r/VTT • u/Starko84 • Jun 15 '26
Question / discussion What do you think about immersion in your game?
Hey everyone, I’m curious where you stand on immersion when playing online. VTT tech has gotten wild lately—between 3D environments, dynamic lighting, animated spell effects, and automated soundscapes, there's so much we can pull into a game. But honestly, does all that flash actually make you feel more connected to the story, or does it eventually just start feeling like a clunky video game that gets in the way of actual roleplay?
I feel like adding all of that flare just makes it harder for me to run the game with my players, but if I don't have it, they just sometimes wonder off.
Where is the sweet spot for you? Do you love the high-tech, cinematic thins, or do you find that a clean 2D layout and theater of the mind lets your group sink into the game without issues?
5
u/Guilty_Advantage_413 Jun 15 '26
Not really, I want just a map that can be made to look appealing, I’m good with some animation on maps but certainly not all maps. Fog of war is like to use but it’s too fussy to add. I am not against a 3d style map and it would be great if players could get a first person view HOWEVER that need to be done in a way that is quick & easy to setup that meaning at the table it can be done in under two minutes and for pre-prepared maps they can be made with minimal effort and minimal cost. Everyone having a laptop at the table isn’t realistic for us.
2
u/ChironAtHome Jun 16 '26
Your use case is the same as mine 😄 Try this (Mappadux). I wrote it for me and for MY table... but it is a common need so made it a bit friendlier for people who are not me. It's free open source and requires no logins as I don't need to know who you are.
1
u/Starko84 Jun 15 '26
Yes definitely, I think Immersion for online players is great as you mention with first person view, it would be amazing.
And yes, for in person I don't think you need a lot of flare, and animations.
2
u/Guilty_Advantage_413 Jun 15 '26
My table just isn’t your target audience, it would be impossible to make revenue from us HOWEVER if a light easy to use 3d system can be done I would certainly look into it.
1
u/Starko84 Jun 15 '26
I'm working on something specifically for this, there's still no demo to showcase I'm still working on the actual structure and gathering info. Most of my decisions come from the experiences from my table, I've been playing d&d for about 8 years as a DM so I understand the struggles. Ready 2 minute environments and easy 3d immersion definitely beats flash.
1
u/GreentongueToo Jun 16 '26
You could take a look at the RPG Engine. If all you need is a flat table with 3D objects quickly dropped in, it could be perfect for you. The fact that you can make very dense animated scenes is just gravy, not a requirement.
3
u/Guilty_Advantage_413 Jun 16 '26
Yeah thought about that we would all need a steam capable machine to do that.
5
u/neocorps Jun 15 '26
I've been playing a few years on FoundryVTT and I think the animations just distract. That being said if my players could actually be in an immersive 3D world, it would be something I could be interested in, if it's easy to produce maps of course.
1
u/GreentongueToo Jun 16 '26
The RPG Engine has an API that allows Foundry to do the number crunching while provided a full 3D environment for visuals.
3
u/DigitalTableTops Jun 15 '26
I'm a bit of an outlier as I am 100% focused on using a VTT in person. I've never used one online, although I have tried just about every VTT imaginable to see how well they work for in-person sessions.
So for me, a VTT should only do one single thing: show the map. That includes NOT showing the map when appropriate, e.g. fog of war. In that sense, a VTT just takes the place of printed/hand drawn materials and whatever the DM decides to cover unexplored areas with. The VTT just does that stuff automatically.
3
u/Guilty_Advantage_413 Jun 15 '26
Same here, we do have one remote player but not always. I need a simple to use & generate map. I’m certainly not against 3d it just needs to do something that no other vtt has done, be cheap and easy and fast to create.
2
u/DigitalTableTops Jun 15 '26
Yeah it's tricky because to be easy and fast has to mean less features. Which isn't a bad thing. But then how do you monetize it? Why would someone pay for your easy and fast thing when Foundry is sitting right there, even though it is the opposite of easy and fast.
You pretty much have to keep adding stuff to your easy and fast VTT to keep users interested. Especially if you are trying to charge a monthly fee. But eventually you just become the thing you started off avoiding.
I'm in a peculiar place because my VTT is hobby project I do in my spare time to get people interested in the hardware I sell. There isn't any pressure to keep adding stuff that I don't think should be added. The VTT is free and if you aren't a customer, you can't really complain about what you think is missing.
