Text Vs. Voice chat

[Macgreine]

I am wondering what people think about text only vs voice or voice and text. I have always wanted to gm a game with text only because I have played in a couple (that didn't last very long) and it seemed like the rp was much more immersive, the meta gaming was held to minimum and PC's had to make up their own minds what to do next without coaching from the party OOC.

I have tried to use a combination of text for story/rp and voice for combat but it always
degrades into voice only. Is text only a buzz kill for potential players?

[someoneinatree]

I'm a fan of text/voice combo. Having the option for voice gives you an opportunity to quickly discuss ooc things so that the pace of the game doesn't drop enormously, as well as make the odd joke etc. I prefer roleplaying and describing character action through text though as its much more immersive as you say... but yes, you do kinda need all players on board for the text roleplaying as if one player uses voice instead, then people are likely to respond in-kind.

Things like meta-gaming can be reined in with just the occasional reminder from the GM not to engage in it (via voice), which also keeps the game moving.

[Valarian]

I tend to run games text-only. The pace is a little slower but you seem to get more immersion an in-character interaction. Voice seems awkward to me and people talk in the third person. Voice chat is very useful when explaining a new game though.

[GunnarGreybeard]

What Valarian said. Text chat only is probably best for those who all know the game system being played. Plus, it removes the awkwardness of the GM trying to do unique voices for different NPC's and sounding like a fool. :D

[Macgreine]

What Valarian said. Text chat only is probably best for those who all know the game system being played.

Thats an excellent point. A text only game wouldn't be very newbie friendly. I am leaning toward text and voice combination as my favorite but I haven't been able to pull it off yet.

[Valarian]

Recently, I've been using the chat channel when we're doing character generation, introducing a new game and/or running a demo game. The other times, for general campaign play, I use text-only.

[Callum]

When I started running games in FG, my group played using text chat only. After a while, we switched to using voice for OOC chat, and text for everything IC (chat, describing actions, etc). We much prefer this, for two main reasons:

It speeds things up, and online play is slow enough, anyway
It makes the session more of a social occasion, which it part of why we play

We're a group of gaming friends who have known each other for years, though, so I can see that voice chat might not suit every group or situation.

[JohnD]

I use a hybrid approach, but heavily weighted to voice (90%+).

Chat is for whispers, requests for skill checks in the tower, something only one PC sees, the odd LOL etc....

Voice I use for absolutely everything else.

Before coming to FG I DMed ongoing games using Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 for about ten years, constantly using chat only. Yes, it was immersive and good players really got into their characters. But... as a DM it meant 2-3 hours of constant typing; at the end of some games I was exhausted (not much fun after a while). Many were the times I cancelled games simply because the prospect of typing all evening just wasn't something I could summon the energy for.

So, for, me, hybrid but heavily leaning towards voice.

[Phystus]

My group is 90%+ voice, but they do use whispers, and I do text boxes for room descriptions and the like when I have enough prep time. A lot of off-topic chatter happens in text too. :D Which makes the chat log a pretty useless archive, unfortunately.

~P

[Mgrancey]

My preferred method is to use the text for RP and descriptions and such; while using voice to streamline combat, ask & answer questions, and to read the descriptons outloud. Just voice, leaves you without anything to be able to go back and double check unless your recording it. Just text can create cluttered and very confusing records.

[Doswelk]

Same hear, voice except for whispers and player's emotes.

I look at this way if we were sitting round a table playing (what FGII is trying to simulate) we would be talking to each other :D

[Willot]

I use both. I tend to use the text tho only for the Language ext. I guess it depends on whether your gm likes doing funny voices or not and how well they think on their feet.

Using text gives a person time to think about what thier going to say but also means the game takes longer.

[Valarian]

I look at this way if we were sitting round a table playing (what FGII is trying to simulate) we would be talking to each other :D
Yes, and you'd also get the other 80% of communication to go with the talking. ;)

[Griogre]

What Valarian said. Text chat only is probably best for those who all know the game system being played.

This plus text only works much better if all the players and GM know how to use FG. Audio will save a bunch of time on explaining how to target, roll and use effects, etc.

[Doswelk]

Yes, and you'd also get the other 80% of communication to go with the talking. ;)
Oh I agree but the social aspect is one reason I game.
I completely agree that the level of roleplaying is usually higher when using text, the few times we have started or ended an adventure via email the level of detail and descriptions is amazing, but that is email where people have time to ponder and type slowly

I am such a crap typer and slow, and one of my players is crippled and typing is very hard for him, so voice is the way to go for us!

