Hey all – hoping for some suggestions on how to run a fun and immersive game remotely.
My group is 9 sessions /~50 hours of play in overall, and we're all locked-down in different places for the foreseeable future, so we're trying out remote play for the first time. We did our last session on Roll20, and while I think everyone had a pretty solid time, I felt totally off my game. There were some cool upsides, like getting to create a pretty detailed map and use the fog of war in a way that is difficult to replicate with minis, but with the amount of time and friction spent moving things around, mis-clicking, layering, only having a wee little window to see my friends in, it just felt like it was a pretty big step down in terms of fun from our normal sessions, and that even accounting for the learning curve of the tool itself, I wasn't creating as fun and engaging of an experience as I would have liked.
So, what are some of the ways that you have added some spice to your remote games? I'm trying to find a couple of ways to include props, I guess just by sharing images, but I also couldn't find a way to do that seamlessly in Roll20 (so I was resorting to – ok if you look in Gchat you'll see the mercenaries/orcs/whatever). Also, is there a way to flip the proportion of the screen that's the video versus the map? I feel like the map is great for combat, but it really takes away from the sense of shared exploration and open-endedness of the game. When you're looking at what feels like a combat-focused map the whole time, a lot of the shades of gray that I enjoy about dnd seem to melt away.
Unfortunately, there is not a way to move the video boxes that show the other people in the game. The only real solution to this problem is to have a larger screen. When I run on play on Roll20, I have a 32" TV hooked up to my laptop. At that size, I am able to have a full field of view to the battlemap, and even with 8 players and the videos at large size they do not hamper the map view as they all fit along the bottom of the screen side by side.
Obviously, this isn't a good fix if you don't have a larger TV or monitor, but it definitely works better if you do.
I have felt some of the same. As a player, I have been closing my eyes and just listening and talking if I don't need to look at a map. I think it lent some more immersion to the game that night (a week ago.) I tried it as a GM this week, when I was listening to players and when I was describing things to them. I think it helps, a little. We are a visual animal and if we can remove that input, it can change our experience.
One other thing I do that helps when out of combat is to have non-combat "maps" that I pull the players to any time that we are not using a battlemap for combat. I'll find a good photo or image that conveys the ambiance I want, such as a nice photo of a mountain pass, forest, ship at sea, town, Inn, etc, and use that as the backdrop. If players normally have their video windows small for combat, I encourage them to make them large. And although I typically ask that players toggle mute during combat to eliminate background noise, I ask that they all stay un-muted during RP or exploration time.
With the C19 scare (my wife is a very high risk), we've gone remote with all our gaming. I've played around with d20 for map management, but honestly we have had more fun playing over webex. First, you can fill the screen with everyone's video image, so you get larger and more expressive faces - this made everyone feel more like being around the table. And by not having any visuals at all, relying on my description only, everyone stayed more focused (vs. often waiting for me to sketch out a room or landscape on our large wet-erase grid map) and I found I did a much better job at setting the scene instead of relying on the map to explain what they saw.
The only drawback was, when exploring a dungeon/cavern/complex map, it can get confusing when there are multiple routes & choices, particularly those that lead back to places you can get to by multiple routes. So I think we're going to stick to videoconferencing for most sessions (3 of us have webex for work, another has zoom), and only use d20 (maybe FGU) when map crawling becomes too complicated and confusing to do off verbal descriptions.
I've been watching a lot of Live Play on YT/twitch and trying to learn from some of the other DMs. No one hardly ever seems to use an actual map, while my giant roll up grid/hex map is a treasured possession I'm wondering might have been a crutch/detractor all along.
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First D&D set: 1980 red box. Haven't stopped playing since. :)
I've been watching a lot of Live Play on YT/twitch and trying to learn from some of the other DMs. No one hardly ever seems to use an actual map, while my giant roll up grid/hex map is a treasured possession I'm wondering might have been a crutch/detractor all along.
• Agreed that for some sessions the map just holds things back and makes it into a different sort of game than my group prefers. I do like them in general to support the rules for combat though, I feel like it's difficult for me to keep track of the whole "well if you're 50 feet away from cultist 1, and 30 feet from cultist 2, and the rogue is ahead of you 20 feet and 10 feet from the left, is their hand crossbow in range of cultist 1". My fault that the sessions we happen to be playing right now involve a whole town of people.
One other thing I do that helps when out of combat is to have non-combat "maps" that I pull the players to any time that we are not using a battlemap for combat. I'll find a good photo or image that conveys the ambiance I want, such as a nice photo of a mountain pass, forest, ship at sea, town, Inn, etc, and use that as the backdrop. If players normally have their video windows small for combat, I encourage them to make them large. And although I typically ask that players toggle mute during combat to eliminate background noise, I ask that they all stay un-muted during RP or exploration time.
This helped immensely. Just having some other screens up with ambience ( I steal a lot of Magic concept art) was a big help to get everyone to focus on the videos and not have that "we're waiting for a battle" feeling that occurs when you bust out the hex grid. I do wish it was a bit more seamless, but it's already an improvement!
One suggestion I have seen is to use a different app from Roll20 for the video and chat. Discord is one of the popular ones but perhaps choose one where you can have have video of the people interacting in large size when folks are roleplaying and only go back to the Roll20 screen for ambiance (like a tavern/forest/mountain - or whatever generic type of area when traveling) and for combat where moving minis matters.
