Onboarding New Players and Barriers to Entry

[HywelPhillips]

Hi All,

A few years ago I wrote a bunch of comparisons between FGU, Roll20 and Foundry. As time has gone on I've become more and more attached to FGU and less and less fond of using the other two, even though all three have continued to be developed and improved.

I have some niggles and some major capacities missing that I feel are barriers to entry which still could and should be lowered. Clearly dropping the price has been a big one, and given that the price has stayed low, it's obviously working for SmiteWorks. My others are on the Features Request list already, but I wondered what other people who frequently introduce newcomers to FGU find are the worst barriers to entry in their experience?

The biggest for me is the need for players to be running on a PC and installing the software. When I run paid-for games this is certainly something people mention - primarily because the other two big VTTs do not require this. A cloud-based or GM-hosted option would be fine, and in my opinion it doesn't even need to be hugely performant on complex maps with lots of LOS and lighting and FX. The ability to run at tolerable speed on a typical 5E WOTC published-module map would make a world of difference to getting casual players to join the game; they could then be encouraged to run their own install if they want it to run more smoothly and allow the GM to use more graphical bells and whistles. Just letting people dip a toe in and play an FGU game casually would certainly help!

The inability of the GM to force module load and forestall those pop-up windows on first connecting to a campaign remain an annoyance every time I on-board a new player. Likewise the inability of the GM to pre-set player options (that could then be over-ridden if the player wants) - for example "map select/centre on turn" and even pre-select player colours, dice colours etc.. The ability to have players connect to a cloud or GM-run instance that the GM can connect to and pre-prepare would also address this.

SmiteWorks have been doing excellent work at modernising the UI - I'm getting far fewer "How the heck do I?" questions from new players these days. This might be somewhat due to me polishing my "intro to FGU" one-on-one sessions a bit but I think it is mostly due to the modernisation so players are not bouncing off the interface. Continued efforts in this direction are very welcome.

What are the other things you find are barriers to getting new players to try out FGU games for you?

Cheers, Hywel

[HywelPhillips]

P.S. I'd like to draw a parallel with Syrinscape. The advent of the web player was a game changer for getting casual players to try it in my games. "Install this software" - basically nobody does it for a one-shot. "Click on this link, it'll open a web page, just click "start playing" and adjust the volume to your taste" - almost everybody tries it.

[Zacchaeus]

I don't personally see why installing software is a barrier to using that software. I mean if you have a computer you've already installed a bunch of stuff to make it work and a bunch more to make it do anything. Even if you are using one of the other VTTs that are web based you've at least needed to install a web browser to make that work, so I don't get it at all. I suppose if you buy a PC with everything installed and don't do anything except browse the web with whatever windows has built in then maybe installing stuff is alien. I don't know. I don't understand it.

[LordEntrails]

I understand Mr. Z's view. But I also understand for many folks (some of them pretty smart) just don't like to install things. They don't really see a web browser as something they install, even if they do. Where a bespoke application like FG is something they have to trust. Something they have to do. And something they have to undo/uninstall at some later date (or at least should).

Often it's an emotional barrier, not a technical one.

[HywelPhillips]

I also don't think it SHOULD be a big deal; what I am reporting is that anecdotally for me with new players it does put them off and they moan about it a bit. I come from the pre-Internet generation and am used to installing software. I have to say it has been a very long time since I bought a computer that did not have a serviceable web browser installed, though! I know people whose primary usage is cloud apps- like Google's office suite and Gmail - and they do everything via the web rather than locally installed, so maybe that's part of it. A web front end would also allow usage eg from iPads, which are now M5 powered and easily capable; more and more people I know are eschewing PCs entirely for this reason.

I think it mostly comes down to the "why should I bother?" / "is this secure" emotional factor and that it "feels like" it will take longer to install and update FG than to click on a link, even if actually it's comparable with the signup time for Roll20 or D&D Beyond.

All of that notwithstanding, however we old fogies think people SHOULD feel about having to install the app, my experience is that in practice it is something which is regularly mentioned as a disincentive to participation by casual players, and I think it is worth revisiting.

[Cyrian]

more and more people I know are eschewing PCs entirely for this reason.

This is a good point. For us computer nerds, it seems inconceivable that someone doesn't own a computer and are willing to install software. However, I have a D&D player friend (45 yrs old) that only has a tablet. My 26yr old son doesn't own a tv, using his tablet/phone for all his streaming which seems equally shocking, but is what <some number> of people are doing these days.

[SieferSeesSomething]

It's so true. I had a group and told them we will be on Fantasy Grounds, and one of them immediately took out his phone and said "Ya, sure! I'm assuming I can get it with my phone, or will I need to grab my tablet?" And I was like "uh... well, maybe we can also play in person or just on Discord with me sharing the VTT screen..." because i didn't have the heart to say that neither would work lol.



I'm assuming there are advantages to having it be downloadable, right? I figured FG could use whatever those are to differentiate itself instead: like performance, player tools, DM tools, automation, graphics and stuff.

I tried Roll20 and I remember thinking FG was way more quick and responsive than that, even after FG had all these latency problems when first moving to Unity. I heard Roll20 started making all these performance improvements, but I've still had friends who've used it recently complain that it still slows down a lot if your map is too big or something like that, but they've tended to move to Foundry instead of FG, because the reason they tended to stay on Roll20 as long as they did was either laziness to install something, or remembering FG as being the old-looking, complicated program they tried forever ago. I feel there's no point in trying to evangelize to them about all the changes now, it's better to just wait until I have the free time to DM again and then just invite them to try it then. People will use what their DM tells them to use.

