It’s weird how stuff happens in the RPG community. Every so often, everyone suddenly gets really interested in the same topic all at once. And it’s all anyone will talk about. Every online gaming content creator suddenly starts talking about the same thing. And every e-mail and private message I get is asking me to weigh in. And it’s happening right now. Suddenly, for no reason I can fathom, everyone wants to know how to run role-playing games over the internet. And I really can’t ignore the requests any longer. There’s just too many. It’s almost as if an evil, communist, tyrannical government allowed a terrible disease to escape into their population because of their lackadaisical and outmoded safety procedures and then, through propaganda and by political and economic clout against various international partnerships and corporations, covered up the whole thing to up to avoid making their evil regime look bad and to ensure they wouldn’t be the only economic power taken down by their own incompetence and vile disregard for basic human rights and dignity.

Anyway, let’s talk about running virtual role-playing games.

The Dilbert Principle

Today, I’m going to tell you how to run tabletop role-playing games over the internet. Because many of you asked me to. But I have to warn you that I’m pretty much the least qualified person on the Internet to write this article. It’s not that I don’t run virtual games. I do. But I do it because I have no other f$&%ing choice. It’s down to time constraints and the various side effects of the general chaos of my life over the last five years. If I didn’t start running online games, I wouldn’t be running any games at all. And I’m not sure that would be a bad trade.

And that’s why I decided to write this article. And this is not part of the Long, Rambling Introduction™ that you tried to skip. This is an important caveat. This is me explaining who I’m talking to. Who this article is for. This article is for all of the people who reached out to me not because they WANT TO run games online. It’s because they HAVE TO for the reasons I mentioned above that I’m sure will lead to a whole bunch of Patreon exit surveys about what a terrible istaphobe I am. Or worse: what a conservative I am. Like I give a f$&%.

If you have to run a virtual game because your gaming life has been wrecked by the Winnie the Pooh virus and you’re just looking for a way to have something that resembles gaming, this is for you. If you’re already an expert on running virtual games, you won’t get anything out of this except anger. Which is why I’m shutting off the comments.

See, I’m obviously espousing some very controversial viewpoints here. I’m going to be discussing, very frankly, the reality of running virtual games if you’re used to running meatspace games. I’m going to be talking about the benefits AND the weaknesses. The trade-offs. And how to mitigate some of the big weaknesses inherent in online gaming. And I’ve learned that that s$&% really pisses people off. Right now, I don’t have time to delete all the pissing and moaning and the incorrect, crappy advice that will lead the virtual newbies in my class astray. So the comments are closed.

Because I’m going to be frank and analytical and honest about mitigating some of the hardest aspects of running virtual games, I’m also going to be talking to the very large number of GMs who have contacted me because they are feeling burnt out by their online games and aren’t sure what’s wrong. But I will explain that at the end. If you’ve been running online games for a while and you’re finding the experience lacking, this article is also for you and I’ve got a special section at the end to help you out. So stick around.

Okay, caveats caveated. I just want to take a minute to say thanks to all of the people who shared online gaming experiences with me. I would not have written this if I didn’t have a pool of other gamers to talk to about this because it really is something I feel is a little outside my expertise.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting… to Run a Virtual Game

Before you go virtual, there’s a few things you need to know about how virtual games are different from real-life games played by people in the same room in the mortal realm. These things don’t make online games bad or wrong. But they do make online games different. And if you’re used to meatspace games, they can be extremely difficult to get used to.

First, virtual games run slower than meatspace games. You just won’t cover as much ground in a given session. And the more players you have, the bigger the slowdown will be. Online games work best with a smaller group than meatspace games. Point is, don’t feel like you’re doing something wrong if your virtual game runs slow. You aren’t. It’s just the nature of the beast.

Second, virtual games have one issue that meatspace games never have. Tech issue. Tech issues. They have one class of issues that meatspace games never have. You know what I mean.

Virtual games have tech issues. Sometimes there’s connection issues. Sometimes there’s hardware issues. I went through a period where utility work in my apartment complex kept knocking out my internet for two weeks. Because I was the GM, when my internet was down, so was my game. Just be ready for that.