The other option might be to have an additional camera pointing to your setup/map for combat and skip Roll20 altogether. Roll20 does provide some cool features but after watching a series of tutorial videos there is a bit of overhead.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Hey all – hoping for some suggestions on how to run a fun and immersive game remotely.
My group is 9 sessions /~50 hours of play in overall, and we're all locked-down in different places for the foreseeable future, so we're trying out remote play for the first time. We did our last session on Roll20, and while I think everyone had a pretty solid time, I felt totally off my game. There were some cool upsides, like getting to create a pretty detailed map and use the fog of war in a way that is difficult to replicate with minis, but with the amount of time and friction spent moving things around, mis-clicking, layering, only having a wee little window to see my friends in, it just felt like it was a pretty big step down in terms of fun from our normal sessions, and that even accounting for the learning curve of the tool itself, I wasn't creating as fun and engaging of an experience as I would have liked.
So, what are some of the ways that you have added some spice to your remote games? I'm trying to find a couple of ways to include props, I guess just by sharing images, but I also couldn't find a way to do that seamlessly in Roll20 (so I was resorting to – ok if you look in Gchat you'll see the mercenaries/orcs/whatever). Also, is there a way to flip the proportion of the screen that's the video versus the map? I feel like the map is great for combat, but it really takes away from the sense of shared exploration and open-endedness of the game. When you're looking at what feels like a combat-focused map the whole time, a lot of the shades of gray that I enjoy about dnd seem to melt away.
Unfortunately, there is not a way to move the video boxes that show the other people in the game. The only real solution to this problem is to have a larger screen. When I run on play on Roll20, I have a 32" TV hooked up to my laptop. At that size, I am able to have a full field of view to the battlemap, and even with 8 players and the videos at large size they do not hamper the map view as they all fit along the bottom of the screen side by side.
Obviously, this isn't a good fix if you don't have a larger TV or monitor, but it definitely works better if you do.
Hi,
I have felt some of the same. As a player, I have been closing my eyes and just listening and talking if I don't need to look at a map. I think it lent some more immersion to the game that night (a week ago.) I tried it as a GM this week, when I was listening to players and when I was describing things to them. I think it helps, a little. We are a visual animal and if we can remove that input, it can change our experience.
Semper Fidelis
One other thing I do that helps when out of combat is to have non-combat "maps" that I pull the players to any time that we are not using a battlemap for combat. I'll find a good photo or image that conveys the ambiance I want, such as a nice photo of a mountain pass, forest, ship at sea, town, Inn, etc, and use that as the backdrop. If players normally have their video windows small for combat, I encourage them to make them large. And although I typically ask that players toggle mute during combat to eliminate background noise, I ask that they all stay un-muted during RP or exploration time.
With the C19 scare (my wife is a very high risk), we've gone remote with all our gaming. I've played around with d20 for map management, but honestly we have had more fun playing over webex. First, you can fill the screen with everyone's video image, so you get larger and more expressive faces - this made everyone feel more like being around the table. And by not having any visuals at all, relying on my description only, everyone stayed more focused (vs. often waiting for me to sketch out a room or landscape on our large wet-erase grid map) and I found I did a much better job at setting the scene instead of relying on the map to explain what they saw.
The only drawback was, when exploring a dungeon/cavern/complex map, it can get confusing when there are multiple routes & choices, particularly those that lead back to places you can get to by multiple routes. So I think we're going to stick to videoconferencing for most sessions (3 of us have webex for work, another has zoom), and only use d20 (maybe FGU) when map crawling becomes too complicated and confusing to do off verbal descriptions.
I've been watching a lot of Live Play on YT/twitch and trying to learn from some of the other DMs. No one hardly ever seems to use an actual map, while my giant roll up grid/hex map is a treasured possession I'm wondering might have been a crutch/detractor all along.
First D&D set: 1980 red box. Haven't stopped playing since. :)
• Agreed that for some sessions the map just holds things back and makes it into a different sort of game than my group prefers. I do like them in general to support the rules for combat though, I feel like it's difficult for me to keep track of the whole "well if you're 50 feet away from cultist 1, and 30 feet from cultist 2, and the rogue is ahead of you 20 feet and 10 feet from the left, is their hand crossbow in range of cultist 1". My fault that the sessions we happen to be playing right now involve a whole town of people.
This helped immensely. Just having some other screens up with ambience ( I steal a lot of Magic concept art) was a big help to get everyone to focus on the videos and not have that "we're waiting for a battle" feeling that occurs when you bust out the hex grid. I do wish it was a bit more seamless, but it's already an improvement!
One suggestion I have seen is to use a different app from Roll20 for the video and chat. Discord is one of the popular ones but perhaps choose one where you can have have video of the people interacting in large size when folks are roleplaying and only go back to the Roll20 screen for ambiance (like a tavern/forest/mountain - or whatever generic type of area when traveling) and for combat where moving minis matters.
The other option might be to have an additional camera pointing to your setup/map for combat and skip Roll20 altogether. Roll20 does provide some cool features but after watching a series of tutorial videos there is a bit of overhead.