I've been thinking about finding a group to play with online and roll20 seems to be the best place for it...

I've been thinking about finding a group to play with online and roll20 seems to be the best place for it. Anyone else play with groups found via roll20 and how did it go?

I've met with several groups, all of them have been garbage except for one. Out of 7 groups I have joined, only one was worth anything and I have been lucky, the GM is attentive, amiable and friendly and welcoming.

The majority are not like this, but they do exist.

bump

Mosr people play with friends, if that's not feasible they look for groups in other groups and interests they're part of. If both fail they try random gamefinder threads here and on roll20.

Keep that fact in mind. Roll20 is 3rd or 4th resort at BEST for most folks, so you're not getting the pick of the litter

Be prepared for some of the most anti-social, basement dwelling mouth breathers the hobby has to offer.

Roll20 is a haven for the worst of the worst. It's filled with people who can't find groups for many reasons OTHER than simply not having friends who play RPGs. They're the people who are too afraid to socially engage face-to-face with others. They're the people who have been rejected from real life groups. They're the people who enjoy the anonymity of the internet and will just act like jackasses because there are no repercussions.

If you're starting out on Roll20 without your friends, you'll have a lot of filtering to do. It took me about 3 months to find a core of fun, sane, tolerable players that all could make the same game time and that were all into something other than fucking D&D/Pathfinder. It's totally possible to put together an awesome group on Roll20 -- but you're very likely going to have to dig through mounds of shitheads before you get there.

TL;DR version: You're fucked, user.

It's funny because everything this guy is true, but it's worse if you try to recruit from Veeky Forums, because you just get random faggots who made disposable contact information to get in touch with you.

At least on roll20 you can look at a dude's profile and decide pretty quickly how autismal he is. If you go to Veeky Forums gamefinder threads, your autism detector had better be fucking spot on, or you'll get the worst of the worst.

It's a fucking horrorshow.

You're better off hanging around some of the specialty forums on Google+, then proposing a Google Hangouts game, then if it goes well migrating to roll20 for the special features.

I've actually only pulled one player from Veeky Forums before. He stayed around for about 4 sessions, then disappeared without saying anything. Deleted his Roll20 profile too. He wasn't a bad guy, pretty quiet, but kind of fit into what you're saying with the disposable Discord and Roll20 account.

THIS -- If you're on Facebook, there are several groups dedicated to One-Shots and Long-Term Campaigns. They tend to use Google Hangouts for their games, which can be run through Roll20. The players are far more sociable, keep track of game deserters (they'll call them out in the groups), and have a constant stream of games. I have multiple players I still GM for that I met in those groups.

Sounds like my kind of place

>tfw this post unironically has me contemplating starting a fagbook account

i havent had much experience with it but im seeing many use google hang outs
why not use discord it seems more better
>more better

id be up for playing
im a sociable guy and stuff but i cant find peeps at my school or anywhere really that have the patients to play it/ the want
im also not an ass

I've played with a few. None were like horrible off the bat, but if you filter out results with adult content and take some time to read the game descriptions, you can usually avoid the most obvious fuckery.

Mostly what I have encountered, in terms of people, is a good number of stoners and meme-speakers, a good number of slightly hyper and pretty annoying teenage boys of the Magic the Gathering/League of Legends breed, a handful of pretty normal seeming guys, and a lot of casual weeaboos. I have never personally encountered any older grognards or autistic rules lawyers, but I'm sure they exist. I've also never encountered any females at all, although I occasionally see them posting characters to join groups. Girl players are pretty rare and seem to get snatched up fast. Not uncommon to find a game with like, 20-50 applications pending, and the one who has been approved is the only girl to apply.

Basically, the people I've met have been mostly annoying, but not terrible. Few if any seemed worth getting to know better, but I haven't encountered any huge assholes, which I have encountered a LOT playing at game stores and gaming clubs, I assume because roll20 is a younger crowd, and the biggest douchebags I've met in tabletop gaming have almost all been older generation gamers, guys who came up in the 80s and early 90s, some even the 70s. I'm 30, and I've met a lot of gamers older than myself in person. Never online.

As far as games, it's about 75% Dungeons and Dragons, then a lot of random stuff and a lot of really weird homebrew, usually terribly balanced, overly complicated, anime inspired d20 homebrews. All the campaigns I've been in have been extremely generic adventure games. None have lasted more than half a dozen sessions before the GM got mad and quit, or scheduling fell apart.

