More and more rpg players use online services like roll20 and fantasy ground. Is that good or bad?

More and more rpg players use online services like roll20 and fantasy ground. Is that good or bad?

The problem isn't the service itself, the problem is the people who use it.

Personally, I like it. No one I know in real life is interested in tabletop games, so this lets me play games with people I meet on IRC channels and the like.

I like roll20. It's fucking hard to get grown adults with the time to get together and play a game. Now thanks to services like these, you have access to a larger number of people, increasing your chances of finding people to play with.

Services like these only suck because the retards in marketing thought it would be a good idea to sell virtual tabletops to the "now" generation that always wants instant gratification and that needs constant stimulation.

Tabletop & PnP RPGs are storytelling w/ spreadsheets for nerds who enjoy that sort of thing.

So what those companies ended up doing is causing an influx of normies who ruin the feel for the old culture with the way they prefer to play which is usually devoid of any good story elements or even any knowledge of statistics or joy of history/ anally simulating a situation with die roll, etc..

It's good, because it allows more people to play tabletop RPGs more often.

This.

Roll20 would be great with a few minor updates, honestly. It's good as it is, but the inability to have much say over what the tabletop actually looks like has gotten from "Early adopter issues" to "Why the fuck isn't this fixed yet?"

I have a bad feeling that the site's gonna die when it gets some actual competition that provides a similar service, something that can have multiple chat windows up for different purposes and that has a better dice roller. Until then, r20 is doing good for itself.

I feel the same way. I wish there was an option to let the players put pictures on the board. I am in a campaign with a lot of base and city building right now. While the players can write what they want and where, they can't find pictures and textures that they like the actually customize the things they want, leaving the GM to do everything.

It's good, but Roll20 needs to fire its whole design staff. They have no idea what makes a good design good.

Since this appears to be useful to me, as a complete rookie who wants to get into tabletop p&p rpgs, would roll20 be a good place for me to start to find a group who would be open to a new person looking to get into things?

How I wish everything wasn't confined to one chat window. It can't be that hard to make multiple ones, right?

Yeah, they have a tab in the game description for showing that the game is open to inexperienced people, so you will know by game description.

For me personally it is really hard to get my IRL friends to play more than a one shot. Roll20 gives you a really nice and large selection of people to play with, ones who are as into the hobbie as you are and will put in a proper ammount of effort to have a good game.

Yes.

>IT'S DIFFERENT FROM WHAT I LIKE SO IT SUCKS!

>playing something you don't like

fucking terrible post and opinion.

>More and more rpg players use online services like roll20 and fantasy ground. Is that good or bad?
Good. It means children aren't the immediate death of one's gaming career.

>post animu pedo reaction image
>calls someone else's post terrible

kys

It's so good that even if I played IRL again, I would use a laptop connected to a projector or TV.

>pedo
this is not the body of a little girl

Roll20 is a tool; it is neither inherently good or bad if people use it.

Good people and bad people use it though, and that's where you get issues. Bad people can make for bad games. Good can make good.

I do enjoy the drag and drop ui elements, but they need to overhaul the core code that governs the inner workings. It lags so much for no discernable reason sometimes. And the layout can be a but perplexing for no good reason. I suspect a lot of outsourced tools incorporated wholesale without a core design philosophy

Well, the market is growing--
the Internet has always helped obscure hobbies become more commonplace

Depending on how you read the OP statement...
A) it's not really bad to have more people liking what you like
B) it's not really bad to facilitate a hobby through less physical means

If someone is offended, somehow, by online gamers, then there's little meaningful debate.

>Roll20 is a tool; it is neither inherently good or bad if people use it.

This.

I don't use it, because I have a group that can meet face to face and we enjoy that social interaction.

I may however, use it (or fantasy grounds) in the future for one-on-one games with friends I don't game with regularly anymore.