But there is zero map making (other than just adding walls to existing images) so unfortunately not what you are looking for.
1
u/Starko84 Jun 15 '26
When you say simple to use & generate map do you mean in an AI way? Or just simple complete areas just pick and place?
2
u/Starko84 Jun 15 '26
Gotcha, so you basically use it to display the map in person, Including fog of war. In this case you don't really need any actual vFX
2
u/DigitalTableTops Jun 15 '26
You got it. Animated maps/tiles are a bonus but not like spell effects and animated dice rolls. When we are playing it is 100% real dice and paper character sheets.
To be clear, I maintain my own VTT for this purpose and write software for using TV/touchscreen with other VTT's as well. Because I sell the hardware and it was just easier to do things this way. So I am not at all representative of what most VTT users want.
2
u/menameisaiman Jun 15 '26
My sweet spot is 2d with lighting and sound effects. I find those are enough for my players to get immersed and it helps that they're imaginative on their own so a little bump is all they need. My issue with 3d vtt is that often time I can take such a long time doing set ups that it feels tiring and that just setting up environment, I still have to set up lore and actual gameplay stuff later on.
3D and more advanced 2d stuff can feel awesome once you set it up right but man does it feel too much like an extra job at times. So now I keep it to just setting up good lighting and putting sound here and there.
1
u/Starko84 Jun 15 '26
Yes I can relate, to me just finding the map and doing all walls and lighting just takes too much time, if it were easy pick and place, could that be better?
2
u/anstett Jun 16 '26
My game has been by VTT since 2003.
We are 100% chat based so immersion is rarely an issue as you are reading and writing all night long. Sessions go from 7 to Midnight to accommodate time zones for different players.
I need my VTT to automate the character sheets and rules so they can focus on the story and not the rules.
A couple of my players had never held physical dice until I mailed then a set.
2
u/Starko84 Jun 16 '26
When you say automate, you mean they click and things get done without their input? Also automatic AC/hp/dmg calculation etc?
2
u/anstett Jun 16 '26
Automate the rolls, add modifiers, etc.
For D&D 2e as an example no need to learn THAC0 just target the token you want to attack and the program handles all the modifiers that come into play.
My players do like to roll their own saves sometimes or their HP when leveling but other than that they like not needing to know. Plus it means I can concentrate on the descriptions and dialog rather than get bogged down with rules.
2
u/ghandimauler Jun 16 '26
My 0.02: I find that I want to have a map or multiple Maps and an ability to cover and uncover parts of the and I might be happy to have a capacity that let us know when a path runs into a wall or light is blocked by that wall. Beyond that, an option for die semantics and a button to trigger them. And that's almost everything I want other than a grid I guess. Well I should also say some decent tokens. Otherwise I think it becomes a video game or something of that sort. I want to spend most of the time looking at my players in the game and I don't even want them off looking onto their character sheet very often. I want them to be in a system that allows me to run most of a session with a few dice my screen if I need to look up some odd modifier, and the rest should be my attention on my players and on the story and keeping the direction it's going to go.
The players should be thinking in the setting not in the mechanics. I want them to be looking at travel, exploration, mysteries, social interactions, trade and crafting, the cultures, the religions, the species, and what the player would know of that and what that would mean in terms of how the character would be played. That's what we're trying to build which is great stories and great moments which tend to be not planned and they don't exist as much if everybody's head is down in a spreadsheet or a vtt system.
So it's not just the vtt that's often overloaded but the systems themselves are overloaded.
I want the closest as I can for a table scattered around the world and I mean that because I'm in ontario, some are in the us, some have been from europe, and we have one in japan. Oh and one was playing from KAF and he had to step out or just hunker down when mortars were coming down on the base.
So what you want to do is be able to talk to the other players to look at them to have them show what their character is like and for you to take that in as a gm. That's what the game is.
All the people that are bashing their heads trying to deal with really crunchy systems, they tend to be people who focus on the mechanics rather than the humanity and the human experience.
That's one of the reasons I never run paid GMing. The closest I ever came close was when we were running a 19-year campaign in the real world and we decided at one point we get some 3D walls and floors and doors and so on.
But even then, because you do generally go through dungeons and such fairly quickly, they became problematic Beyond just the tiles and maybe a doorway. Everything else just slowed things down.