Third, neither you nor your players will be as focused or immersed in a virtual game as you are in a meatspace game. Now, sure, this varies from group to group. Some virtual groups are really focused. Some meatspace groups are like that caffeine-addicted squirrel from Over the Hedge. But putting all of that aside, the nature of the game is very different. And this isn’t all about distraction here. Yes, some players are a$&holes and try to divide their attention between your game and something else. And the temptation to be an a$&hole is much greater when no one can see you. And gosh, it sure is nice to not have to explain to anyone in the comment section that if you divide your attention between a group activity with human friends and anything else, you’re being a selfish, antisocial a$&hole and you should have learned that in kindergarten. And no, you can’t multitask.

Thing is, though, I’m not talking about selfish, distracted a$&holes getting away with being a$&holes. I’m talking about the different game dynamic. It’s a lot harder for people to focus on a virtual game because there’s a lot of obstacles to communication and because electronic devices force us to divide our attention up differently. I’m going to talk about the communication thing in the next section. It’s actually super important. All I’m saying now is that if your players seem to have a hard time remembering details that they would have remembered at a physical table or ask you to repeat stuff or they can’t keep a map in their head or deal with narrative combat without visual aids, don’t assume it’s because they are selfish, distracted a$&holes. It’s because their ears and brain are at a disadvantage. Yours are too. So, cut yourself and everyone else some slack and maybe simplify things when you can.

Fourth, communication is a totally different beast in a virtual gamespace. Which I will talk about in the next section. Starting right now.

It’s Just a Conference Call…

When you get down to it, the only thing you need to actually play a virtual RPG is a way to make a four-hour conference call. RPGs are narrative games. You describe s$&%. Players make choices and describe them. You describe the results. That’s it.

No, don’t worry, I’m not going to pretend that virtual tabletop software doesn’t exist and tell you to give up maps and minis and all that other crap. I’ll get to it.

Point is, the first thing you need – the only thing you truly NEED – to run a virtual RPG is a piece of software that lets you have a conference call. One of the easiest and free-est options that’s really popular right now is Discord. Discord lets you set up chat servers or hold private group calls. I maintain a very active Discord server for my Patreon supporters. We’ll see how active it still is after this goes live.

Discord’s cool, but during peak times and depending on the distances between the people in the call and the Discord server hosting the call, call quality can vary widely. And it can be unstable. There’s some folks I can’t maintain a Discord call with for anything. But for most people, it mostly works fine and it’s free.

Lately, I’ve started using a service called Zoom to host my games. I’ve found it really stable, clear, and reliable. But it’s got one problem. It ain’t free. Well, it ain’t completely free. It’s pay-to-win. If you have a free Zoom account, you can host a call with up to 100 people, but there’s a 40-minute time limit on the call. To lift that limit, you have to pay a minimum of 15 bucks American. Well, the host has to. As long as the host is shelling out the cash, everyone else can participate as much as they want.

Zoom’s worth it to me because I use it for other stuff too. As a freelance game designer who occasionally works as a contractor and hires other contractors, I use it to have meetings with people. Well, I used to. But, this global plague has killed a lot of that.

If you’re running a casual, weekly game, Discord’s occasional issues aren’t a huge problem. So it’s probably fine. But I also have to say that audio quality is not a trivial problem. It’s actually the most important problem you can have when running an online game. And most people who talk about running virtual games don’t even mention it. No one realizes how important the problem is.

Tabletop role-playing games are about communication. The whole game is just talking. And listening. It’s about understanding and being understood. And electronic communication actually puts a lot of obstacles between you and understanding. And this isn’t just about the social impediment of not having social cues and facial expressions to read. You literally have a harder time hearing people if you can’t see them. Your brain doesn’t just rely on the stuff coming into your ears when it’s interpreting language. Everyone is, to some extent, a lip reader. And just like reading comprehension relies on context clues, so does auditory comprehension. It’s just the context comes from all the senses. That is why human beings can perform the amazing trick of separating one person’s voice from the background noise in a crowded restaurant.

Now, I’m not saying you won’t be able to hear your players if you can’t see them. That would be stupid. But your brain actually has to work harder to understand what people are saying when you are communicating electronically. And if there’s any extra background noise or distortion or if several people are talking at once, your brain doesn’t have other sensory information to help it out. Video helps. But in my experience, it doesn’t help a lot. And because video adds a lot more strain to an internet connection and can reduce audio quality – especially if there’s other applications involved in the game – and because attention is already divided between several places on the screen, I’ve given up on video.

