Mom’s Making Toll House
Today’s comic isn’t about roleplaying games. It’s about things that aren’t roleplaying games. I’m talking about the marginalia of the hobby. Think snacks and drinks. The pause for meal breaks. The lighting conditions and seating arrangements. All the observers too: the might-wanna-play boyfriends; harried get-these-nerds-out-of-my-house spouses; or curious parents hovering in the background and wondering why there’s so much shouting coming from down in the basement. All these things can affect the experience of the game, from mom’s distraction-cookies to dogs stealing those cookies.
This biz is on my mind because of my academic work. While interviewing actual players about the games they play and the media they produce, the theme of “practical considerations” came up again and again. Weirdly, it was the sudden shift in venue that made this stuff so visible. With COVID forcing many of my interviewees to game remotely (it was a year ago when I interviewed them), they became hyper-aware of the differences between in-person and remote gaming.
So for your consideration, the following is a lightly edited excerpt from my dissertation.
“We’re living in pandemic times,” they said, “We don’t get to move around the table so much. In Twitch times, everyone stays as still as they possibly can.” That lack of motion is a nod to technological necessity. If you want to game for the camera, you have to stay in frame. In this way, the technology begins to control and shape human movement. The familiar freedom of physical expression is constrained, and that constraint can feel restrictive.
This is the theme of ‘practical considerations.’ Made up of multiple minor complaints, the overall impact on the gaming experience is cumulative and substantial. One actual player brought up the issue of bio-breaks. “You still have to take a break and you know, use the bathroom and refill your water.” With marathon sessions running up against human needs, another discovered that actual plays and home games tend to differ in length. “I’ve always found that an actual play, when it’s being televised and streamed for an audience, that if you’re running over that two hour mark that the game has this real dip in energy and intensity and intention. Whereas a home game that’s not being viewed—that’s not performative—because that level of heightened energy isn’t necessary, it can go six, eight, or twelve hours.” Meanwhile, another of my interviewees complained about the lack of communication in remote gameplay. “Body language doesn’t translate as well. Tone doesn’t translate as well.” This was a popular complaint, as creature comforts disappeared from the experience. “In a virtual game,” reported one GM, “Nobody is drinking; nobody is snacking. You’re conscious that you’re on camera, that you’re being recorded. You’ll still joke around and still enjoy the game, and yell and scream and laugh and all of that. But you don’t want to blow your nose. You want to make sure that you’re not wearing a shirt with a stain on it, so you’re more self-conscious.” The relaxed atmosphere of the home game is replaced by the demands of mediation.
Before you get up in arms to defend remote play, understand that this is no knock against VTTs and virtual gaming. It’s more of a recognition that there are barriers to be overcome as folks begin to explore those venues.
The reason I bring it here before my fellow hobbyists is simple: I’d like to know what kinds of “practical considerations” stand in the way of your game night. Do you have non-players distracting the party, like Jeremy’s mom in today’s comic? Maybe you’ve got a mixed table, where some folks are present and others have to phone in? Maybe there are kids in the mix, and you’ve got to trade off with a partner every week so one of you can play? Whatever it may be, I’d like you to pause and consider what gets in the way of the flow of your own game night. And once you recognize that, can you think of any way to mitigate it?
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So, how long until Bard starts dating Fighters Dragon Mom?
Since Dragon Mom is a silver dragon, she couldn’t have used her cold breath weapon to cook those dragon-scales cookies.
Which implies she either has access to a dragon-sized oven (which further implies a dragon-scale appliance manufacturer), or she’s happily married/dating a fire-breathing dragon and/or individual with fire spells (Sorcerer?).
Man, the Handbook lore sure keeps expanding!
Two words; Freezer Burn
The Joke: Note that her son is not a white dragon, but a red dragon. The DM break thd 4th wall using a white dragon mini, so it is drawn as a white dragon in the comic.
No, Jermey is the kid, and is either a Silver or White Dragon. The Red Dragon is saying your mom, not my mom
Jeremy is indeed a silver dracolich.
We haven’t managed to get back to face-to-face gaming since pre-Covid (due to venue issues) but yeah, there were various challenges… the one remote player (and the technical difficulties in linking them in), the players who have to take time out to call the kids before bed, and the occasional unavailability of the space we used (at work, so occasionally blocked by someone working late).