[Torgaard]

We're also 90% voice. Like many have stated, text for us is usually:

Emotes - My players do alot of stuff in emotes while it's not their turn. If one player is talking over Vent, trying to get information out of an NPC about the local crime lord let's say, another PC waiting their turn might do a little '/em leans against the wall, pulls out his dagger, and casually begins cleaning under his fingernails with the razor sharp blade' and often other members of the group will join in. Perhaps they'll describe what they're doing (which may be nothing), or maybe it'll be '/em moves down to the mouth of the alley to keep lookout'. And I as DM will even blend some of those emotes into what I say over Vent when interacting with whichever PC is currently taking his turn. Stuff like that.
Whispers - This is very common. It's one of the things I love about Fantasy Grounds, playing over the internet, and being on Vent. That is to say: being able to communicate with just one player at the table (I'll also frequently ask a given player to drop down to a different channel in Vent and explain something only they would know, etc). As others have noted, often I'll just send a particular player a tidbit of information: "Give me a Perception check" or "You think he might be telling the truth, but you can't be sure". That kind of stuff.
Chat Box - When it's too much to type in a whisper, I'll feed the big blocks of text to the players after it's been formatted with the Chat Box (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/userguide4E/gm_story.xcp) feature. I don't do it with everything though. I won't do it for a room description for example, or describing an NPC, or for well; most things. But if an NPC is monologuing about something, and he's mentioning a number of people, places, their names, etc I'll drop that into the chat buffer so that the players can Copy n' Paste it into a Note. I'll also write up my own modified Monster Knowledge checks, and will send those with Chat Boxes, but only to the players that pass their checks. I then encourage the players that made their knowledge checks to only feed the other players info about those monsters in a way that fits the scene. For example, the player might say "I shout out: 'It's a ****atrice, don't let it bite you! It'll turn you to stone!" I don't want them just table-talking an Ecology of the ****atrice lecture and spoiling any of the surprise (plus that's just completely absurd to babble that much information in the middle of a fight).

[Callum]

Same hear, voice except for whispers and player's emotes.

I look at this way if we were sitting round a table playing (what FGII is trying to simulate) we would be talking to each other :D
Yes, absolutely - sitting round a table playing together is what we're trying to emulate, which is why I am a big fan of using voice chat alongside text chat. However, I'm very happy to use the features of FG that enhance the tabletop experience - such as character sheets that link related data fields together - and I regard text chat as one of those features. People have already mentioned the value of text whispers, but I also find that text chat encourages in-character roleplay - particularly for those players who are uncomfortable doing "silly voices". It also makes the dividing line between what the character is saying and what the player is saying much clearer. Finally, there is the chat log that FG automatically produces, which gives a record of the session's activities - but only what's happened in the chat window. For this reason, I prefer my players to describe all their characters' actions via text chat.

[XpressO]

Gave my voice to "voice" but then realized I actually use text to emote in situations where GM is occupied with other player(s).

[Invictys]

I concur with the other posters that in my games I am trying to simulate the tabletop experience as much as possible. I've followed some chat only RPG sessions on some forums and while the descriptions are beautiful and immersive the session ends up being like a choose-your-own adventure novel rather than an immersive RPG experience. Colorful descriptions do not a fun RPG make in my mind. Then again I tend to be pretty much 50/50 roleplay/combat so maybe that's why I feel that way.

To that end, I use voice almost exclusively with text only really used for occasional emotes or whispers for color or secret checks to the tower.

Text only would feel too much like a video game to me and not like a tabletop RPG experience. Plus it would just be so slow, my games move along quickly and in as close to real time as I can make it go, which voice allows very well.

Tor: I use Ventrilo also and I and my players make use of custom bindings so that I can talk to one person in the party directly and vice versa without swapping channels. I don't allow party members to chat privately though to reduce metagaming abuse.

[Macgreine]

Lots of great feedback here. I think my biggest issue with voice has become, if I may demonstrate:

PC1 says; I climb the stairs. Roll Perception: 18. Okay what do i see?

GM; A small hallway covered in cobwebs. A strong scent of death fills the air.

PC1; Do I see/ spot any traps?

GM: You see a small pressure plate that is covered in dust. It seems somewhat undisturbed and is covered with what seems like years of dust piling up.

PC1; I disable it. Roll disable device: 22

GM; You hear a loud click as the floor moves a bit and then stabilizes. After a close inspection of the small plate you are confident that any trap that may have been there is now disabled.

PC1; I walk down the hall looking for loot or something to kill. What do I see?


