Let's first say that I think Roll*20 is a godsend and I'd almost use the big 'G', but I'm not sure if it would be blasphemous or not, so I won't risk it. This app has made it possible for me to play more now than ever before, and in general I love it. That being said, there's a lot more flakiness because of the venue being online. This comes from me, my players, and sometimes the app itself. It's like we're all willing to cancel a session at the drop of a hat, disappear from the campaign without notice or show up unreasonably late on a regular basis. Those are behaviors I certainly try to avoid at the live table, and I've never played with people who've behaved that way, but on Roll *20 it happens all the time. My greatest personal fault is that I sometimes cancel on short notice--but at least I always give a notice. As to the app itself--sometimes it's down completely, broadcasting video and audio slows it down greatly, and just like playing a game, the group is only as strong as the weakest connection. This has led me to stick with text chat games only--they aren't as big a pain in the butt as you might imagine. It would be a lot cooler if we could broadcast, but what can you do?
To combat this flakiness, I decided to run a "West Marches" campaign. For those who aren't in the know, this type of game is almost completely sandbox. Players can come and go as they are available to play, but they're always on the roster. Parties will form from the roster and different characters may work in various combinations over the campaign. The characters impact a persistent world while the GM keeps everyone updated on the changes...in Roll 20, that would be easy to do via forums. I really wanted to play Ryuutama and to me it seemed perfect for this style of game as it is a system that's all about travelling. I planned to go oldskool and even found a scanned Outdoor Survival map like they used for original D&D that would be perfect for the system and Roll*20.
When I posted the campaign in the active listings, there was a ton of interest in playing. I had 20+ people who signed up to be in the pool of players. Unfortunately, very few of them ever showed up. I'll be generous and say I maybe had seven people make characters and play in at least one session. After about a month of unsuccessfully trying to get players to attend a character creation session, I wound up with a core group of five people who showed up regularly. After that, I just dropped the "West Marches" idea due to lack of participation. To this day, although the game is now on indefinite hiatus, there remains a pool of players on the roster that I've never met, and who have never made characters...that's the fail.
The amazing part is that the core group of five continued to play Ryuutama with me using a traditional weekly schedule for several months. They remained a bit flaky, but we ran from October of 2017 until May of 2018. Eventually, they fell into their old habits again and a couple of guys had to stop playing completely, so I put the game on hiatus. Due to renewed interest in Cyberpunk 2020--thanks to the upcoming video game--I decided to start a new campaign using that system. Three of my Ryuutama players came with me. That means we've been gaming together almost every week on Roll*20 for nearly one year continuous. Anyone who's tried to keep an online group together knows that is a fairly amazing feat.
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