As to playing remotely as we do now — we play voice only, no video, so that creates a different vibe again… just disembodied voices and a virtual tabletop. I prefer that, actually… while face to face is better, remote video just feels like an awkward middle ground, an invasion of personal space which doesn’t really add anything of value given we’re primarily looking at the VTT anyway. It’s the same at work, incidentally… I might use video for a one-on-one chat, but usually leave it off for group meetings.
One thing that male DM’s will never have to put up with is calling a game because you are bedridden with cramps from hell. Or having to put the game on hold because…things happen. Or have your husband pull you up short because your PMS is affecting your DMing.
Other than when we were playing on base, the game was always in our house. I always made dinner for the group, so breaks were built in for them when I went to stir stuff or make sure nothing was burning.
I’ve run games with one player virtual and the rest physically present, but will never do that again. It was too hard to make sure that they were able to stay in game for any length of time. A wife with MS and pre-teen kids were always interrupting or calling him away. Not that I blame him, real life always takes precedence, but having to have everyone else wait up to an hour before he could get back just isn’t something I’m willing to do anymore.
all my gaming has been over the internet since uh 2015 ish, mostly just discord voice-chat and dice-bots, with occasional roll20 for games that absolutely need it (though personally, I won’t run over it, adds a prep overhead – I find prep hard enough already),
it’s definitely different to in-person play and I do miss that a lot, but it’s functional enough, possibly helps that my group is like all good IRL friends, I don’t play with internet randos often
Hate to call attention to it, but my OCD won’t let me ignore it; “IF thou wouldst”
I have a cat. He likes to stand in front of my screen and on my keyboard when I’m DMing. You know, usual cat stuff
For bonus points though, one of the players is a Tabaxi, so sometimes, rarely, the player cat will be in the middle of doing something and I suddenly shout “Darn it cat, stop it!” and everybody has to take a second to realize I wasnt starting to cuss out the player for doing normal stuff, I was throwing my actual cat off the table.
Relating to the mouse-over text:
I assume Mom knows what fighter did. After all in “Jeremy the Dragon part 2/2” our titular dragon said “I’m…telling…Mom”.
We also saw him bring back her judgment in “The Return of Jeremy” after he was turned into a dracolich “Mom says you have to let us play”.
Clearly Mom is an extremely powerful dragon/caster as evidenced by both her ability to casually turn him into such a rare and powerful undead AND her display of the uniquely casual attitude to death that only shows up in the sort of powerful adventurer types for whom death is naught but a temporary status condition.
This realization also suggest a possible answer to how Mom cooked the cookies if she doesn’t have an oven: as an old and powerful dragon she can likely cast spells. Turning cookie ingredients into hot fresh cookies would be well within the powers of a Fabricate spell.
Feel free to ignore this post, as it’s been written by my inner editor.
Got a couple typos in the last few sentences in your mouse-over text. I think “dragon” needs to be plural, and you’ve got a “to” instead of a “do”.
Occasionally our games will be interrupted by dinner. Other times there will be frequent “bio-breaks”. Usually it’s not too big of a deal, although one of my cats loves chasing dice and digging under the edges of opened binders and folders.
I’m a disgrace. 😛
Thanks for the catch.
My old group had Jim the Cat. “Why is Jim on the table?” was something of a catchphrase, though for the life of me I can’t remember the punchline that accompanied that phrase.
A digression…
“Before you get up in arms to defend remote play, […]”
I’m just going to say that it never ceases to amaze me how quickly people read “you don’t like this thing that benefits me, because you’re an evil hater” into “this works well enough, but it has its downsides.” It never surprises me that it happens, but the degree to which people are willing to take “other people have different preferences than me” personally strikes me as off.
In any event, the “practical considerations” that have always stuck their noses into games I have been in are significant others. I think I’ve only gamed with people where both members of a couple were dedicated gamers once since I left college (and that was before Bill Clinton was President). My own SOs had difficulty understanding the attraction; and looking at the game through their eyes, I don’t blame them.
It generally started to become apparent when someone was in a dysfunctional relationship, because their partner would start scheduling things that were super important to them over the top of games. “Sorry, I can’t play this week, we’re having dinner with her parents,” and stuff like that.
Eventually, people started having kids, and that tended to put an end to their participation entirely. Which I understand.
