experience with all the virtual tabletop audio solutions we tried. We have our solution, and you'll hear about it in the recommendations section. When gaming online, some players will disengage more. There are so many distractions when you're gaming online. Social media, other games, editing documents, email, Discord, streams, and so forth. It can be so frustrating for your DM when they say, oh, thank you, Angeline. Basetta, you're up. And Basetta's player says, oh, okay, what's going on? What were we planning again? Expect it, though. Players will likely not be as engaged as they would be physically sitting around a table.

No matter how long you're on a virtual tabletop, virtual games just tend to run slower. Plan on getting less accomplished during each session. It takes longer to do everything. Never mind the fact that your players will be learning the virtual tabletop interface and will take longer to take their turns. There will be frequent interruptions as players talk over one another. Technology will fail. your connection to the virtual tabletop will disconnect, the audio will sometimes garble or that connection will drop and you'll have to ask people to repeat things.

Players' instances of the virtual tabletop won't update properly so people will see the battlefield in different ways and tokens that moved may not have moved on their tabletop. It takes time to troubleshoot and resolve these problems. It's best to expect that going in and just not get upset when it happens. All of this results in not getting as much done in each gaming session compared to what you could do around a table. So plan on fewer

combats, less exploration, and not as much plot development per session. DMs, keep your sessions shorter. In person, it's not uncommon for my sessions to run 4, 5, maybe even 6 hours. Years ago, a buddy of mine wanted an entire weekend of gaming for his 30th birthday, and I was happy to oblige. Three of us combined to DM games, and we played for something like 4 hours Friday night, like 12 hours on Saturday, and another 8 hours or so on Sunday. It was amazing and exhausting. eight hours or so on Sunday. It was amazing and exhausting. When I try to run an online game for more than four hours or so, I feel just as exhausted as I did that weekend. Probably at least partially because I'm old now. I had originally written because I'm older now, but that makes no damn sense. I mean, I'm older than anything that happened in my memory,

so that statement wouldn't have meant anything. What's the alternative? I remember what happened next year. What? How? Do you have a time machine? Can I get some stock tips? Who wins the English Premier League this year? Also, it's hard to keep everyone's attention for long online sessions. Emphasize running an action and plot pack session, removing all of the unnecessary fluff you can. So keep your sessions short and take breaks. My average online sessions are right at about three hours. Any longer and players start to tune out. One of my campaigns right now is a very high-level campaign.

So yes, sometimes the session is one big-ass combat. Digital assets take extra effort to collect. I don't know about you, but I have an extensive physical miniature and token collection that I've amassed through the years. I have them organized by Bestiary in a searchable database on my computer that makes it really easy to find these physical assets. You know how much that's helped me in the past 15 months? Not fucking at all. Unless I want to take pictures of my entire collection, upload them online, all they're doing right now is collecting dust on my shelf. So do you know what I have to do?

Find appropriate digital icons and digital art to represent the monsters the players will be fighting, and then doing so without violating any copyright laws. It's harder than you think. Then again, it does give me an excuse to find maps. Delicious, juicy, sensual maps to add to my collection. Oh, is this a free map of a snowy mountain keep with a collapsed front gate? Saved. Aw, yeah.

You're a Feywild Glade map with an arch-shaped portal to the prime material plane? Saved. Oh, baby, you're a map of a mountain pass that has a great ambush site outside of a cave. Oh, you didn't have to put it down like that, girl. Saved. Um, hi. That was, uh, sorry. Let me, uh, let me just, uh, blow out these candles and, and put away these rose petals and we can get, uh, we can get back to the episode. Also, uh,

thank you, Kevin McLeod for that music called smooth loving. It's available on incompetech.com. It's available on incompetech.com. Yeah, it is. Whew. Is it hot in here? I'm sorry. So, recommendations I would make for DMs who want to move their game to a virtual tabletop. I'd recommend that you try multiple virtual tabletops to find the best one for you and your group.

