Do you have an Roll20 horror stories?

I've been itching to play 5e but I don't know anyone near me who plays anymore.
Is roll20 a viable option?

take a look in the forums you lazy fuck.

Yes.

99% of groups are trash though

uhhh what forums
thanks, I'll look into it

>that guy who rolls a female Kitsune samurai in every game he plays

this

>playing with Veeky Forums

I tried it once, GM bailed after the first session, deleted everyone from his skype and was never seen again

When I GMd we had a jolly good time tho

This, only it's been the other way around for me. Since Veeky Forums's inception, I must have gone through close to a hundred prospective players from Veeky Forums, and I haven't kept a single one of them around past the first session. Most of them I never accepted at all, because they were an even mix of "oh, I didn't read the game time lol", "what's GMT?", and "I know, but you can change the game time, right?"

As a general rule, people on the gamefinder tend to be those who can't find a group elsewhere, and that's usually for good reason.

I have never played any RPG (despite being interested in it) before because I am an incredibly autistic fuck who is afraid of people.
According to stories that I read on here Roll20 seems to be full of equally autistic people.

My line of thought is that by playing with the average person you find on Roll20 that is (probably) just as bad as I am I can ease myself into the hobby and eventually learn to deal with regular people too.
Could this plan work?

There are normal people on roll20, most autists throw up HUGE RED FLAGS and are obvious.

They also only play 3.5/PF/5e, so if you sign up for something else chances are you will be safe from 90% of them.

>>They also only play 3.5/PF/5e, so if you sign up for something else chances are you will be safe from 90% of them.
Being safe from them is exactly what I don't want though, I want to deal with them specifically because I believe that it would be easier to interact with them for a sperglord like me as opposed to interacting with regular people where I'd probably just end up as that guy if I don't get in some practice sessions first.

I think you just need a good beating, toughen yourself up.

I was in the same boat, except I'm not autistic. One day I asked a dude who I was in the Marines with if he ever played any TTRPGs. He said yes and that in fact his group just started a pathfinder campaign. Now I have a level 4 druid.

Am I an oddity if so far in my life I've had only two games on roll20 that I found to be bad? Or are these just That Guy thread evolution where people who have bad stories come to share them instead of actively trying to do something about the situations?

I had a player who applied, gave me the character sheet and everything then never spoke to me again. No idea what happened to him, I suspect he may be dead.

I've seen plenty of autsists apply for FATE game I was in.

>>Those people that message you saying they've got a group, can you run X game at Y time and day for Z hours?
I hate these faggots.

It's always some retard asking if I can run a naruto or bleach game with 3.X/PF or 5e.

Fucking autists should just off themselves.

Get Maptools, head to the game finder thread.

I'd offer you a group, but I'm busy with a 1v1 campaign atm.

Well we only use roll20 for mapping, but I once made the mistake of having a big map. A really big map. A "spell ranges actually matter" big map.

It crashed all but one of my players' computers trying to log in. I had to break it all down and only post segments, really killed the feel of the big map.

I have a guy who, at the same time, is a terrible rules lawyer and doesn't understand the system as well as he thinks he does. Found that out only recently, too.

Why would I want to play with people I know I am gonna hate?

Generally playing with people from 4 chan is a bad idea. Whether in table tops or vidya

My only experience with roll20 was when a guy was recruiting here on Veeky Forums and I responded out of curiosity. Best campaign in my life so far.

That is the worst. I'm playing with a group of half experienced, half new-to-RPG players. The one who has played the least keeps 'correcting' me on rules I've damn well near memorised after all these years AND on his character's abilities (because he uses the names of them to judge what they do instead of reading the entries in the book).

I once tried DMing on Roll20 with people on their forums. I had one person show up with a character with almost three times as many attribute points as everyone else. When I corrected them they argued with me for a while then cut all contact.

That same game I had a guy who wanted to play a mage guy with a sword. He chose the worst possible way of doing it and when I tried to help him make a not crippled character he kept yelling "muh character concept".