Maybe its just me or does something seem like its missing from this?

[Trenloe]

Lots of great feedback here. I think my biggest issue with voice has become, if I may demonstrate:

...
GM:PC1 interaction.
...

Maybe its just me or does something seem like its missing from this?
Do you think that's just voice? Surely that exchange could happen equally with text? If you have a player who plays like that with voice do you honestly think they'll play any better with text? They may type a bit more in-character/immersive text but they'd still play like that surely?

I agree, text is usually more immersive and can prompt quieter players to role-play better. I just don' think your example is limited to voice games only.

[Invictys]

Do you think that's just voice? Surely that exchange could happen equally with text? If you have a player who plays like that with voice do you honestly think they'll play any better with text? They may type a bit more in-character/immersive text but they'd still play like that surely?

I agree, text is usually more immersive and can prompt quieter players to role-play better. I just don' think your example is limited to voice games only.

Agreed, especially in this age of MMORPG and other online game chat dialogues why do you assume that text communication is somehow more eloquent or descriptive in nature? Have you seen how game chats are in basically any online game? Decidedly not eloquent.

Some people like to role play others don't. If as a DM you want more role play you need to encourage and reward the player for doing things in a more descriptive way. Forcing me to type my responses is not going to make me more likely to do that. Only if you build up the culture of the campaign around it will those things happen, regardless of the method of communication used.

[Doswelk]

Lots of great feedback here. I think my biggest issue with voice has become, if I may demonstrate:

PC1 says; I climb the stairs. Roll Perception: 18. Okay what do i see?
...
I would counter and say that is not a limitation of voice, that's a limitation on the part of the GM and the player.
Our Savage Worlds sessions can sound like that, but other times we have had rich and descriptive dialogue with the combat descriptions!
Voice does not limit role-play (unless a player is self-concious about it).

[Griogre]

Lots of great feedback here. I think my biggest issue with voice has become, if I may demonstrate:

PC1 says; I climb the stairs. Roll Perception: 18. Okay what do i see?

GM; A small hallway covered in cobwebs. A strong scent of death fills the air.

PC1; Do I see/ spot any traps?

GM: You see a small pressure plate that is covered in dust. It seems somewhat undisturbed and is covered with what seems like years of dust piling up.

PC1; I disable it. Roll disable device: 22

GM; You hear a loud click as the floor moves a bit and then stabilizes. After a close inspection of the small plate you are confident that any trap that may have been there is now disabled.

PC1; I walk down the hall looking for loot or something to kill. What do I see?


Maybe its just me or does something seem like its missing from this?

I think a lot of whether typing descriptions works well also boils down to how good a typist a player is as well. People talk about people being self conscious when using audio, well a poor typist player tends to be minimalistic when typing as well.

Some players also simply don't like to do a lot of roleplaying. You can think of how the example above might have gone in the above quote, if ahead of time, the player knew that the GM gives a -5 on checks without describing what the PC is doing, no plus or minus on checks with with descriptions that seem reasonable and a +1-5 on descriptions that seem to be unusually effective or unique.

Another thing I personally found out about skill checks is don't bother with them if they are not likely to fail except in dramatic circumstances, just include the PC(s) in the narrative and move along. An example of this might be a group of adventures coming moving through a cave who's passage is blocked by a deep crevice. The fighter and most the party are not going have any problems jumping over, but the Mage can't jump. Don't bother with checks for anyone but the Mage. He'll either jump - which is a dramatic check - or cast a spell, or the group will come up with some solution to get the Mage across without a check. If on the other hand, a few hours later the party is retreating and running for their lives from a purple worm - I'd make every one of them roll skill checks to jump that crevice to get away - its a dramatic moment.

[KainVorador]

I'm just the opposite. I prefer text 90% of the time and use voice chat only when explaining something OOC via text would simply take too long. Most of the time I won't even have a voice communication program in use (Skype, yahoo, etc..) But this quirk also represents itself in my everyday life. I refuse to talk on the phone. If someone calls me, I'll ignore the call followed by a friendly text asking them what they wanted.

I prefer the immersion of text and the freedom to take my time in responding how I want to respond instead of always being on the spot via voice chat.

[dr_venture]

I agree with gist of the last few posts: I think preferred gaming style will persist no matter whether text or voice is used. Personally, I can really enjoy either type of roleplaying, and have had some gamer friends over the years who never would have gotten into the game if it had required 'acting'... they much preferred that sort-of overview narration described in the recent posts. It's just a different kind of gaming, like a different flavor of ice cream: some like it, some don't.