By the way, this is why I said that people have a much harder time focusing on virtual games. It’s because just communicating in a conference call puts an extra strain on your brain so you don’t have as much brain juice to devote to other stuff.

The absolutely best thing you can do for your game is to make sure you have a nice, clear, stable way to have a conference call and to make sure everyone keeps the noise down on their end. And if you have money to spend on either a spiffy piece of virtual tabletop software or a high-quality conferencing service, go with the latter.

And for f$&%’s sake, don’t play music in your online game. If you play music in your virtual game, you’re wrong. And while I would love to hear why your personal anecdote about how no one has ever complained and how it makes your game so much better and why that bulls$&% trumps literal neuroscience, I’m afraid you won’t be able to comment. Sorry about that. Maybe next time.

The other thing to understand is that, because people can’t focus their attention and tune things out and because the software gives equal weight to every sound it hears, the conversational dynamic is going to be very different. All those whispered sidebars and jokey observations that are just a fun, social indulgence in meatspace games are to an electronic conference call what a crowbar is to a kneecap. See, the way a conference call works is that there’s now a megaphone in the middle of the table. Anyone who talks is effectively grabbing the megaphone away from the group and shouting through it.

The end result is that, eventually, your group will have to adapt to the different conversational dynamic. And it’ll come down to a choice of either putting the kibosh on some of the jokey camaraderie or just playing through the verbal speedbumps. This is one of the reasons why online games run slower.

… with Dice

When I said that TTRPGs are nothing but talk, I was actually wrong. They’re 80% talk and 20% rolling dice and referencing stats. Discord and Zoom let you talk. But how do you roll dice? And how do you reference stats?

The die-rolling question is actually super easy if you’re not completely f$&%ing insane and paranoid. Everyone’s got dice. Just let everyone roll dice on their desk and announce the results. And let everyone keep their character sheet however they want. As long as they can see it, no one else needs to.

Now, when I say this, I get a bunch of stunned, slack-jawed mouthbreathers who cannot fathom how I could trust players to roll dice where I can’t see them. What if they make a mistake? What if they cheat? How will I know?

The answer is: I won’t know and I don’t care. See, I use this little trick I call trust. And perspective. There’s no cash prize involved in this particular game about pretend elves. If someone does math wrong, it’s not going to destroy the world. And if one of my friends needs the win so badly they’d cheat at this s$&%, I’m happy to just let them have it. The players are supposed to win anyway. So, who gives a f$&%?

This is another one of those controversies that led to my decision to leave the comments shut off on this post.

All of that said, there’s ways to roll dice online where everyone can see them. If you’re using Discord, you can install a thing called a bot on a server. In this case, a dice bot. It’s just a little robot that sits in the chat waiting for a text command to roll some dice. It rolls the dice and announces the result so everyone can see. There’s one called Dice Maiden that’s easy to install and use.

There’s also a website called Rolz that lets you open a private chat window that other people can join and roll dice where everyone else can see. Again using text commands.

I only recommend these things if you absolutely have to have all the dice rolled where everyone can see. They aren’t as fun as rolling dice and most of these little tools are clunky and use text commands. Text commands are not as quick and easy as picking up a die and rolling it. And given how much rolling happens in some games, you want that s$&% to be quick and easy.

When it comes to character sheets, handouts, and shared documents, the easiest way to handle that s$&% is to set up a shared folder on a cloud storage service like DropBox or OneDrive. Basic accounts for those are usually free and offer plenty of storage. Just share the link to the shared folder and anything you drop in there will be accessible to everyone. And if you want to get fancy, you can set up a group shared folder and a separate shared folder for each player so you have a private space to share things with individual players.

Just note this can easily become the first step toward Creeping Doom, which I’ll discuss below.

If you’re running D&D specifically and you want a way to keep track of character sheets, rules, and statistics, there’s this service called D&D Beyond. It exists. Some people love it. I played with it a little when it first came out and haven’t used it since. That means I can’t give it a fair assessment and I don’t know how much it costs now. But it does cost. And my understanding is that you basically have to either buy access to rulebooks or else buy access to specific chunks of rules you want to use. Check it out for yourself if that’s something you feel you need.