Now, the caveat I would have is that if you already have one and know one and love one, stick with it. If you don't have one, though, and you try one out and you don't like it, don't assume all the other vendor solutions are exactly the same. Try others to see if you can find one that has the features that you like. DMs. Familiarize yourself with a virtual tabletop interface. This does take time and effort. How to load and align maps, create and load tokens, make monsters appear and disappear, how to start and run combat, track hit points, make corpses lootable,

and everything else that you're going to be using your virtual tabletop to do for you. I played in virtual tabletops before I started DMing with them. Even with lots of experience playing, DMing was just different and harder and more complicated in a virtual tabletop than being a player was. I expected it, but seeing it firsthand really drove it home for me. In the middle of the game, chances are you, the GM, are going to have to be the tech support when the player doesn't know how to do something. The only way you can effectively do that is being familiar with the interface yourself. way you can effectively do that is being familiar with the interface yourself. So when you're ready, pull in a trusted player and test what you've learned on the other side of the screen within the virtual tabletop. Show them their

interface, run a combat with them, learn how the system reacts from the DM side. One of the side benefits of this is that that player can also help you troubleshoot problems that will inevitably occur during sessions. You don't have to use every feature of a virtual tabletop. Only use the features that you want to use. Decide this early on. Do you want your virtual tabletop to be just battle maps and tokens? Do you want to incorporate the character sheet capability of the virtual tabletop?

Online dice rolling, spells and spell effect tracking, maybe animations. Every virtual tabletop I've touched can be made as simple or as complicated as you'd ever want. They all have a plethora of features because many of them are trying to be everything for gaming groups, and that's fine. It spreads their net wide and hopefully they catch a lot of groups with their different feature offerings. But that doesn't mean you have to use all the features they offer. Start small. Start simple. Use it only for tokens during the battles and if that's all you're ever comfortable with, do that forevermore. Don't worry about the handouts and the full-size pictures and the initiative tracking and hit point tracking and spells and status effects and animations, volumetric

lighting and all the other bells and whistles on the virtual tabletop. Start slow. Add those other features when you feel comfortable, one at a time, as you understand them and your party wants to use them. I'm going to pick on Troy LaVallee of the Glass Cannon Network because he's open about some of the tools that he uses. If you listen to or watch any of their streams, you know he uses Roll20 for the battle maps.

Sorry, and the tokens. He doesn't use the integrated initiative tracker because he likes the one from Donjon, and they roll physical dice instead of using the built-in dice rollers. And that's okay. They make a great podcast and great streams with the tools that they use. So follow their lead. Use the tools to the extent that you want and try not to eat the whole elephant at once. Take time before the adventure proper to work with the players to help them learn the interface. Make learning the VTT part of session zero or maybe even a session minus one. I like one-on-one meetings with the players because it's easier to schedule and my players feel more relaxed asking questions with no other players on the VTT at the time.

Teach them how to use the aspects of the tool you want to use and are relevant to the players. It'll make your first session go so much smoother and faster. Have a good source for audio and video. I like Discord. It's free, reasonably reliable, and has decent quality. As I mentioned earlier, some of the VTTs have integrated communications, and they're at varying levels of maturity and capability. Find your solution for your group and use that. DMs, leave some time for socializing at the beginning of the session, at the end of the session, and if you can, somewhere a little bit in the middle. Give a little bit of a break. Give time to talk about

something other than the game session. Work hard to make progress while you're gaming, but then give it a little bit of time to breathe. You're friends as well as a gaming group, so use this time to reconnect. While you're gaming, DMs, keep the game moving. During combat, think about putting players on a timer. Not necessarily some draconian 60-second time limit to complete their turn, but consider a requirement of a time limit to ask questions and then at least begin their turn. The timer will force players to stay engaged. It does add to their stress level and some players may not like it, but if combat is lagging and you feel like it would add a sense of urgency to combat, incorporate a timer.

