@Lithium said in Integrating Combat System and Roleplay:
@bored Why not? Because it's another layer of separation. Some people play from their phones or tablets. Not everyone has a roll20 account, then there's the setup that's needed for those various games.
I played on a Dark Sun game a while back that used an online website called editgrid I think to make maps and run adventures with. Don't know if Editgrid is still around actually...
But it still causes a lot of back and forth. Having it all centralized onto the game, even if a little time consuming to set up, is still putting everyone in the same place at the same time and overall allows the greatest user base.
Sure, but you also have to remember that 8 hour combats are something our hobby is notorious for, and that's playing without a grid that takes multiple additional commands per round (and presumably extra adjudication, people needing to take things back when errors are made, etc).
And it's funny you mention editgrid, because the SW game I played on that used this code, it quickly became the norm that people just started using editgrid, google spreadsheets, basically anything else they could that was interactive and easily sharable, because the code was simply not tenable. People would run it a couple times, but eventually, especially when they needed to do things quickly, wanted more complicated terrain, whatever, it would be simpler just to draw in another window.
So I really think this is a game breaker for a lot of people. Some will enjoy it, but the complexity level and additional time investment is huge. I think the only way around it is better software, or just accepting that our medium isn't really a good match.