I can't find a good game :(

[SangoProduction]

(Sorry if this is a bit of a rant; the questions are at the bottom. A bit of frustration going on here.)

I keep joining new games in Roll20, and each time I do, they seem to either be really damned boring, or there's that one guy who is completely insufferable, and thinks he's the god gracing us with his presence and deserves to be worshiped by the party for being uber1337haxor. (Not to shove all the blame on others, I have made a couple characters that are just plain boring, but I couldn't change characters.) And the maybe 2 campaigns I haven't had this problem in the past year with were killed by people just repeatedly not showing up.

I even tried to run my own campaign. I'm not a great GM, but I know GMing well enough and have a strong grasp on the rules. We have to cycle in a new player each session, because someone ups and leaves with no explanation! Twice it's happened literally right before the next session started! Like, I'm asking for any complaints or comments. I'm trying to be evocative with the descriptions while keeping it concise.

I don't know what the deal is! I've had 2,000 hours in roll20, and I've never had such a hard time finding an enjoyable group. This feels terrible. I really, really hate leaving games, because it feels like I'm entering an agreement to play by signing up for it. But, the games I enter in to are so unsatisfying!

How do I find better groups? How do I make myself enjoy the groups better?

[Elkad]

I'm in a single roll20 game (my first one). 4 players+GM

First fight of the first session our Beguiler wasted all his spells trying and failing to keep his mule from running away, and then disconnected. Never to return, so we replaced him. He had seemed OK up till then.

One player is annoying. He thinks he's optimizing, but he just isn't good at it. I can live with that. But he's a coward. Not the character, the player. I thought it was maybe just the character, but then we had a TPK and all rerolled. Same thing. He's convinced we are going to lose every fight, and always wants to run away. Even worse, he wastes time trying to get us to join his minecraft server or something else wildly OOC nearly every session. He says he's been playing since 1983, but then in the background we hear his Mom bringing him hotpockets.

The other 2 players are great. I hope they think the same about me.
And the DM is outstanding.

Which makes it worth putting up with the annoying guy.

Maybe I just got lucky? I dunno. I watched the available games for months before I applied for one.

[Anxe]

I think that's just part of the experience when you play with strangers. I started by playing with my friends and am still with the same group many years later. If you have a friend/group of friends that's open to playing I'd suggest that as a fix. Even if they've never played before.

If that doesn't cut it. Make a list of the non-flakey people from the groups you've joined in Roll20. Invite them to a campaign that you run.

[Spore]

Of course you have to enjoy it. But I think you expect people who you could make best friends with at your virtual table. This is not always possible. Maybe bring up your concerns. But also adjust your expectations a little. Good luck out there. I for one am still too shy to try roll20 but I am desperate for some D&D action -,-

[Mordaedil]

We have a game on roll20 that we run between a bunch of us that met on NWN years back. I think you're better off playing with people you've met elsewhere rather than joining random games on roll20 directly.

No offense, but I dunno if I'd play with many from this board personally. Maybe Jay R, he seems to have the kind of games I like in mind.

[Swaoeaeieu]

Roll20 is a lotery, i joined 2 games that crashed after the first game. Then found a game that went from level 3 to 20. Through that group i met a nice group of folks who i joined for more campaigns and other online games and am now good friends with.

I think i got lucky, but it seems like its just a matter of trying to join fun games.

[Darth Ultron]

This is a normal problem with ''stranger'' groups, both online and in real life.

For the most part, all you can do is keep trying group after group after group after group after group until one just stays.

People will always disappear. It's normal for pre game you will find dozens of people that want to play, and maybe even have a first game. Then..poof...people vanish. And you can't really screen for this.

You can screen for bad players, players you won't get along with and over all bad people. The same way you can screen games. Try and avoid the trap of just playing in a game as it's open.

Sadly there is no common social place for gamers. Once Upon a Time Wizards had one, but that was long, long ago.

[RoboEmperor]

All I can say is, on roll20, it's 100% about the DM. If it's a good DM its gonna be a great group. If it's an inexperienced DM, noob DM, etc. its gonna fall apart really quickly, either because the DM quits because the game bores him because it didn't go the way he wanted it to, or because he uses d&d rules as "guidelines" and tries to recreate whatever it is he wants to do, be it his own original fantasy story (too many DMPCs), lord of the rings (railroad), some obscure novel series no one read (ludicrous amounts of bad house rules, like you need to consult with peers for a week to level up), or the players get bored of the character they are playing and just leave, because the DM failed to make the game fun.

I had my share of bad players, but they are swapped out with good ones if and only if the DM knows what hes doing.