Enter the Matrix

Now let’s talk about virtual tabletops. A VTT is a piece of software that lets you play a role-playing game online with your friends. And they are basically full-service virtual RPG software suites. Well, mostly full-service. Many of them don’t give you a way to speak and be heard. And the ones that do, suck at it. You’ll need to get yourself set up on Discord or Zoom or whatever. But apart from that, they do almost everything else.

There’s lots of VTTs out there. And while they offer a broad range of extra features, they all basically work the same way and have the same core features. Someone hosts the game. They create a virtual game room. Everyone else connects to that room. And then everyone can roll dice with a simple graphical interface and the host can share maps and everyone can push tokens around on the map. And if you’re running a highly visual, precision-oriented game like D&D, that s$&% is super valuable.

Most VTTs also offer a bunch of extra bells and whistles. And some of them are really cool. For example, most of them let GMs hide and reveal maps gradually as the players explore them. And some have neat dynamic lighting engines so the map reveals itself as long as the GM sets it up correctly and tells the software which player has what light source. It’s neat stuff.

Most virtual tabletops also have turn trackers so the GM can easily keep track of initiative. And most of them have character sheet makers and scripting or macros so that the GM can automate certain actions. Just click a button and your character will automatically roll a Perception check with the proper modifier. Click another button to roll with advantage. And click a target and then a weapon and the program will roll the attack and tell you if you hit and even subtract the damage from the target’s hit points. Some of the scripting languages are really robust. I’ve set up scripts in my game to automatically add bonus damage when the paladin smites an undead or fiendish target. And another one that boosts the eldritch blast damage if the warlock has hexed the target first.

Some VTTs have gone even farther with that s$&% and partnered with WotC and Paizo and, umm… WotC… to provide rules modules for their specific games. This means that the character sheets are already made and lots of macros have already been set up. And it also means that there’s stats for everything already available in the software and everything is hyperlinked to the actual rules. Stuff like that.

My absolute hands-down favorite VTT with D&D integration – the one I use – is Fantasy Grounds. It’s got a nice interface, it’s very streamlined and easy to work with, and it has some really cool features. They’re also working on a new version based on Unity which looks super promising. If you want Angry’s official VTT recommendation – and they do not pay me a dime to say this – it’s Fantasy Grounds. And Fantasy Grounds has lots of different rulesets too.

Roll20 also exists and it also has an official module for the D&D rules. And it interfaces directly with D&D Beyond in some kind of partnership setup. You can check it out if you want to. I have my issues with it and stopped using it a while ago. And after their dealings with me and some people I know, I have issues with the people behind it. So, there’s the name. It’s just a search engine away.

By the way, gamers arguing over which VTT is the best is another stupid gaming thing I shut down the comments to avoid.

Aside from Fantasy Grounds, I’ve also started fiddling with Tabletop Simulator. It’s really neat, but it’s not a VTT like the others. It’s more literally a virtual table. There’s a 3D physics engine in there and an actual table in the 3D space and game pieces and dice and stuff that you can move and throw. It’s like if someone programmed the boardgame room in the back of the local coffee shop into Surgery Simulator. And it’s more for board games than RPGs. But the community has put together a bunch of modules and resources for RPG players. And, to be honest, it’s a lot closer to what I really want from a VTT than FG. But that’s just because of Creeping Doom.

There’s a few other VTTs out there you can check out. Astral Tabletop is pretty neat looking and they’re partnered with DriveThruRPG to make it easier to import stuff, but I haven’t really done anything with Astral yet. Tableplop is browser-based, simple, free, and it has a funny name. And it seems like a great balm against Creeping Doom. I’m going to be keeping an eye on it. Just be aware it’s still in development. Finally, a lot of people have told me to check out Foundry. I’ll get around to that eventually.

And now that I’ve hyped some VTTs and given you a few links, let me tell you some of the downsides with using a virtual tabletop. Because remember, they are optional. All you really need is a way to have a conference call.

First, most VTTs have some kind of price tag. You have to pay for some up-front. Sometimes just the host pays, sometimes everyone pays. Some are free, but you have to pay for any rules modules if you want the integration crap. And I’ll tell you that anything that has a D&D logo on it is going to make you pay for it somehow.

