The great online gaming debate:

The great online gaming debate:

>Text only, maybe with different chats for IC and OOC
>Text and voice, usually text for IC and voice for OOC
>Voice only

Which do you prefer?

First

Chat when talking in character and voice when out of character.

Voice, with text for "hidden" messages (to gm or other players) or dialogue that's not part of the main scene (e.g. "while he's talking to those guys, my Barbarian is learning how to ride a horse").

Playing live without voice is fucking retarded. How awful is your group if they can't handle the most interesting part of tabletop RPGs? Just find a play-by-post option.

Text only.
IC/OOC split.
Final destination.

First one.
Though that's probably because I play on an Minecraft RP server. And before you say anything, we only allow 16+ and you can only join through application.

It's pretty easy to sift through all the edgelords.

This obviously

IC works of art or forgery are also better handled with text

Text only. I don't mind voice chatter for OOC and it sure speeds up combat but keeping it purely text lets you take your time immersing yourself.

I've never had a good experience doing voice only online. It's all the fun of a conference call with the added excitement of shit quality mics and connection troubles.

Pretty much this.

Though it's okay for people to read out their IC shit in voice when appropriate.

Text and voice, using text for IC and voice for OOC. It's easier to play a believable character if I'm not using my own voice.

Both because it is good to discuss OOC things with the speed of voice chat and have a record of things said and done with text chat.

Text for IC
Text for OOC in a separate window.

No OOC of any kind in the IC window.

Voice and Video for IC and OOC
The closest to a real table we get, the better.

Though I would like to try playing in text only at some point, but not pbp, it's too slow.

While I generally use only text, I actually found speech sped things up immensely, but trying to recall what happened after was a pain without a stenographer.

I'll stick to text, if you can keep your players moving and answering promptly.

>Though I would like to try playing in text only at some point, but not pbp, it's too slow.

PbP is actually great for solo games. No need to worry about scheduling, post whenever you like, and you can spend longer on polishing what you write without anyone complaining. It only slows to a crawl when there are multiple people involved or you're playing with someone who is slow to post for whatever reason(like having 20 other PbP threads...).

This.

Also, people who have to play online are often socially awkward and better at communicating through text than speech.

Usually text only, but I don't mind using voice for OOC. This is mostly because I'm an ESL and live in a place where literally nobody speaks English, so I have a hard time roleplaying without first organizing everything I want to say and how I want to say it.

>Minecraft RP server

I'm a fan of voice for OOC but Text IC. I find as a DM it's a little easier to write descriptions of scenes and places beforehand and then post them when the players encounter them. In my anecdotal experience people RP better when they have to type things out.

First only. Who wants to hear your players say awkward super-chunni things anyways. It's so embarrassing.

I'd prefer 1. But I'd be down for 2.

Normal games: voice, text for stuff that will be referred to multiple times

ERP: Text only, final destination

Text-only reveals the power some poor speakers/actors hold in their ability to scribe.
Very different from the physical table experience: immersion in story versus immersion with friends.

It was really cool to try out--though, I think I'd like having voice functionality with my group for communicating meta-game details.
So, I want to say the middle option? You get audio fast communication for game mechanics and still get to type out exactly what your character does.

...

I do most of my stuff in person but I use text for various things. Like when a character rolls lore I give them the info on 1v1 chat so they can be the one go actually say the facts IC. It's a small thing but it helps with RP

Text via roll20

Text and voice, unless its ERP, in which case text only.

Text only.

IC/OOC have different chats.

I miss when IRC rooms were big for RP.

If you can't get over the embarassment, you can't roleplay. It's fucking acting people. Put your tiny dicks away and just do it. Hell, if you do it enough you might realize system doesn't matter, just the game.

Then you can shut the hell up and shake your heads at the rest of humanity being just pants on head retarded.