If you're the DM, look for players who want to do stuff. A player who wants to do cooking in game and asks for a lot of stuff regarding cooking, a player who wants to be the hulk, a player who wants to be the most renown dancer, etc., because it is these players who will get really into the RP, never miss a session, and stick to the end.

People who treat the game like Skyrim, NWN, or Baldur's gate are the ones that tend to leave.

[SangoProduction]

If you're the DM, look for players who want to do stuff. A player who wants to do cooking in game and asks for a lot of stuff regarding cooking, a player who wants to be the hulk, a player who wants to be the most renown dancer, etc., because it is these players who will get really into the RP, never miss a session, and stick to the end.

OK. I'll try adding that and see if it changes anything next time.

[Hal0Badger]

Roll20 is like that unfortunately, but I had stable groups over the past few years. As others mentioned, it mostly depends on the DM, since people rarely know each other at roll20.

What time zone are you in?

[Arael666]

My problem is that I can't find any game in my language (Portuguese). I can play in English, but I always have the feeling of being constricted or that I'm not expressing myself very well.... I solved that issue a few times by playing a "foreigner" who's still learning common, but that gets old really quick.

[Jay R]

By definition, the groups with lots of churn will be looking for players most often. So the odds are that's what you'll find.

Imagine the ideal game you want to find - a good DM, dependable players, stable, consistent sessions. Why would they be looking for another player?

So, yes, finding random games with strangers works about as well as any random process, except that the dice are far more likely to give you the dysfunctional game that loses a player every session - just because they are looking for a new player every session.

So keep trying. There are good games - they're just harder to find.

[And the best way to find players you enjoy playing with is still looking through your friends for potential players, rather than looking through random groups of players for potential friends.]

[martixy]

(Sorry if this is a bit of a rant; the questions are at the bottom. A bit of frustration going on here.)

I keep joining new games in Roll20, and each time I do, they seem to either be really damned boring, or there's that one guy who is completely insufferable, and thinks he's the god gracing us with his presence and deserves to be worshiped by the party for being uber1337haxor. (Not to shove all the blame on others, I have made a couple characters that are just plain boring, but I couldn't change characters.) And the maybe 2 campaigns I haven't had this problem in the past year with were killed by people just repeatedly not showing up.

I even tried to run my own campaign. I'm not a great GM, but I know GMing well enough and have a strong grasp on the rules. We have to cycle in a new player each session, because someone ups and leaves with no explanation! Twice it's happened literally right before the next session started! Like, I'm asking for any complaints or comments. I'm trying to be evocative with the descriptions while keeping it concise.

I don't know what the deal is! I've had 2,000 hours in roll20, and I've never had such a hard time finding an enjoyable group. This feels terrible. I really, really hate leaving games, because it feels like I'm entering an agreement to play by signing up for it. But, the games I enter in to are so unsatisfying!

How do I find better groups? How do I make myself enjoy the groups better?

I tried roll20 some time ago, suffered precisely as you did, then simply gave up. My experience has been that it isn't worth it.
It suffers from all the regular problems of online gaming, but requires so much more of its participants, who rarely, if ever, are able to deliver.

Now I just bide my time till I can start my own campaign properly with my regular group of real-life friends. (Fingers crossed for the next 2 weeks.)

I guess my suggestion in all of this is try to find games with people who you see face to face. FLGSs and stuff. Even if it's still random, real life strangers still have a higher chance of turning out better than internet strangers.

[Zanos]

I've been in quite a few 3.5 games on roll20, and the best DM I've found so far gets drunk off his ass. Thankfully usually not while DMing. His resulting rants about the democrats, Jews, the deep state, and 9/11 being a false flag attack are pretty funny. Our last encounter was with 5 advanced bodaks with over 300 HP each and DC 24 fear gazes forcing 5 fort saves per round from unprotected players. Two people died. The other people all either had death ward or were otherwise immune to death effects. Two encounters ago was flying were-rat ogre frenzied berserkers who were immune to death from HP damage.

Here's him actually DMing drunk.

So yeah, Roll20 requires some blunting of your expectations.

I did find a "good" oWoD Vampire game on there with fun players, but that eventually collapsed because the ST's very railroady style(could make a whole post about that honestly), but another guy in the group who's cool started up a Dark Ages Vampire game which has been pretty good so far.

[RoboEmperor]

Another roll20 game failure >.<

DM was a complete noob, he would lecture us that our party composition was terrible, saying we lacked a healer and a blaster. Right... like healbots and blasters are mandatory D&D entities, and when I pointed out that he was wrong he got really mad.

One of our new players was also very into her backstory, and the DM just flat out made the most instrumental character in her backstory into a main villain who butchered an entire city's population. It upset her very much because it totally ruined her backstory. You don't do stuff like that without getting an OK from the player.

