White Star as a short diversion proved to be a mistake I think, not maybe because I wouldn't enjoy it under some better circumstances, but the intrinsically more whimsical and camp elements it lends itself to as a weird pastiche of cinematic scifi I think maybe works better when I am A: in the right mood (which it turns out I am not right now for many reasons) and B: such humor and interaction conveys much better at a live table where it is easier to interact with people and convey intended humor or camp elements.
The beauty of D&D and PF2E is they have enormous levels of support online and one can easily throw down battle maps and virtual minis which means even on a horrible day I can easily run (and enjoy) a basic dungeon crawl. With the sort of horrifying work months I've been having lately, being able to just run a good basic dungeon crawl actually sounds like a good way to destress. Must discuss with group!
I have noticed that as my gaming group moved from Face to Face to Roll20, our role playing has decreased, and our Hack-n-Slash has taken the forefront. The software is just better at tracking a bunch of stuff I don't care to (initiative) or can't (line of sight for each player individually).
ReplyDeleteI've also noticed that my prep has changed. I used to prepare NPC motivations and the like, with relatively little focus on stats (since we mostly play in Savage Worlds). Now, most of my time is spent preparing art assets for use in Roll20.
Finally, since cross-talk is essentially impossible, I've found that online tends to be more "business-like." And, as GM, I'm tending to dominate the conversation. At the table, it was more like 60% me, whereas now it's like 80-90%.
Yeah I think those visual and "tactile" elements from the table top get easier in VTT and take over a bit. My group has been pretty good at keeping up the role playing...we've had sometimes multiple sessions in a row where not a single fight ever breaks out, for example, but recently with my lack of time to sculpt something interesting into a strong RP/social/narrative encounter it's just been easier to think in terms of "populate this map with cool fights and loot."
DeleteAh, I had a pretty cool session that I planned out over a couple of weeks of prep. The PCs got introduced to every major powerful NPC in the area at a party. They got introduced to a bunch of ongoing plots that they could interject themselves into. And they got a bunch of requests to do stuff (quests). At the end they said "Ok, cool, that's enough of that, let's go kill something." At least they're not shy about asking for what they want :)
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