As I’m writing this, I’m playing in a game of Savage Worlds using Roll20.
Having a way to game during Covid quarantine has been nice, although to me, online RPGs pale in comparison to in-person gaming.
Like, I actually kind of hate playing on Roll20.
I think this is for the following reasons;
- The audio on Roll20 just goes out at random times, requiring a reload of the page and logging back in again.
- Many people who use Roll20, turn off the audio and use Discord for audio instead. Which is fucking ridiculous that you need two different applications to do something that should be simple.
- For Savage Worlds, there are a lot of exploding dice that need to be rolled. This can get VERY tiresome when you have to type /roll+1d10!+1d6!+2+1d8! and if you forget to put in one of those ! then you’re fucked and have to do it again. It really removes any semblance of immersion.
- Some rolls are easily included as a simple button on your character sheet. This is a nice feature.
- To get to your character sheet, though, you have to switch away from the chat/dice rolling feed, then you have to switch back to see the result of your roll. Which is annoying.
- My character is always twice as large as everyone else and has to be resized at the start of each session by the Referee because I apparently have no power to do that.
- In Savage Worlds, having minions, henchmen, and “extras,” is a part of the game. Unfortunately, they don’t have character sheets. So you’re back to writing out long strings of exploding dice rolls.
Now, most of these issues are minor or just annoying. The shit is free for fuck’s sake so I shouldn’t be complaining, right?
Well, voting is free and I complain about that shit as well, so…
Anyway
We’ve been playing this campaign on and off for a decade. The setting is Sundered Skies, which is a lot like the first world in The Death Gate Cycle; floating islands in a sky realm with magical ships sailing between islands.
It’s a rad setting and it’s been a great campaign.
Plus it’s always nice to be a player instead of a Judge/Referee/DM/GM, ya know?
Like I said, I’m writing this as we are playing. The Ref just described an elf with a bronze cock that shoots fiery comets that turn into elementals when he strokes it.