Eventually, I noticed that he was also... not very bright. He graded us on teamwork, and according to him, a BFC wizard + psion dividing up the battlefield while buffing the party barbarian to deal damage =/= teamwork. A BFC wizard is the very definition of teamwork. In addition, he believed RP was just talking a lot instead of staying in character. Strong Silent type that let his actions speak for himself is a concept completely foreign to him. I was genuinely surprised when he said I did 0 RP that session, and when I voiced my disagreement and told him of my past success with this type of character, he got really mad.

Also, when I pointed out that enlarge person doesn't stack, he got really mad and declared it as homebrew, and told me never to correct him ever again.

He seemed like a nice guy at first, but in the end his incompetence and petty anger started to show, and I left the game because I realized I'll have to deal with his BS for over a year if I stuck around, the kind where if you voice your disagreement, he brings in the DM card and shuts you up. He acts like he's always right. Last session he made up some BS about having a 2nd DM watch over the session just so he can pretend that his view is the consensus among several DMs, not just his opinion. How do I know he was lying? Well we were all on skype chat, and the "2nd DM" didn't make a single peep when we could hear his wife and baby, and at the end he didn't say hi or hello when the DM revealed his "existence". When he said he was gonna punish me for not RPing, I left because having someone i don't respect who lies through his teeth and acts like my superior would ruin my mood everyday.

This is the end of my roll20 experience. Its just impossible to have a good game because of noob DMs who don't know what they're doing, not only mechanically. I'm now fully convinced that the DM has to be the best player in the group for the group to work. This is actually a first for me to leave a game because the DM doesn't know what teamwork or roleplay is. I'm also now fully convinced you can't have a good d&d game unless you are playing with real life friends instead of strangers.

Anyways, good luck to you OP, hope roll20 works for you.

[SirNibbles]

Make sure everyone knows what kind of game to expect before starting.

Talk to the DM and the the other players to see what they are looking for.

Most people are pretty flexible but preferences still exist- I made a few threads polling what sort of way people prefer to play and there was quite significant variation, with some people wanting polar opposites on quite important aspects of the game. If everyone is expecting a different experience, the DM isn't going to be able to please anyone, especially if he doesn't know what everyone is expecting.

The threads in question:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...-do-you-prefer
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...refer-(Part-2)
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...refer-(Part-3)

P.S. I'm still looking for a 'Merchants and Wagons' campaign.

True - but most campaigns just hand-wave that stuff because it's kinda boring unless you want to play M&W (Merchants & Wagons) instead of D&D.

[denthor]

Your still in a better place then I am tried to start a game going on 1 month now no interest

Was asked to join a game 6 members dropped the same week all six heard it was me joining all six said better they show up rather than have me join a game they did not want to play in.

[evangaline]

I've dmmed over 500 hours of dnd 3.5 and maybe 30 hours of godbound on roll 20. In this time I am very proud to admit I have only had 2 (out of 9) players leave. The remaining seven players became good* friends of mine.
*I still frequently play games with them.

In my opionion there are 8 things that really impact the probabilty of players staying:
1. The age of the player: You are probably looking for players of the same (mental?) age.
2. The real life commitments of the player: Students or adults without jobs are less likely to leave. More commitments = less time for your game.
3. The amount and the quality of OOC chatting in between games: the saying "out of mind, out of heart" is also true for DnD games.
4. The quality of the DM: Dm-skill directy correlates to game quality.
5. The fit between the player and the DM: You dont like the DM, you leave.
6. The fit between the player and the game-type: ditto.
7. The fit between the player and the other players: ditto.
8. The amount of influence the player has on the narrative vs the amount of narrative they want: some people want to be partly railroaded, some absolutely detest it.
This information is a summary of a completely accurate and imaginary research project.

On the other side, my experience as a player in roll20 is absolutely dreadful. I have joined 6 games which all lasted less then 3 sessions. Dm's just disapear.

[SangoProduction]

I've dmmed over 500 hours of dnd 3.5 and maybe 30 hours of godbound on roll 20. In this time I am very proud to admit I have only had 2 (out of 9) players leave. The remaining seven players became good* friends of mine.
*I still frequently play games with them.