Next, know that any fancy rules integration is going to be missing something. There’s always going to be some class ability that isn’t included or isn’t coded properly. There’s going to be some limits on what you can do. And adding homebrew content is going to be some degree of a chore. You’re either going to have to work around these issues or else learn how to fix it yourself with the VTT’s fancy scripting or macro system. And absolutely every one of them is poorly documented. If you’ve got a lot of house rules, you’re going to have some work to do.

Next, be aware that every fancy feature in every VTT comes with a learning curve, a prep time sink, and some gameplay lag. Learning curve is the amount of time it takes for you and your players to get used to doing the thing the way the program demands you do it. Gameplay lag is the extra slowdown the feature adds to your game because clicking on the target pog in the map window and then clicking on your “actions” tab in your character window, then clicking on the attack, and then clicking on the damage button takes more time than just picking up some dice and throwing them and making a couple of tickmarks. Especially when you add in the time you spend correcting hit point totals because someone accidentally double-clicked the damage button or they weren’t targeting the right pog or because the rules integration does not apply the extra damage from a mace of disruption automatically. It’s a few fractions of a second here and there, sure, but that s$&% adds up.

Prep time sink is the amount of extra prep work you have to do to make use of the future. Maps have to be imported, they have to be sized, and they have to have grids added. Encounters have to be built so they will automatically pop onto the combat tracker with the press of a single button during the game. Stats for custom monsters and items have to be added to the program and properly formatted. Lighting settings have to be fiddled with. And macros and scripts need to be tweaked whenever you find a place where the rules don’t do what you want.

Point is: every special, game-improving, life-improving feature you use comes with a cost. It adds some steps to the game or it adds some prep work or it adds both. That’s not me saying the features are bad. I ain’t saying you shouldn’t use them. And the nice thing about having the comments turned off is that I don’t have to respond to people who think there’s only two positions on a thing. That a thing is either perfect with no downsides ever or it’s 100% pure, refined, concentrated evil.

All of the various VTT features are cool and add neat things to the game. And smart GMs can use them to cover specific weaknesses in their own skills. If you’ve never been good at keeping track of initiative, the initiative tracker might be a real boon to you. That might be a net gain.

I’m just pointing out that you don’t have to use every feature in whatever VTT you choose. You can keep doing some things the old way. You can track monster hit points on paper, roll your own dice on your desk, whatever you want to do. The key is to find the features that improve your game and that are worth the cost and just say “f$&% that” to the rest. That way, you can avoid…

Creeping Doom

This last part is a cautionary tale for new virtual GMs and advice for desperately frustrated, long-time virtual GMs. In talking to lots of GMs about their online games, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. One that aligns with my own experiences. In the last year or so, I’ve noticed a totally anecdotal and nonscientific increase in the number of virtual GMs asking me for help with burnout. It seems like virtual GMs are more prone to burnout than meatspace GMs. Maybe. Who knows? What I do know is WHY they say they’re burnt out. And I’m calling it Creeping Doom.

Every designer and engineer knows what creep it. They know it and they fear it. And I’m not referring to the viscous, nutritive biomass that grows across the surface of a planet to feed Zerg biological structures. I’m talking about things like power creep and feature creep.

It’s like this. While the marginal cost of adding a new thing to your game or design or whatever is small, the total cost of adding lots of new things is usually bigger than the sum of the individual costs. Adding a single button to your online game, for example, might take just an hour. But adding ten new buttons will take longer than ten hours because of all the extra ways all of those buttons will interact with each other and the amount of UI space you need to free up by rearranging things and so on. And even if that’s not the case, it’s easy to lose track of all the costs when you add just one new thing here or there. You wake up one day and suddenly realize you promised a hundred different people a hundred different features because each feature was really easy to do on its own.

That’s creep.

What seems to happen to virtual GMs – and it happened to me too – when they start running virtual games with a fancy virtual tabletop is that they get really excited about all the fun, flashy, virtual features. Each one seems to make the game better or make it easier to do something. And there’s no visible downside. So, you just do everything. Dynamic lighting. Music player. A few custom macros for some of your house rules. A couple of custom monsters. All of it. And if it feels clumsy or hard to keep track of everything, you just assume that’s because it’s new. You’ll get used to it.