Overall a pretty mixed bag. I don't really see it as worth my time, but it hasn't been the horrorshow I expected.

It Henry's better on average with a game that is less popular, but then you have less to choose from as well.
Popular stuff like pathfinder and 5e attracts a lot of people, especially the kind that can't keep a spot in another group because of undesirable traits.
I've played in around 10 4e games on roll20, DM'd two of them, and the ones that sucked were usually bad for boring reasons, not for the dramatic shit you see in 'that guy/GM' threads. Stuff like people just leaving, or DMs getting bored, or shifting game tone.
I've certainly seen at least one horror show, but with fewer people, the desperate people tend to flock elsewhere

I've played with a ton of grognards on Roll20 -- which I actually prefer. But I'm sure it's because I typically run/play games that are considered "OSR", which is right up their alley. Grognards are the best, lol -- they show up on time, tell you if they're going to be late or miss the game, and understand and accept GM fiat with open arms. They follow the good book of tabletop gaming.

I had a few annoying kids jump in on one of my DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) games. One of them left after he did some stupid shit during a 0-level funnel and had 3 of his 4 pre-gens killed as a result. Just immediately dropped from the game and later deleted his account instead of responding to the group members asking why he left.

Had a real winner in the same DCC game try to rules-lawyer the shit out of me about a call I made. It was super annoying, especially considering DCC is pretty rules light. I told him several times my call was final, but he just kept arguing. Must have gone on for a good 15 minutes. Everyone in the game asked me to remove him after that session. He later had the oblivious nerve to ask why he wasn't invited to the follow-up game.

You will have to slog through some shit before you hit the gold, OP. Be prepared to suffer, especially if you are looking for a DnD game.

I miss Crazy Hassan

It's hit or miss depending on what you want to play, I'd much more recommend the resident Veeky Forums gamefinders or discord groups floating around.

Just get a good feel for the gms and players by how they write ahead of time. Not always the best way to judge but the turbo autists with anime avatars and 30k word character descriptions... yeah, steer clear.

Also don't expect anything other than Pathfinder and 4e.

That's how I got my roll20 group, I was browsing through the Warzone - Mutant Chronicles group and saw someone asking if anyone was keen to try out the new 3rd edition of the rpg, I put my hand up to run it and here I am, a good 4-almost-5 months later with largely the same group of people and things are going pretty good.

Though I do feel like I'm going to run into trouble keeping people enthused and engaged after we wrap up on the published adventure we're playing. I'm just not all that good at coming up with original missions and material. Everything I've written for previous games and groups was built from the core of a published adventure.

For every decent player on roll20 there are 5 flakes/weirdos (even by Veeky Forums standards)/awful people.

You're much better off making a group out of friends/online friends.

Good goy. Don't forget to fully fill your profile.

I've been on roll20 since day 1, and let me tell you, it's so bad that I have a list of all the bad and good players and GM's I've met. The good portion is really short and the bad list is long.

The worst thing is the WoD/CofD community is in tatters. There's a bunch of terrible fucking GM's that constantly run terrible games which churn out terrible players, who in turn run shitty games. It's a viscous cycle.

>viscous

Mmm sounds sticky

>DeviantArt reject profile picture
>Outright stating you're an 'emo twink furry'
>'I ~need~ to be a lycanthrope'
>dual-wielding swords
>CN
>muh peaceful lycanthropes
No.

you have missed ftm part

No user, the lycanthropes were specifically "semi-peaceful." Did you even read it?

>semi-peaceful
It's going to result in the same thing: Bitching about the peasants being bigoted against a species that has a reputation for being vicious psychopaths.

He'd do better in Werewolf: The Furfaggening than D&D.

Don't find groups with roll20, the community is awful. Just get some friends from anywhere else and play through it.

>Grognards are the best, lol -- they show up on time, tell you if they're going to be late or miss the game, and understand and accept GM fiat with open arms. They follow the good book of tabletop gaming.

That's been my experience too, so I recommend grognards as well. They tend to have mastered basic adult skills like compromising, apologizing for mistakes and not hogging the spotlight.

Finding a group on Roll20 itself is a complete gamble. Nine out of ten times you'll end up with two absolute retards, three people who will just disappear and never show up again after the first game, and the one remaining player is actually a cool guy but he often has real-life problems so he misses half of your sessions for various reasons.

I'm not even exaggerating.