In my opionion there are 8 things that really impact the probabilty of players staying:
1. The age of the player: You are probably looking for players of the same (mental?) age.
2. The real life commitments of the player: Students or adults without jobs are less likely to leave. More commitments = less time for your game.
3. The amount and the quality of OOC chatting in between games: the saying "out of mind, out of heart" is also true for DnD games.
4. The quality of the DM: Dm-skill directy correlates to game quality.
5. The fit between the player and the DM: You dont like the DM, you leave.
6. The fit between the player and the game-type: ditto.
7. The fit between the player and the other players: ditto.
8. The amount of influence the player has on the narrative vs the amount of narrative they want: some people want to be partly railroaded, some absolutely detest it.
This information is a summary of a completely accurate and imaginary research project.

On the other side, my experience as a player in roll20 is absolutely dreadful. I have joined 6 games which all lasted less then 3 sessions. Dm's just disapear.

Cool. I will see what I can't do to implement those in the application process.

[FreddyNoNose]

Cool. I will see what I can't do to implement those in the application process.

I would recommend taking the long term view of it. When you play with someone who you value in groups you play with or DM, try to build a list of these players and over time, you should have a list of people you like to play with. It seems like the only way with this situation.

[SangoProduction]

I would recommend taking the long term view of it. When you play with someone who you value in groups you play with or DM, try to build a list of these players and over time, you should have a list of people you like to play with. It seems like the only way with this situation.

yeah, good point.

[Nupo]

He says he's been playing since 1983, but then in the background we hear his Mom bringing him hotpockets.

Thanks for the laugh. The sad part is he's probably telling the truth.

[FreddyNoNose]

I'm in a single roll20 game (my first one). 4 players+GM

First fight of the first session our Beguiler wasted all his spells trying and failing to keep his mule from running away, and then disconnected. Never to return, so we replaced him. He had seemed OK up till then.

One player is annoying. He thinks he's optimizing, but he just isn't good at it. I can live with that. But he's a coward. Not the character, the player. I thought it was maybe just the character, but then we had a TPK and all rerolled. Same thing. He's convinced we are going to lose every fight, and always wants to run away. Even worse, he wastes time trying to get us to join his minecraft server or something else wildly OOC nearly every session. He says he's been playing since 1983, but then in the background we hear his Mom bringing him hotpockets.

The other 2 players are great. I hope they think the same about me.
And the DM is outstanding.

Which makes it worth putting up with the annoying guy.

Maybe I just got lucky? I dunno. I watched the available games for months before I applied for one.

A few years ago I was at the grocery store when in the frozen food section, I see the legendary hotpockets on sale. So I decided I wanted to see what they were like. Yuck. Never again.

[FreddyNoNose]

yeah, good point.

I wish you the best. I have never played roll20 but I hear some good things.

[RoboEmperor]

Another tip for the DM would be "Combat first, roleplay second."

I was thinking about all of my successful campaigns i was in v.s. all the failures, and the failures had roleplay first instead of combat. The end result was, it took months, maybe even 2 months to gain 1 level up, progress of the campaign is grindingly slow, and the game falls apart because it took to long. There is a difference between a game where you have an encounter once every 2 sessions, once every session, and 4 times in one session. People here spend 1-2 hours every session finding shops or searching for bedding.

On the contrary, games where it was mainly about clearing a dungeon or ridding villains in cities were significantly quicker paced, and the roleplay happened in player-player interactions, and to progress a quest, either to get more information or get into combat positions. People here didn't waste more than 5minutes on shop searching or finding bedding, and always had their focus on their objectives.

I'm not saying turn the game into a xp grind fest like videogames, I'm saying constant combat should always be on the DM's mind. War of the Burning Sky I believe is a very good adventure path and the combat-roleplay ratio spelled out in that path is excellent.

[Anxe]

Another tip for the DM would be "Combat first, roleplay second."

I was thinking about all of my successful campaigns i was in v.s. all the failures, and the failures had roleplay first instead of combat. The end result was, it took months, maybe even 2 months to gain 1 level up, progress of the campaign is grindingly slow, and the game falls apart because it took to long. There is a difference between a game where you have an encounter once every 2 sessions, once every session, and 4 times in one session. People here spend 1-2 hours every session finding shops or searching for bedding.

On the contrary, games where it was mainly about clearing a dungeon or ridding villains in cities were significantly quicker paced, and the roleplay happened in player-player interactions, and to progress a quest, either to get more information or get into combat positions. People here didn't waste more than 5minutes on shop searching or finding bedding, and always had their focus on their objectives.

I'm not saying turn the game into a xp grind fest like videogames, I'm saying constant combat should always be on the DM's mind. War of the Burning Sky I believe is a very good adventure path and the combat-roleplay ratio spelled out in that path is excellent.

I think that's more of a personal preference thing. I and many others enjoy the same type of pacing you described, but not everyone does. Going back to what others have said, establishing what's desired by everyone in the group is a good step towards having a stable group of players.