Prepare any digital assets you may need well ahead of time. If you don't have what you need GMs, use what you have. Remember, just keep the game moving. I would much rather use a generic blue token for my summoned elemental than wait 10 minutes for you to find the perfect picture. GMs, encourage your players to help you find those digital assets for their characters, minions, pets, bonded animals, familiars, eidolons, summoned creatures, squires, hangers-on, worshipping sycophants, permanently enlarged rabbit familiars that you're convinced only exist in your game because that player has a fetish for that sort of thing. I'm not kink-shaming. You do you. But in this case, you do Cuddles, the bunny-person hybrid.

We're going to fade that shit to black at my table, okay? Now, let's flip to the other side and get advice for players. Consider helping to share the cost of the virtual tabletop. Don't make your DMs pay for everything. Some of those tabletops have subscriptions,'t make your DMs pay for everything. Some of those tabletops have subscriptions, and those subscriptions really add up over time. Players, do what you can to stay engaged. Don't just tune out when it's not your turn. Use the time when it's not your turn to plan what you want to do later on. Honestly, you should be doing the same

thing in-person gaming as you do virtual tabletop. If you catch yourself being tempted to goof off during gaming, turn on your camera so others can see you. It'll help keep you focused on the game itself. Players, it may be time to step up your role-playing a little bit. The interactions can feel more disconnected, colder, not as intimate as in-person games are. By the way, not intimate as in like doing the no pants dance together. No, no. Or maybe you and your gaming group are very close and you share everything together. No judgment here.

Just be safe. It can feel less engaging to drag a token to a location on the map, say you want to attack, roll some dice, declare the damage, see some numbers tick down on the hit point total of the baddie, and that's it. What can help is for you to describe how you're swinging your weapon, what the other combatants are seeing. image, see some numbers tick down on the hit point total of the baddie, and that's it. What can help is for you to describe how you're swinging your weapon, what the other combatants are seeing, what your character wants and is thinking. Don't depend on your DM for all these flavor descriptions. Yes, we're used to doing it, but it is a burden on your GM when you're group playing online. Help your DM with that heavy lifting. Contribute to the narrative,

describe your killing blows, embrace the situations your DM with that heavy lifting. Contribute to the narrative. Describe your killing blows. Embrace the situations your DM is describing. Meanwhile, outside of combat, speak in your character's voice a little more than maybe you otherwise would in person. Don't be afraid to put on an accent. Or an accent. Or an accent. It adds to the verisimilitude and makes the world feel real. Plus, if you have the

courage to do so, it indirectly encourages others to do the same. Next thing you know, you have a table full of role players and everybody knows who is speaking just by what they sound like. While you're taking notes around a virtual tabletop, consider taking those notes in a communal document. Have multiple players that are adding notes as the game goes on because we all get distracted, we all may be pulled one way or another, and multiple players editing the notes will guarantee that a lot of stuff will get caught that may otherwise be missed with just one person capturing notes. Finally, hopefully you're already giving your DM the benefit of the doubt as you're transitioning to online gaming,

but it should be doubly or triply true online. Under the hood and behind the scenes, there's a ton of shit going on above and beyond what's required for a normal in-person game. So please be patient with your DM and help them out wherever you can. Moving your game online and expecting it to stay the same as your in-person game is just not reasonable. The entire game will be different even if the players stay the same. You have technology dependencies, the communications will be different, and everyone will need to work to keep focused on the game. With a little additional preparation work by the DM and a little harder work during the session by the players, you can keep your game going and have fun doing it.

during the session by the players, you can keep your game going and have fun doing it. Tune in next time, by the way, when we'll continue the class series where we talk about fighters and monks. Also, if you have any topic suggestions, please send them to me at feedback at taking20podcast.com. A couple of the upcoming episode topics were suggested by listeners,

so if you have a topic you'd like to see me cover, send it in. Once again, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Pizza. My brother makes an amazing pizza. He's an aficionado. Oh, now, come on. That's a good joke no matter how you slice it. This has been episode 93, all about virtual tabletop tips. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2021. References to game system content are copyright of their respective publishers.