The Old Man and the VTT

My Twilight: 2000 campaign has been going for a little over a year now. The characters, consisting largely of US soldiers caught behind enemy lines after the disastrous Battle of Kalisz (July 9–18, 2000), have recently been spending their time in the Free City of Kraków. There, they regrouped and plotted a course to head westward and into (presumably) NATO-held territory. In last night's session, they finally executed that plan and are now following the course of the Vistula River. hoping it will eventually lead them to the Baltic Sea and, from there, to friendlier places (there are rumors that the forces of the Free Polish Congress – an anti-Soviet government-in-exile – have a presence in the region). It will be interesting to see how the campaign unfolds in the months to come.

At the same time the new edition of Twilight: 2000 was released, Free League also released a virtual tabletop module for use with The Foundry. Because I was a supporter of the crowdfunding campaign for this edition, as part of my rewards I received a code that gave me access to the VTT module and I decided that, since this campaign would be online, I might as well make use of it. Or perhaps I should say attempt to make use of it, because it's been something of an uphill battle for me to try and do so with any facility. Indeed, more than a few of our weekly sessions have been spent trying to figure out how to use the VTT to handle this or that aspect of the game's rules.

Now, as readers undoubtedly know, my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign, just a few months shy of its eighth anniversary, has been an entirely online campaign since its inception in March 2015. At the beginning, we made use of Google Hangouts (now called Google Meet, I believe) to communicate with one another during each session, though we eventually abandoned it in favor of Discord at some point. The House of Worms server has a dicebot for handling random rolls, though some players occasionally make use of real dice, which they roll and whose results they then report verbally. We also use of Jamboard to do quick sketches of things like maps when necessary. 

As you can see, the House of Worms campaign is rather technologically unsophisticated, particularly when you compare it to what's available to roleplayers today. However, it works very well for us and there's never been the slightest suggestion that we ought to adopt something more elaborate. I suspect the fact that we're playing a game as simple and straightforward as 1975 EPT probably has something to do with that, as does the fact that almost all of the players, myself included, are middle-aged men in our 50s who are very comfortable with "theater of the mind" roleplaying.

The new edition of Twilight: 2000 makes use of special dice and its hexcrawl through post-war Poland campaign frame means that having a map available to all the players is important. There's also the fact that many aspects of its rules, like combat or keeping track of supplies, demand a higher degree of attention than does EPT. Certainly, one could play Twillight: 2000 without recourse to electronic assistance; were my players seated around my dining room table rather than scattered across the globe, I would probably do so. Playing online, though, this is a bit more onerous, which is why I decided to take the plunge with the Foundry.

The experience, as I have already noted, has not been wholly salutary. Some of this is no doubt a consequence of my being unfamiliar with The Foundry and its byzantine intricacies. It's a fairly robust VTT, with lots of bells and whistles. That it would take some getting used to is inevitable. Likewise, even after a year of play, there are still elements of the game's rules, like combat, that we're still learning and that, too, probably contributes to our ongoing difficulties in using the VTT to its full potential – and there's a lot of potential there. The mere fact that character sheets are always available online is terrific, since no player can ever misplace his sheet and, should a player be absent, his character can still participate in the action if necessary. There are many other truly useful and timesaving benefits to The Foundry.

Consequently, I find myself wondering each week whether using a VTT is worth all the trouble I encounter attempting to use one. From what I gather, large numbers of roleplayers make use of them in their gaming, so many, in fact, that many game companies now devote resources to producing modules for their RPGs and adventures. For many roleplayers in their 20s and even 30s, the use of a virtual tabletop is increasingly de rigueur. Likewise, each new iteration of these VTTs and the modules used with them include more features and options, right down to the automation of many aspects of gameplay. Perhaps it's simply my age talking, but I don't much care for this. To my mind, this comes dangerously close to aping video games and I see little point in that.

I intend to keep soldiering on (no pun intended) with The Foundry in my Twilight: 2000 campaign, because I'd like to give it a fair shake before passing final judgment. And, as I said, there are a few elements of the VTT that even I, a cantankerous old Luddite, find worthwhile. For the moment, though, my judgment on the whole thing is mixed to negative and it will take a fair bit to convince me that the hobby is better because of this innovation.