[Yogibear41]

Been playing on Roll 20 for several years with the same DM, who I use to play with in real life, but he moved away. For the most part me and him are the only constant, players seems to come and go like a revolving door, sometimes they stick around for a few months before something comes up IRL, sometimes they bail after a few weeks. Some of the times its for legit scheduling issues, other times for the lack of a better word they get "butt-hurt" because things don't get bent over backwards to suit their idea of how the game should be played, or they do something incredibly stupid, then get mad when it has in game consequences, often times blowing up not only in their faces but the other player's faces as well. The thing about roll 20 is its easy come easy go, people don't have alot to lose by jumping into a game, acting like a jerk, then leaving because they can just jump into a new game that easily. Another thing that never ceases to amaze me is just how bad some people are at the game, don't get me wrong I'm not a super optimizer or anything, one of my favorite classes/concepts to play is probably the Anti-Paladin or one of its many variants. But ive seen guys playing stuff like unarmed vow of poverty swashbucklers that essentially almost died every combat because they couldn't do anything, or level 5 characters almost dying to a few level 1 human skeletons because they continue to try to kill them with shortswords instead of carrying a light mace or something simple like that. Players come and go but the campaign world continues on.


As far as other games go me and my DM have joined a few others as players so we could play together as fellow players instead of as Player/DM and essentially every time the games have been a bust. Sometimes they are better than others, most of the time the biggest flaw with them are the DMs do stuff that just doesn't make any sense. I remember one game we were playing in we were all level 1, we were trying to rob a place and the DM told us there was a guard on literally every street corner in the entire town, we were like there is no way, but okay and we went with it. The next week in the same game I was perched up in a building on the 2nd floor looking to cause a bit of mayhem just for the heck of it, so I told the DM im going to shoot the first guard I see with my Crossbow and then hide just to screw with him. (I was playing a rogue whisper gnome so my hide was insane, not to mention cover/distance bonuses) My character sat there for hours before a guard finally walked by, even though the week before they were on every street corner...... Not to mention the DM decided he would roll his own dice at home and not use the in game rolling, because he almost always rolled max damage on his weapon hits...... how convenient for him.

[EldritchWeaver]

Your still in a better place then I am tried to start a game going on 1 month now no interest

Was asked to join a game 6 members dropped the same week all six heard it was me joining all six said better they show up rather than have me join a game they did not want to play in.

What kind of rep do you have that no-one wants to have you in their group?

[RoboEmperor]

I think that's more of a personal preference thing. I and many others enjoy the same type of pacing you described, but not everyone does. Going back to what others have said, establishing what's desired by everyone in the group is a good step towards having a stable group of players.

It might be a coincidence but all the slower paced games I joined were usually run by noob DMs.

The DMs that house rule "On an attack roll of 1, your weapon drops/flies off/stabs your foot or face/etc." are the ones that do the slower pace. The DMs that include an ungodly amount of homebrew and instead of bothering to read the rules, they make up whatever makes sense for them on the spot are the ones that go for the slower pace. "Rules are just guidelines that I can change at will" are the DMs that prefer the slower pace. DMs that never played a game involving characters above level 10 were the ones that preferred the slower pace.

I base this on 4 slower paced games I played on roll20, and every single one of them were failures for these reasons.

The successful campaigns I was in (outside roll20) had DMs who stuck by RAW. 0 house rules, 0 homebrew, and had a "no nonsense" attitude. They did not DM for the lulz or hilarity when your character stabs himself on a roll of 1, they did not intentionally set off the frenzied barbarian by making them stub their toe on a rock, they pretty much stuck to premade adventure paths or designed original campaigns using a similar model. The fun was from overcoming enemies in combat, or using RP to accomplish objectives like successfully using charm, diplomacy, or sense motive to save people enslaved by charm or to successfully escape a lockdowned town without killing anyone, not using RP for 2 hours to deal with loot or hunger problems.

Iunno, I'm just sharing my experience. 4 games is hardly a good sample, but it is alarming to me that all 4 with different DMs all had very similar traits. My last DM, I was complaining about how that "on a roll of 1 drop your weapon" house rule needlessly punished frontliners and made the gap between caster and mundane wider, and he said he liked that rule and put it in his game. It was no surprise afterwards when i learned he was a noob DM that ruined player's backstories, took away their wealth, and thought healbots and blasters were mandatory d&d entities.

It just feels like the better the DM they are, the more they stick to RAW, combat, or RP that nets XP, while the worse DMs ignore RAW, make their own rules, and requires 2-4 hours of RP just to accomplish basic stuff, objectives forever remain unaccomplished by being either very vague, very big picture, or no time since we all waste too much time on the basic stuff.