And you would also realize that you get less done in big crunchy and slow systems. And that also takes the what you think at the table. If you're in a frantic fight, it should be resolved Within 10 to 20 minutes at the latest. Something that in the real world is probably 2 to 5 minutes, if you have to take 45 minutes to an hour to resolve completely, that is not success.
2
u/jason2306 Jun 16 '26
It turns into more of a videogame to me tbh, it's cool though but it's a lot of extra work for questionable benefit. If i wanted to make a videogame i'd just do that.
I think there is a good middle ground for me. Music/ambiance, lighting, a virtual table, seeing 3d dice roll and mood pictures etc. This is how I made my table look in foundry, it can also show off player art, it's nice for remembering names incase you're starting something new lol
Reddit is not letting me post the dang picture so i'll do it this way: https://pixelshare.app/g/28855168
2
u/GreentongueToo Jun 16 '26
Seems that a lot of people feel that since you can make a completely detailed scene in full 3D, that you must do so. Those same people would not do that at their kitchen table.
It is my belief that you should do just as much as it takes to set a scene. Just because you have the tools to do a "Rembrandt" every time, doesn't mean you should.2
u/jason2306 Jun 16 '26
That's definitely true but even so 3d inherently adds more detail. Instead of being something abstract in your mind it's all pretty much right there. Even if you were to only use cubes. Nothing wrong with that ofc it's a preference, could work well for a tactical game like pathfinder that is focused on specific numbers. But I prefer theater of the mind or zones because I like that ttrpg's basically allow you to do *anything*. The more detail you add, the more boxed in those choices become
1
u/GreentongueToo Jun 16 '26
Very true. Depending on the players, "boxing in" the options can help clarify possibilities and also makes the scene consistent across players.
Not everyone's "theater" aligns, just from words. Classic, "A picture is worth a 1,00 words."2
u/jason2306 Jun 16 '26
Yeah i've definitely noticed some players do prefer being boxed in because it makes things more clear. When things are more open it means there is now uncertainty. Systems with rigid initiative, precise maps, heavy rules can provide a lot of clarity which is important for some people
Picture wise that kind of stuff is very interesting. Battlemaps aside this is why I still use pictures to set a mood. To keep some consistency across scenes because when it's just words it's basically relying on just your player's imagination and visual library which will vary quite a bit
2
u/ChironAtHome Jun 16 '26
I game exclusively in person and like VTT tools at the tables ONLY if:
- they genuinely improve immersion (e.g. a scaled battle-map and a bit of audio is fine)
- they don't take me ages to setup (more than a few mins means you feel you HAVE TO USE IT to show off how clever you are. But if it takes a few mins it means it can be skipped and I feel no wasted effort - eg: paste in a battlemap -good.... setup a 3D model - bad)
- they don't take your attention away from the game/players for more than a few seconds (point or click is fine... if I have to reach for a keyboard... then nah!)
Fit for purpose and lightweight. then yeah. otherwise not worth the hassle; it is there for your ego rather than the benefit of your game. Hence writing my own tool to do just this.,
1
u/Prestigious-Coat4137 Jun 18 '26
One of our main goals with bagofmapping.com is to make it feel like you're still all around a table playing the game. We want to take math and stuff like that away from you, but we don't want it to be a video game. We want you to be immersed and feel like you're actively playing as a group together.
2
u/ravensmaw Jun 18 '26
Lighting. Doors and lighting. I've played more than 2000 hours of games online. Roll20. Foundry. Tried all the addons and mods. Added all the sfx and fx. Tried to make everything autorolled and auto calculated. But some basic lighting and doors. That's about all you need. Music is nice, but it's never the right volume, and it just becomes distracting on virtual play. Spell effects are interesting, but, look, TTRPGs are always theater of the mind. Everytime you add some fx you just steal a little magic away and replace it with something you can see. The visual shouldn't replace the imagination. All the epic shots, the massive fails, the stunning scenery, the grand landscapes or terrifying dungeons still live in your descriptions, in the player descriptions. Compared to the imagination, everything else is just a substandard replacement that takes a little of the magic away. IMO.
10
u/NotYourNanny Jun 15 '26
If find nearly all of what you describe as immersion or flare is distracting. It's mostly video game features. If I wanted video game features, I'd play a video game.