Later I tried joining a 4e game. The poor DM didn't have a great grasp on the system and the players were awful. Three of them were friends and it showed. All three were weeaboos and were obnoxiously public about it. Two of them even were playing their waifus. Luckily they didn't have time to talk about it because they were too busy spending both sessions crying about how they weren't playing 3.pf and how it is so much better even though they signed up for 4e. The GM was chased off after two sessions of that garbage.

Somehow the Stars aligned for me

I started up a game on Roll20, on a whim. GURPS, Saturday afternoons MST, recruited from Veeky Forums

I got FOUR rock solid players who showed up every week, ready to go and always having fun. I even got a FIFTH player recommended in who is AWESOME, and when one guy bowed out we all miss him and his PC ended up being written into the back story SO well

What gods did I curry the favor of accidentally?

Love you too bro
*Internet hugs*

Xom

Is that a Hero Machine picture?

Yep. Hm3

I got bored at work, stumbled into it, and drew the party up

Most stories are fake.

I'm probably not the one you're thinking about, but thanks.

The secret is you're not playing D&D or PF

Why is it always DnD and PF?

Most popular game = most that guys

>Why is it always Marvel and DC?

You're very observant

I'm actually running a roll20 game using basic d&d (ok, Labyrinth Lord, close enough) with some minor houserules. Recruited some 40+ players, about 6 actually stayed.
Ther biggest problem is always the flakes. I'm always recruiting.

Frankly, 80-90% of d20 system games seem to attract freaks.
I'm a genuine grognard from the early 80ies, cut my teeth with BECMI in the very early 80ies as a child then moved on to AD&D and finally to 2nd Ed AD&D (now heavily houseruled, mind you).
I much prefer a more gygaxian fantasy world to the anime-style worlds and rule sets that I see nowadays.
But hey, I'm an old fart, so take this all with a grain of salt. Honestly, if rather see people sit down, in person, and socialize like the days of old over a good game.

>>Those people who apply with a race, class or feature you've SPECIFICALLY mentioned as not being available.

I'm getting so goddamn tired of these people. It's like they have some kind of uncontrollable infantile instinct to gravitate toward the things they're told they can't have. If there was no mention of it, I'm sure they would forget it exists and not bother with it.

>forgot pic

Seriously. What happens most often is that the GM just turns down the bad applicants. Roll20 being some horrific den of scum and villainy where dreams go to die and anime pathfinder games reign supreme is for the most part a meme.

>This game will be set between the dwarven kingdoms and human lands. No elves, they're all on the moon.
>Oh hey, I was thinking about playing an elf, maybe I just got bored of the moon and teleported down to look around.
Every. Time.

The problem with Veeky Forums groups is that they attract the kind of people who can't EVER FUCKING SHUT UP about Veeky Forums, Veeky Forums memes, and behave on every website the same way they do in Veeky Forums.

I take using greentext outside of Veeky Forums, using the word "cuck", or smug anime girl pics as red flags for someone with absolutely no self awareness. "Cuck" also applies to Veeky Forums itself, but taking it to other websites requires a special kind of autism

What I always hated were the ones who couldn't shut the fuck up about Veeky Forums memes, specifically. Hectopeasants and peasant railguns and whatever stupid fucking build-of-the-week from their cancerous general thread. It's a red flag when a player tells me they want to try out a build they saw.

> Roll20 DM for my wife, my best friend, and his wife.
> friend's wife disses my DMing skills in front of the two most important folks in my life
> then when she gets KO'd due to confronting a tough monster, it looks like I did it in retaliation
> she is quick to accuse me of being petty
> friend is silent, my wife starts lecturing me privately about how I need to be nice
> make up some bullshit about how she isn't really KO, it was a magical stun weapon
> don't feel good about it.
> she gets back up, they sweep the adventure.
> all three say it was the best adventure they've ever played
> always question my ability now
> never dm again, which means we never play now.
> feels awful
what should I do, guys?

Try talking to her, and explain why her behaviour isn't cool. If that fails, ban her and tell your buddy that his wife's a bitch.

I have PTSD and I don't think I can work up the nerve to do that.

>DM sets up game.
>Everybody else makes their characters and is ready on time.
>DM never shows.