But every one of those features has a cost. Each one slows your game down. It adds more stuff to keep track of. More tabs. More buttons. More open windows. More things to switch your focus between. And it burdens the players too. Focus is already a big problem in online games. And a lot of brainpower is being spent just to stay in the game and to communicate. So, it starts to weigh down your brain and your game. And all of it demands more prep time too. Each element is, by itself, trivial, but the sum total is an inexplicable extra weight of stress and exhaustion.

Not only that, but there’s an engagement issue.

Gamers have noted for years that doing things like counting squares and pushing miniatures is fun, but it does also remind people that they’re not really acting out an exciting battle, they’re playing a board game. And they’ve noticed that complex dice pool systems drag out action resolution to the point that the focus is on playing Yahtzee instead of making choices. And that s$&% is all true. Everything that isn’t narrating the game, making choices, and describing results is a little tug pulling your brain away from the role-playing experience. And that’s why some gamers try to minimize that stuff.

Well, online games amplify the issue. Because now you’re not even playing a board game about a fantasy adventure. You’re clicking and dragging pogs around in a computer simulation of a board game about a fantasy adventure with people who you can’t even see and who you sometimes can’t hear or understand. That can burn you out if you’re focused on the role-playing experience more than the board game experience and you may not even know why.

But lots of virtual GMs complain about something else too. They complain about how their game prep has changed. It’s not just that there’s more of it – there is – it’s that it’s also the crappy kind of prep. It’s about moving image files around and doing data entry. It’s about trying to get a computer program to do what you want by typing the right combination of angle brackets and misspelled abbreviations. One GM described it perfectly to me. They said it’s like the virtual tabletop is fighting with their creativity and winning every time.

That’s creeping doom. It’s what happens when you wake up and discover that your game has gradually become a slog because of all the life-improving technology you’ve brought into it.

Virtual tabletops are totally optional. You don’t need them. All you need is character sheets, dice, and pencils. People have been playing D&D with no more equipment than that for 50 years. The only thing extra thing you need to play with people who aren’t in the same room as you is a way to make a conference call. So my advice is that if you’re just starting out, try getting by without a VTT. Or use it sparingly. It isn’t mandatory. And if you’re already well into creeping doom, scale back.

These days, I use Fantasy Grounds just as a dice roller and a battle map. I don’t use it to track initiative or monster stats. I make my players call out the dice results to me so I don’t even have to look at the chat window if I don’t want to. As for the rest, I track everything the way I’ve been doing it for 30 years. The way I’m really good at.

I’m NOT saying that’s the best way for everyone. I’m NOT saying that’s the right way to do it. I’m saying you have to find your own best way. But if you start to feel burnt out or bored or frustrated or overworked, start by scaling back on the electronic tools because those things are most likely bogging your game down or pulling you out of it. And even if they aren’t THE problem, removing them might relieve enough of the mental load to buy you time to find the real problem. Just because something doesn’t fix all the problems doesn’t mean it won’t make things better.

Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that the communication and focus issues make it hard to run D&D without visual aids, I’d probably drop the VTT altogether. But because D&D is so visual and precise and because of the concentration and communication issues, I can’t go it. I’ve tried. I can do it. My players have trouble with it.

If I were starting a new, virtual game from scratch, I probably wouldn’t use D&D. D&D is just not good for the virtual space. Especially not the current edition. The virtual space has strengths and weaknesses. And it’s not a bad idea to build your online campaign around those strengths and weaknesses. Consider that, by removing your ability to see each other, online role-playing lets you focus more on immersing yourself in the narrative and on losing yourself in a character. If you just close your eyes and role-play, you can really get lost in another world. Fiddly bits and visual aids, though? Not really that great as add-ons for a telephone conversation. So, if you’re starting a new online game or if you’re burnt out on your current one, consider trying a new system that’s lighter on rules and precision and visuals and heavier on narrative and fantasy and social interaction. Maybe now’s the time to switch to the combat-light political intrigue game you’ve been thinking about for years.

After all, if we’re starting a real-life campaign and we know we’re going to have attendance problems and reliability issues, we don’t run an epic save-the-world-by-pulling-apart-the-ancient-conspiracy game. We run a dungeon-of-the-week game. We should be just as smart about designing our virtual games.