So, prior to the lock-down, I was running an infrequent (sort-of-monthly) Dungeon World game and playing in a weekly D&D 5e game. I also ran a 5e game for a bit last year, that fell apart due to logistical travel problems.
Our weird new paradigm has forced me and my friends to finally give online RPing a go, mainly through a combo of Roll20 and Zoom. I'm running a weekly 5e game and playing in another weekly one. So I'm actually doing more gaming now than I have been in a while!
It's... clunky. Roll20 facilitates the mechanistic aspects of a fighty game like D&D, once you get used to using it. But I feel like it discourages players from doing as much character stuff, as much dialogue as IRL (even player meta-gaming chat). People tend to treat their characters more like computer game or board game tokens, shuffling them round a map at arm's length.
One solution could be to just get rid of the maps and do everything narratively. I've been playing 5e long enough now to feel comfortable running it, but the combat is too precise for me to feel like I could do a reasonable job doing it as theatre of the mind. I need that grid!
Maybe if this whole thing drags on even further into the foreseeable, I might look at starting another game with something with more abstract conflict (like Dungeon World). Just run it entirely through Zoom (other chat programmes are also available).
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