Pretty much my experience with it.

>Those people who apply the day the first session starts
>Those people who apply without having read the application rules at all
>Those people who apply 30 minutes before the game starts and give you a character sheet breaking all the creation rules with no story

>Those people who apply with the same character they've played across dozens of different games

Its not as bad as people make it out to be.
You have shitty players sure but you're bound to find a group you like eventually. Just read the rules from the posts and put thought into your application and you'll get into most games you apply to.

Once you got a group its as functional as a normal tabletop with a bit extra, so it works fine.

Another option is not to game anymore. No game is better than bad games.

>They also only play 3.5/PF/5e, so if you sign up for something else chances are you will be safe from 90% of them.
And will find a player base numbering about...12.

Me too.

There are some really retarded GMs in roll20

>Apply for a 5e game and manage to make the cut
>GM calls for a session 0 to go over everything
>Don't have much experience with session 0, but by the end of it, the party (5) all have character concepts and we've even begun building group dynamics, and flesh out how our characters interact with each other.
>Wind up playing gruff Old dwarf fighter, who acts as the groups quartermaster. Doesn't give his opinion unless asked, and acts as the party tie breaker in case in comes down to a vote.
>Generally enjoy the group dynamic, and the first session.
>GM has to bail and game dies after two sessions.
>Desperately try to contact the other players to get emails or anything so we could see if we couldn't rebuild for another game.
>Lose all contact
>Feel quite disappointed.

For the life of me, I don't understand why roll20 doesn't have a friends list.

As an aside, I winded up with a group out of Gamefinder, and we played Dark Heresy. The game lasted for a good 5-6 months, before it got killed because we had to break for christmas holidays. Everyone involved were pretty chill, and we all got along. Except for the guy who played the Psyker. Guy was fucking annoying as shit, and would always beg me to let him cast psychic powers on my character. I'd always shoot him down, cause fuck psychic powers. He at least was able to distinguish between IC and OOC whenever I'd have to threaten him with execution whenever his powers went haywire though, so I'll give him that.

I've only seen joke ">" and a round of size jokes whenever Bane is mentioned.

I had a good roll20 party. Sadly they were all europeans and it fell apart after a bit but it wasnt that bad

What format do you guys use for player applications? I need a better method for weeding out the dregs.

That bit about gamefinder is good info, but where else would you find a game on Veeky Forums nowadays?

>have DnD experience, just not with 2E
>wanted to have a "revolving door" type of experience while playing a module where people could come and go as they please while I get acquainted with the system
>was originally going to do this in person with people with zero tabletop experience and who might only want to play a session or two
Could roll20 actually be a good platform for this? Newbies and aspies who are afraid of commitment can join for however long they like and see a portion of a published module; rules lawyers and grognards can leave without any guilt if they aren't patient with my newness towards the rules.

Living campaigns and its equivalents are shit.

Good fucking lord. That GM is a retard but the player should have dropped it.

I have to agree with this unless you personally know everyone and DM different sessions for different ppl.
In my experience it's only worked with people from the same group of friends just with different schedules.

GM was a retard and quit the game before the first die was even rolled. This was done after spending weeks hyping at how amazing his setting was.

This hurts me physically.

2e is my favorite system, though I houserule a good bit of it.
I have a word of warning about 2e:
Don't ever let a PC use a non-weapon proficiency as an excuse to skip role playing. For example, lets say the PC has the diplomacy NWP and wants to negotiate a truce between two groups, don't just let them make a diplomacy check and move on... It's bad form and takes away from the major reason we all play D&D: role playing

That was painful... I'd rather hammer my ball bag to the floor with a rusty rail spike than deal with that

>Tons of experience!

I honestly really like playing on roll20 but it feels so awkward to do with people I dont know that I often bail

'Muh homebrew setting' people are the worst.

>That player who cheats like a cunt, but the GM doesn't even seem like he cares
Why the fuck did I spend hours making sure I had everything down pat? Why shouldn't I just make up the effects of the next spell I cast on the spot?

I make my players post complete character sheets with finished backstories to ensure that they have a working understanding of the game and an acceptable level of writing skill.

