Without a doubt in my mind, I think I can safely say that nobody is going to miss the clusterf!#ck that was 2020. Granted, I didn't fare so bad, but it tried its best to kill me with boredom.
Right before the pandemic, I had just managed to slip back into pen and paper RPG gaming. I found myself playing with a new group and liking it quite a bit. Previously, I took a long break from any role-playing games to lessen distractions that would keep me from finishing my novel. And yes, as of this writing, it still sits unfinished as I continue to find distractions. But, getting back into role-playing came in an unusual way. Well, not for me, but for others, I'm sure. You see while walking the electronic section of Wal-Mart, I found a hell of a deal on a 42" 4K Television, and just like that, I had a project on my hands.
For the next two weeks, I got materials together, drew up plans, and spent my afternoons after work piecing together my masterpiece. After years of just thinking about it, I finally built myself a virtual tabletop. Rather than wood, I made the frame out of 3/4" Sentra, covered the top in plexi, added fans for additional cooling, and routed input/output through wall plates installed in the side. I added a handle for portability and immediately initiated protocol to get a new gaming group going to show off my new toy.
We spent the next few months playing a game I put together using 5th Ed D&D but in a CyberPunk/Shadowrun type setting. Other than a couple of bum class mechanics not panning out how I envisioned, the game was going great, and everyone seemed to be having fun. Then the pandemic hit, and everything fell apart. Just at the climax of the adventure, suddenly we couldn't get together anymore.
Weeks turned into months, and eventually, we just relegated ourselves to the fact that we were not going to be able to pick up the game. On top of the pandemic, people were changing jobs, and schedules were a bit unmanageable. But, the bug was still strong. Even though a hardware project had sparked the whole thing, I was now back in the mood to play. Being a dinosaur, I found myself researching how to use VTT tools available for online play.
Most of you will see where this is going. I checked out Roll20 and a handful of other apps, and nothing impressed me. Eventually, we resorted to using DungeonFog along with Discord for a while since it was what I was familiar with for our live in-person sessions. But everything just felt clunky. It was about a month later I finally happened across Foundry VTT and fell in love. While I don't want to turn this into a review for their software, put simply, the program works the way a VTT should and is robust. It has some shortcomings as it's still in development, but my complaints are very minimal.
I didn't expect switching from an in-person game to a VTT over Discord would change my creative direction for DMing. I now found myself spending less time writing notes and more time just entering information into Foundry and setting up trigger events for when the characters moved into those areas. I got so into it that I'm now learning scripting and writing in mini-games to the VTT in place of the puzzles I would typically do. I wouldn't call any of what I'm doing now "better" than our in-person game, but it's an entirely different experience. I thought that the games would get held up more by table talk; as a group, we are more efficient at moving forward.
The pros are that scheduling seems to be quite a bit easier. Log in to my computer, fire up the server, and get going as soon as everyone is in the chat. Our sessions tend to get more done in shorter periods of time. However, last week I noticed a big con while running my Starwars game. I am now dreadfully less descriptive of the scene when the players enter an area. I have spent hours and days making maps and assets. As the players move into a room, I realized that suddenly everything is there on the map to see. While the visuals and technology add something to the game, I find it also takes away some of the experience. It is an adjustment I will have to rectify as the GM by adjusting my technique back towards my previous style. It may have less to do with the technology and more because I have not run a regular game in almost six years.
Despite that, I find myself excited to sit down and log in for a game for the first time in a long time. I wish these tools had been more readily available when I was a teenager. Then again, maybe I don't. If you're jonesing for some RPG action during the pandemic and you're not familiar with VTT tools, I would recommend giving them a shot. In addition to giving me something to occupy some of my time, they have given me new tools to spark my creativity.
Just testing the comment section.