Roll20 is a great tool, and I definitely recommend it if you have an existing group you want to play with, but who can't meet up IRL because of whatever reason. But the actual Roll20 community is mostly garbage.

I'm learning how to use roll20 myself

eventually want to run a game of mutants and masterminds on it myself

biggest thing I'm struggling with is map creation, but who doesn't?

>The local peasantry tends to give us wolves a bad name
>In fact, we only rip throats about 5% of the time, and spend most of our time either sleeping or quietly observing the village
>almost all of our encounters with humans go by in piece. Most of the time, you won't even know we're there
>we also have a wolf called Skyler who's friends with humans
>I tink e's got artism
>shut up Frank
>We even do a sort of community service for the peasants. If we find a lamb that looks funny we, um, take it to a better place. isn't that right, Frank?

>it's so bad that I have a list of all the bad and good players and GM's I've met.
Post it.

>List of bad GMs

I'm a slut for drama, post that shit

Making a map is easy, just use a grid or whatever.

If you mean art wise, please do not bother. Roll20 uses the stupidest angle-- perfectly top down. This makes everything look stupid. Don't waste your time making graphic maps because no matter the effort it will look fucking dumb. Just use your words. Describe shit. Works much better than art.

Yeah, do the community a service and post it.

I've found the best way to filter out all the weird people is just to say that you want a very short description about your character (1-2 sentences) and that by doing this it weeds out all the people who take the game too seriously or the guys who feel like they have to tell you everything about their character or themselves (I found that the people who do this tend to be weird). I would also do the same thing with the description of the game for the same reasons more or less.

It's time for another Good Idea, Bad Idea.

Good Idea:
Playing with friends over Roll20.

Bad Idea:
Playing with random people over Roll20.

cool thanks

I haven't had that much of a bad experience with roll20, but I guess I should count myself lucky. I got two active groups and they're all pretty chill. Though one of my GMs for Exalted flaked out on us and never came back after our first session. Hit with massive disappointment.

Varies. 1 good-turned-bad. One bad. 1 introduced by a member of the 1st group. That last one was good, but it might be don't soon. I'm on the lookout again. What system?

Hey, all friends were once random people at some point, right?

>Lycanthrope Civilization
>Lycanthrope shifting into Wood Elf
>Using profile picture as character art
>Fighter/Druid or just fighter
>Background full of druid love
>Duel Wielding
>Heavy Armor
>Druid
>Watched videos of people playing
Get the fire get it now.

I had a game with a woman who was an admitted furry. She was actually pretty okay. We also had a lolsorandumb who tried to ruleslawyer stupid things while pushing for other things that broke plainly stated rules. I hate her to this day.

It isn't bad, but it's hard to find a good, active group. The majority of them are private, inactive, full of kids/furries/SJWs, or get disbanded after one session.

Mostly D&D and WoD are played there so what do you exactly expect?
They are REJECTS (because not being able to find an IRL group for so mainstream game says something) from ones of the most cancerous communities within TTRPG fandom.
Try finding game of actually decent system there. You will have hard time searching.

>within TTRPG fandom.
>TTRPG
>fandom.

>can't find an IRL group
>must be social rejects

Because no one in the world lives in a rural area or has to make a several-hour commute to get to the nearest place hosting quality tabletop games.

There is not enough gas left to get rid of these fuck ups.

You know, I get that everyone's using this as an example of why you shouldn't use roll20, but I argue that this is the reason why you *should*.

These are the people who browse Veeky Forums, especially the quest threads. But you will literally never know until they're already in your game.

But on roll20, you can look at their profile and filter out the truly autismal. That is why roll20 is a superior place to recruit from, because people willingly put up information, and you can use that information as part of recruitment.

Found my GURPS group for roll20 in the gurpsgen thread. In character-ness is fine. No one's really flaked off. 'S'good

I want to play roll20 with a Veeky Forums group! Because I've never played D&D ever before and I've always wanted to and I'd like Veeky Forums to teach me.Also because I want to play a shota and I don't want anyone to judge me.

You should be gassed.

>I don't want anyone to judge me
Wrong place for that.

My experiences just to get a game have been horrible. I'm a first time user of Roll20 and was invited to three games, but they all eventually never happened, so it was a big waste of time (all within a span of three months).

Eventually, I finally got invited to a group who only used Roll20 to look for players, but they actually don't play on Roll20 and use Google Hangouts instead. It's been a pretty good group so far, so I can't say my entire experience with Roll20 has been bad.