For me, the difference between a text game and a voice game is much more akin to the difference between a novel and a movie. As GM, I can type a more convincing NPC than I can act one over voice or face to face. The pace of text allows me to compose a NPCs response in conversation with more care than I find I'm able to verbally (at least without having odd pauses in the verbal conversation). Also, the fact that each person is internalizing the voice of the NPC allows more immersion, simply because it requires more imagination. Like an Irish accent - I can cobble together a decent-enough one in text that I've had some players remark on how good a job I've done in creating a NPC's personna... when actually, I think part of it is just their imagination filling in the gaps, like you would when reading a novel. Finally, text is just more convenient for me, as I live in a small house, and can't really be having one-way conversations for 3 or 4 hours without a lot of interruptions. With text, it's a non-issue.

There are some really big trade-offs, though. Speed is *much* slower. I find that I also consistently miss a scattering of messages from players, as I'm busy typing. Also, I find that having more than about 4 players is risky, due to the difficulty in just managing several simultaneous text conversations... like that moment a NPC says something important to the game, and suddenly 4 or the 5 player's icons show typing, and you know that they're probably all typing at the same time not realizing that all the others are doing the same thing. The barrage of simultaneous comments have to be managed a bit in a way that voice conversations tend to self-regulate to a much larger degree (at least face to face ones - I've never played in a VOIP game, honestly).

All that said, I think I'd choose VOIP for a game player with my old high school gaming buddies. We already share a way of communicating that "cuts to the chase" in the game... and text just slows that down in a painful way. Hearing the tone and subtext in their voice is just too important for guys I've gamed with for almost 30 years. The camaraderie and shared OOC interactions is half the fun in that situation... it's really part social event.

[Blacky]

I am wondering what people think about text only vs voice or voice and text. I have always wanted to gm a game with text only because I have played in a couple (that didn't last very long) and it seemed like the rp was much more immersive, the meta gaming was held to minimum and PC's had to make up their own minds what to do next without coaching from the party OOC.
Do what I do when I gm: apart from questions to the GM (like for a rule), everything the players say is said by their character. Everything is roleplay. No exception. It is in fact exceedingly simple, and somewhat logical, and works quite well.


Is text only a buzz kill for potential players?
It is for me, as a player or a GM. 99.999999% of the time it's a deal breaker. Especially in our post mobile phone era, where a lot of people don't have a basic understanding of grammar, orthography, typography, and lack in my experience the respect to try to improve these.

Aka for me a text only rpg game is bad enough, but add a “lol phat gob 4 me i shlashit!!!!!!!” (which has usually taken over a minute to type) and I want to eat a shotgun.

But that's me :)

[Blacky]

I prefer the immersion of text and the freedom to take my time in responding how I want to respond instead of always being on the spot via voice chat.
I, kinda, agree for real life. However, I don't understand this being applied to rpg. Part, if not most of it, is being on the spot.

Your Ars Magica GM ask what king of research you make for the upcoming winter, I have no issue by taking time to write a thoughtful answer. But the same GM playing the count which hold the land under your feet ask you a question, you're supposed to be on the spot and to answer as your character would. Aren't you?

[dr_venture]

But the same GM playing the count which hold the land under your feet ask you a question, you're supposed to be on the spot and to answer as your character would. Aren't you?

If that is the tone of your game, then absolutely: the players should be on the spot... nothing wrong with that if it's what you enjoy.

By the same token, I enjoy the idea that, just as the stats of the characters allow my players to be bigger than life in the (imaginary) physical world, they also have the opportunity to think about their responses in the game and thus be bigger than life in their conversations and retorts. Not everyone is quick-witted in their conversations, but some might like to play a character that is. Also, as a player I'm never going to be as innately familiar with my character's abilities as I would be if I were actually that character - sometimes it takes time for a player to consider the game mechanics, classes, races, etc. because they aren't actually immersed in that world like they would be by actually living in it.

Because of all that, I'm happy to allow extra time for responses and consideration of options in face to face games, and certainly in my text games too, by their very nature. Occasionally snap decisions are required, and I'll push players for a response perhaps quicker than they're used to, and that's sometimes fun, too.

In the end, it's all good... it's just the tone of your game, and what makes it unique and fun for you. As a GM, it's one of the perks for all the time you devote to arranging your game: you can create the tone you enjoy, and hopefully others will too.

[Blacky]

Never thought of this like that, but it makes sense.

[hawkwind]

border line dyslexic and bad speller myself so voice for me plus five years of doing kiddies bed time stories has done winners for my limited narration skills ( and funny voices)