Screen Time

 

GM preparation is a thing, both artistically and mechanically and with the Black Death still upon us the electronic world continues to demand its due. More accurately as a GM I am familiar enough with Roll20 now having use it for the Warhammer, Star Trek and the tongue in cheek 5e Brighthelm adventures but as I suspected the management of RPG digital assets, just like in any digital artwork job really, is extraordinarily time consuming. In a sense it shouldn't matter as the imagination should be the only canvas but a commitment to everyone staring at their screens means that the players should really have something to look at. Like most things in life it will be a matter of expediency I think and so I am happy enough to put images in front of players in terms of thematics but instancing any particular moment is going to come down to scrawly mouse writing. As I am running a Planescape, set scenes will be hard to come by as the party could potentially be going anywhere.

There is of course another slippery slope on the roll20 approach as from the moment  you are moving icons across a screen you are, by definition playing a computer game. It is a matter of necessity these days so any criticism will be unfair but I sense its already stretching club patience as some of us never engaged initially with on line play and as time has gone by there are those choosing to take a break from staring at the screen.

For now we will make the most of the tools we have and do what we can to fire the spirit. It will be interesting to test the medium against a traditional approach as a GM but hopefully this will be the last rotation before daylight reminds us to shave out beards regularly once more.