Found a game that is streamed live on twitch, it's bretty gud.

Okay, less judgey than non-Veeky Forums users.

Me too.

>from ones of the most cancerous communities within TTRPG fandom
They're from Veeky Forums?

I love watching people stream their games, it's nice to have a general frame of reference for how campaigns of a given system run.

It's pretty enjoyable to be in, the DM is really attentive and clearly enjoys doing what he does. Bouncing between players in a timely manner.

Veeky Forums is far from the most cancerous community in the hobby.

Which speaks more about how awful a lot of other forums and communities are than the quality of Veeky Forums.

link?

I don't want my face on Veeky Forums

>puts face on internet
>doesn't want face on internet

You're an idiot. I don't even care anymore.

GURPS, Traveller, OSR games, etc. Anything "old school", underground, or more focused on game mechanics seems to attract better players.

5e, Pathfinder, WoD, Dungeon World, FATE, etc -- Shit show central.

Inexperienced players tend to be bad. Not big surprise.

...

I don't have experience with joining other groups of randoms on roll20, but I have used roll20 to recruit players and run games for randoms before. I get about a 1 in 4 success rate from that on all platforms, and Roll20 is no different. If you stick to games with a good looking description you should be fine if you're willing to give it 3 or 4 tries.

WoD players don't tend to be inexperienced. They're bad for plenty of other reasons.

>Decide to try this out
>Find a Mutants and Masterminds game
>Make a big burly Greek brawler who got temporally shifted due to time shenanigans
>First sessions has me joining a fight mid way as a summoner in the party summoned me by accident
>Going against a vampire
>Party is anime swordsman (in fight), ghost person (Running from fight) and 3rd member who I have not met yet
>Punching vampires having a decent time
>Last member joins the fight is LITERALLY A HELICOPTER WITH A FOX FACE
>CALLED KITSUNE
>Abandon right after session wraps up

Granted, I am now in a Stars without Number game and it is great. But whatever.

After a lifetime of always wanting to play tabletop games but never knowing anyone interested in them, about two years ago I caved and sought out a DND game on roll20.
My very first game actually had a fairly interesting plot, and the DM was nice and accommodating - he even help me set up my character. I decided to play a moon elf wizard, who was decidedly inoptimal as fuck - I really didn't know what I was doing back then, even with help.

The other players were:
A rogue, who was a bit of a minmaxer optimal build motherfucker with a bit of out of nowhere chaotic evil shit going on, unfortunately, but he generally got along with the party
A fighter, some half-orc motherfucker, had very low presence in general.
A cleric, played by a girl with the most annoying voice/way of speaking that i've ever heard. Came as a bundle with the fighter, and I'm fairly certain they were romantically involved both in and out of character.
A dragonborn paladin, introduced halfway through what we did manage to play with the campaign. Fairly effective guy, and he helped keep the rogue in line

The campaign abruptly ended because of the GM getting a new job or something that consumed all his time, if I remember correctly.

My biggest beef with roll20: fucking ALL the games use/require voice chat. I'm fine with talking if it's in-person tabletop gaming, but why the FUCK would I want to use voice online? It's much easier to immerse yourself with writing, it doesn't take much longer than talking (if you can write fairly quickly, like my current group), and descriptions are generally better and more thought-out since you can read what you're about to say before hitting enter. With speech, it's a lot different - it's hard to be eloquent and descriptive with speech on the spot. Not to mention the fact that voice chat is just irritating with all the background noises you'll inevitably hear, and the fact that most people are mouthbreathing retards on roll20.

Says the broke ass nigga with no tokens.

You need free shit, go on dundjinni and rpgmapshare.

>Textplebs

>He unironically prefers voicechat
Kill yourself.

>Taking 3 minutes later only to lazily type a meme

Just like actual text games!

You don't think I watch a slow-moving thread constantly, do you? Nigga, I ain't got time for that.

>posts bantz on a slow moving board
>waits intently for user to reply
>"W-w-why did you take so long to notice me, user-sama?"

>It's a "textfag pretends he's making the game the singular focus of his attention despite being on the internet" episode with "and further implies he can read, type his response, and edit his response faster than he can just fucking talk" guest staring

If you're going to post bait, use higher quality bait than that.
What kind of a cheap low-class user do you take me for? It's fuckin insulting.