On top of that I also check their profiles. People with no hours logged are either newbies which I don't want to deal with or smurf accounts because the player has a terrible reputation and needs to start over in hopes of getting into a game.

I later ran into the same dude as a player later on. Dude was a fucking scumbag special snowflake player that constantly cheated and whined when he didnt have the spotlight.

>"island of dr strange"
>everyone gets transformed into beast-men because of a strange gas!
>fighting honey slimes, meat-golems, sugar vines, etc
>uh oh a terrible curse descends on you that makes you feel hungry all the time and you have to make will saves or be compelled to eat!
>ha ha you're all overweight now!
>a dragon starts eating you guys one at a time, whole, putting on weight for the winter
>I was the DM

Seems like you did the right thing, as long as the group enjoyed it it is hard to say you did a bad job.

I had a player who played DOTA while we were playing. That game didn't last long. Other than that, standard shit, either poor/new roleplayers who don't know what the fuck they're doing or people just not showing up.

Roll20 is fine, the problem is that the really good groups are hard to find, since they tend to stick together for a while, due to the fact that good groups are hard to find. I'm currently playing in 2 campaigns that have gone on for years, and we all met on roll20. That being said, I've tried to join tens of dozens of campaigns that either never start or don't last longer than the first session, for one reason or another.

Amazing things can be found on roll20, but you gotta be prepared to look and sift through the trash.

This. The majority of players who do public listings and join public games are there because they're problem players who keep getting kicked out, so they float from game to game. Good games don't get advertised because they don't want to attract bad players, and because they've already got a good group.

>Join a group, generally excited.
>Chat up the guy who started it, says that he is deciding how he wants to run the game. Tell him that I have experience running the system and would be happy to help him out or even run the game if he lets me know.
>Two weeks pass, game day.
>Show up to session 45 minutes beforehand.
>"Oh yeah user, by the way, can you run the game for us? I tried to ask you last night but when I tried to send the email clicking send just wouldn't work lol"

The looking for GM guys are the scum of the earth. Of course I was not going to run a game with about half an hour or even a day of prep time, but I suppose that it is all the same for these people.

This story is literally still in the catalogue, at least wait until it archives to blatantly rip it

Jesus, they even stoop as low as tricking someone into GMing for them. Fucking pathetic.

It hurts. I remember actually being in a game with OOC. After he politely pointed out that a nat 1 on a save is a automatic failure to a problem player, said problem player flipped out and insisted that he had never played that way and that it wasn't in the rules.

Well I got one "horror" story out of the dozens of good games I had. Seriously roll20 is fine and a good site to find players if you're not playing a retard-bait.

> Be me, start a group on roll20
> Couple guys join, they seem okay
> One player chats me up quite often out of game
> First introductory session happens without any real issues
> Between first and second session a 2nd player keeps trying to steer the conversation in a way that annoys me
> Shut him down a couple times, 4th time I give him an ultimatum to stop this shit or he's out
> After the 4th time this happens while talking with player 1 again I tell him to "bait" the 2nd player into him antagonizing me again
> I realize what sort of shitty thing I just asked of player 1 so I decide to have a talk with player 2
> I ask player 2 if he'd be able to stop his attitude, he tells me that it's because of his tragic upbringing and how IRL I'd know that he's just joking
> I decide to avoid any further trouble and tell him that I'm not comfortable with him continuing this sort of behaviour so I ask him to leave
> He tells me that I've betrayed him. I gave him an ultimatum that he didn't break and I kicked him nevertheless.

Seriously that guy was a complete pain in the ass. His replacement on the other hand, now that's a good player. He waited until the end of the session to point out a wrong use of a rule because he didn't want to be "that guy" and he's seen people use it the way we did as a houserule.

but it's so gooood

>capcha: click the lobster
>trees, tires, mountains, no lobster
>click one of each
>it fuckin works

>My character has a black and red color scheme!
Oh good, it's yet another edgelord, my favorite.

This one I don't have a problem with, as long as they realize that none of that characters past experiences mean anything.

Does the DM have an extra chromosome.