It's not just being able to play with distant friends. Buddy moved to New York and we could maybe play with him once every couple years if he came back for Christmas. Now we game every week. But we also have a player who cares for immunocompromised folks who would not have been able to join us in person, but he is there every week too.
Another great episode, Jon and Seth! Online role playing has been wonderful for me since 2017, since much of my gaming friends have moved or gotten busy with life and such, and of course Covid. Love screen capturing shared screens during play. Great for later reference. Also a huge fan of side chat during play to work instead of side whispering when GM is addressing so other player. Agreed as well with benefit with camera use. Helps add to actually playing with people sense, instead of SkyNet synthetics which I know is the next step from computerized dice rolling, lol! Long time player of Call of Cthulhu, but WOW, Loving the heck out of Alien now as well!! Long Love Modern Mythos!!!
I'm a little frustrated with my online group. Nobody wants cameras and myself and the GM are the only ones who will use voice. The others will type. I feel like this makes the game move very slowly and I'm always worried about overshadowing the other players because they take more time to respond. At the same time I have no idea if they're wanting to respond at a particular point or if they're even paying attention. I'm working on finding a group to play with in person now. Hopefully soon, I'll have more fast paced, immersive games.
A mania for flowers can come from therapeutic gardening at an asylum. Flowers are the things that keep you sane. a Totem, you keep a flower in your lapell at all times since it will keep you safe from monsters and you grow flowers at home each free surface has a potted plant on it and further bouts of insanity will mean flight back to the garden if its near enough or planting seeds carried in their pocket right then and there.
If you want to see a VTT that is getting better and better by the day, Foundry VTT. It keeps improving and the entry bar is much lower. And they are working to add in a lot of official books to them. Free League is good for that, they have Foundry support for almost all their books.
Dice are not good storytellers. There are dicerollomaniacs, though for those I think the fully automated dice roll systems can be a cure, as it wastes less time on the dice rolls, and thus give more time for role-playing. There is a grey zone between playing a CRPG (Defined as a computer game using RPG-like stats and/or character sheet, but no role-play need to be included!) and a real RPG: The MOG (Multiplayer Online Game) creeps in on the virtual TTRPG, making it easier for the roleplayofobic.