>Bites literally everything I post
>Literally trying to back out only after actual points made regarding his speaking inabilities and how textfags are lying "multitaskers" are made

>wanting to hear a group of idiots breathing into their mics, smacking on snacks, shrill nasaly voices trying to stutter out memes, yelling at other people in the room, the creepy faggot jerking off, six different people's music and youtube videos blaring in the background that they refuse to turn down, the feedback from that one faggot who refuses to use headphones, ect.

>wanting to watch a group of idiots take 5 minutes to respond to every prompt because they're too busy jerking off, alt tabbing to post on Veeky Forums, type garbled text trying to stutter out memes, the creepy waifufag detailing the curves of his half-unicorn half-dragon half-goddess of fertility, six different people's simultaneous attempts at responding to actions with no regard for anyone else in the scene each trying to hog spotlight that they refuse to share, the quietness from that one faggot who refuses to pay attention unless you use a specific chat prompt to poke him to make the window flash, etc

really makes you think

Wow, it's almost as though you've never actually played in a text-only game!

>actually logging in and playing traditional games with randoms
It really does.

>Wow, it's almost as though you've never actually played in a voice-only game!

RLY
MKS U
THNK

Trust me, top down fundamentally looks awful and there's no getting around it.

>implying you won't have these same exact problems in a voice game

Please textplebs, I know your intense autism makes it impossible for you to communicate like a regular human being, but stop projecting.

Every argument you try to pose boils down to "W-well t-t-t-the people you're playing with w-w-will be sh-shit," when the exact same argument can be thrown back in your face.

They're faster. They're more immersive. They demand more attention and engagement. They're better.

I'm sorry you're not good enough to enjoy them with us. At least you can still lord over the play-by-postfags.

>Voice is more immersive
Enjoy your audio books, you fucking philestine

Gentlemen please, we have this argument every damn thread. There is no point.

I'm actually pretty relieved that playing in text, either with longform MU RP, roll20 or other formats tends to keep the illiterate, memer gutter trash that populate Veeky Forums out of those games. I've had some truly wonderful roleplay experiences that read just like a book in text games, and it's the ADD-riddled, jiggling fat chin grognards that always insist on objectively inferior voice based play.

>It took him 22 minutes to type this

JUST
LIKE
TEXT
GAMES

>implying I'm even the same faggot you've been replying to

Thanks for vindicating everything I've been saying you meme-spouting walrus. Really stunning me to a stand-still with the adroit and nimble improv it took you to type out the exact same shit you responded to the other guy with, only with more capital letters and less words.

>Tried to join a few random groups
completely met with no responses from the GMs before even being able to apply, so definitely get used to that.

>tried talking with people on Veeky Forums
guy responds once, seems really interested in having me on board, shortly after never heard from again, barely any conversation in the first place.

also,
>join a 5e game with people from Veeky Forums
>campaign is extremely well put together, sort of like playing the classic final fantasy with a bit of deviation from the plot, and there was some mid-tier banter
>only problem was the game started at 10:30pm EST on friday
>I work 8-4 weekends
>get intestinal bacteria and shit my brains out for two weeks and miss two sessions
>people stop showing up regularly
>two more sessions go by where myself and one other player and the DM stay up for an hour waiting for somebody to show up and then calling it off.
>Keep getting fucked over by work and start not being able to show up at all
>every time I wasn't able to make it, I made sure to message the DM
>the game disappears off my feed after a short while.

kek'd

Everyone knows the best is text IC voice OOC

Well? Where's your snappy voice-only ubermensch reply, bumblefuck? It's already been a minute and a half! My ADD isn't going to let me keep this conversational thread going any longer than three!

Please voiceplebs, I know your intense autism makes it impossible for you to communicate like a regular human being, but stop projecting.

Every argument you try to pose boils down to "W-well t-t-t-the people you're playing with w-w-will be sh-shit," when the exact same argument can be thrown back in your face.

They're better thought out. They're more immersive. They demand more creativity and engagement. They're better.

I'm sorry you're not good enough to enjoy them with us. At least you can still lord over the ... sorry there's nothing for you to lord over.

The problem I had when I tried to do play by post is that the 'session' never ended, and it's hard to keep up when you have school and everyone else has a desk job that allows them to sneak 5 minutes to do their action.

Probably one of the best DMs I've had the pleasure to meet though.

>So angry he violently spamposts hoping that nobody will notice his samefagging