But it is what it is. I revived a concept that we’d used when I was in school; that of the Adventurer’s Guild. Adventures were always short, rarely longer than two sessions, and everyone had a stable of characters to select from, so whomever can make it to a given session puts together a group of characters on the fly that doesn’t need to endure.
But I’m now more a collector than an active player, as the people I used to game with have had their former gaming time eaten up by the other parts of their lives.
I’m friends with a couple who trade off playing the same character. One of them watches the kiddo, the other RPs their mutual rogue. Seemed like a nice compromise to me.
We’re fairly distraction-free. We typically game at houses with no pets. We all have either a) no kids, b) a man cave for gaming two floors below the sleeping family, c) adult age children who either game with us or are absent.
The downside is that we also only have about 4-6 hours of gaming in us before exhaustion or anticipation of the next workday call an end to game night fun.
I hadn’t really reflected on this before, but my group’s online games (which are all of them now, since we dispersed to different states during the pandemic) probably have a noticeably different feel to them than other people’s because we don’t use cameras at all – it’s all audio, the VTT (Roll20) and some text and pictures in our Discord server. There is no audience or need to watch your body language, and personal breaks are pretty easy (the person just announces that they are stepping away for a few minutes) I wonder if this means that “less is more” in terms of the virtual experience – might video be too much for some people? Voice-only may help them keep their eyes on the game.
Of course, you do need to have a small enough and disciplined/mature enough group that you can all operate on a single voicechat without burying each other.
…why on earth would you play *on camera*??? Ugh, no, I know the answer to that. TURN IT OFF, you are hurting the entire collective experience.
The ONLY way I would play on camera is with my vTuber avatar set up. And that’s so I can drop all the performative camera nonsense. Gods, I would never in my ever think playing a session *on video* would be a good idea.
The vast majority of my games this side of 2000 have been online, via text: no voice, no camera. Second most common has been online with voice, but still no camera. Having a camera just does not add to the game, in my experience. Better to save the players’ visual input for character sheets, the map if we’re using one, and so on.
Online via text greatly minimizes the impact of these practical considerations. If someone’s being harassed offline – either their participation in the scene is minimized (usually easily handled), or if necessary they skip their turn in combat (or have someone else take their turn; the tactics are usually obvious). It also makes coordinating players from across the world easier: the last campaign I ran, as of this writing, had players from Europe, North America, and Australia all playing in the same time slot.
Gonna join the “no camera” crowd here. It started reluctantly for us (Roll20 simply wasn’t cooperating) but over time we’ve realized we don’t miss it, at all. Sure, body language isn’t there, which is a definite downside, but the upside of not having to constantly think about what you’re displaying far outweighs it.
One thing people often don’t consider with online gaming is how your microphone picks up sound is different from how your ears do. Something that might seem benign on your end might be hell for the rest of the people in the session. For example, a fork scratching on the plate while you’re eating. It’s really, really grating to have that kind of sound directly delivered to your ears through headphones (we solved that one by not having sessions anywhere near dinnertime).
The real question is Jeremy adopted by this random dragon or did Fighter have a Dragon Mom who someone used Resurrection on.
OR DID SOMEONE USE REINCARNATION ON FIGHTERS MOM TURNING HER INTO A DRAGON!
We’ve actually met Fighter’s mom way back when:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-handbook-of-heroes-13
I have been extraordinarily fortunate with my main table. We have a set day each week to play in person. One of us makes dinner for everyone and everyone gets the goofy energy out before we play for about 3-3.5 hours. Occassionally the GM’s wife will interrupt, but it’s generally minor and frequently involves something that she was baking like cookies that she’s sharing with us.
We have done online play, but the GM feels like it puts even more work on him than doing it in person and everyone enjoys it more getting to play in person. Plus there’s a much greater chance of non-players interrupting than when we play in person and issues with equipment can also cause major issues.
My other tables are much more iffy. One of them is on indefinite hiatus as the DM is taking a break after finishing up a 5+ year long campaign and is facing the prospect of not inviting several players back as 7 players was way too many. The other table is… flighty. It’s hard to get people to commit to times and there are some issues with GM and player styles, with the two main GMs getting way to much into the nitty gritty and a lot of the players just not having the time, energy, or interest for what the GMs want to do.
Oh, and btw, I’ve got a code from Humble Bundle that I can give someone for the Abomination Faults AP on Foundary. I don’t want to spend the $50 on Foundary to be able to use it and I’d assume someone in this fandom/community would want it.