I haven't tried Foundry yet though I keep meaning to. I heard that it was actually quicker, which makes me kind of surprised, but that was from a friend who played FG with me before when I think it had more performance issues, like right after it was being converted over from Classic to Unity. Like how could it handle all the LOS stuff with any speed on a browser? I would think FG would be the quicker one and be capable of more stuff, like so many high intensity video games that use Unity for game development, but maybe the issues are from the large range of machines people play it on and the variety of maps people use, so it's a very person-to-person and campaign-to-campaign thing. I also know FG has more automation right out of the box, while I think Foundry almost completely relies on these vast suites of whatever they call extensions/modules. Foundry has the graphics advantage at the moment because they had that capability longer, so all the animated maps that have been created on Patreon and such advertised themselves as "Foundry" maps first and foremost, and they have access to vp9 images without needing to convert anything. But other than that, FG uses a game engine, so you'd think it'd have the capability to be even more pretty in the future, despite the first-mover marketing advantage Foundry got on that front. But I am curious what the general truth is about the comparison between those two as they stand currently.

[drempel]

There are also some players who simply do not want to use a VTT.

I run a Zoom session and share a player instance screen for any players who just don't want to bother. They wanna play a TTRPG, not learn another piece of software, and that's totally valid in my opinion. They play off the old paper and pencil (or pdf character sheet) + pretty physical math rocks they've spent money on. Or they just want to use a web-based character builder/dice roller (D&D Beyond usually), which I am also fine with; they need to make sure they share their character publicly so I can recreate it in FG (and make sure it's valid).

If they like what they see and want to learn, of course, I'll help onboard them. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't.

[drempel]

I'm assuming there are advantages to having it be downloadable, right? I figured FG could use whatever those are to differentiate itself instead: like performance, player tools, DM tools, automation, graphics and stuff.


The advantages from my PoV are that I can use the same piece of software for both virtual and in-person games. For in-person games, the internet isn't required (which works well when I'm running games at the local library for kiddos).

And if Smiteworks ever goes out of business, I still have everything. Roll20, Shard or any cloud only solution...if they go out of business, or "the service no longer brings in enough shareholder value to be financially viable unless we shut it down or enshitify it horribly while squeezing every last bit of cash we can from our existing customer base"....well, there goes all my campaign history and prep...won't ever happen with a locally installed app that doesn't require a subscription to operate.

So peace of mind.

[HywelPhillips]

I sometimes get players to stream their screen on Discord when regular players are away from home and don't have a computer. Probably wouldn't work with strangers but is fine for a regular group. The GM streaming a second player instance would probably work in that situation.

I think there's a significant subset of players who are reluctant to use any VTT, but a lot of those will not be playing online anyway! So we have a sort of hierarchy of enthusiasm in tension with a hierarchy of laziness/technophobia (or reluctance to do anything much more than arrive at game night and have it happen to them). We collectively want FGVTT to grow and be able to serve a wider subset of the potential audience for playing TTRPGs online.

1) "I just wanna game" and happy with theatre of the mind, or coloured tokens on a white board sketch map. For these people something like Owlbear Rodeo is ideal and the automation of FGVTT is something they want to avoid.

2) "I want my character sheet and record keeping, and maybe maps and tokens and handouts". For these people (players especially) Roll20 or Roll20 plus D&D Beyond or D&D Beyond plus Maps are the sweet spot. I feel sorry for their GM's, but this is clearly a big subset of the PLAYING audience. Indeed I've few complaints about the Roll20 experience myself as a player (having someone keep track of the party loot by hand is probably the biggest). Again, I just feel for the GM juggling a 13th level D&D Boss fight with a few squiggly icons and not so much as a "does it hit?" level of automation.

3) "I want to replicate the feeling of sitting around the table with miniatures". This is an interesting one and it is IMO where Hasbro's aborted 3D VTT was aiming. It's odd to me because of the level of indirection- for me, miniatures and battlemaps are a representation of what's going on in-game, not something I desperately need to have emulated as an experience in and of itself.

4) "I want to feel deeply immersed, more like a computer game". This is where Foundry currently scores highest because of the spell effects, triggered sound effects and zones, and so on. Very pleased to see the announcement that enhancements in this direction are in the pipeline, because I think this is a big and IMO growing subset of potential online players. Foundry currently can be made to feel much more like a top-down computer game than the other platforms can - and it's also hit the sweet spot by using standard web technologies and programming languages so hacking it is available to a wider group than LUA. FGVTT is stuck with LUA, but it totally can broaden the "bells and whistles pretty animations" appeal and draw in more people seeking that sort of experience.

5) "I want the computer to take care of all the record keeping and drudge work so I can get on with what's happening. I want as much visualisation as can be done without getting in the way of the flow of the unfolding events in the game." I think this is where FGVTT currently sits. I think broadening the appeal so it serves other slices of the PLAYER population better will help in onboarding and broadening the user base. The GM population frankly I think are ready to be convinced - the ones I know who still use Roll20 after experiencing FGVTT as a player are doing so because of the reluctance of the more casual players in games they GM to learn a new tool, or install something, or lift a single finger to help. (I may be slightly cynical about certain sections of the player base). But there are a LOT of players like that out there.

None of them are ever even going to GM, let alone master a VTT.

FGVTT traditionally appeals to the most enthusiastic players - which is the Game Masters, who see the automation and stuff which makes their life easier. The fact that FGVTT is a truly excellent campaign management and GM assistance tool, quite apart from its VTT components. And the most enthusiastic of all of these enthusiasts are us, the people bothering to post and read on the FGVTT forum!

We need to lower the perceived learning curve and bother factor so more casual GM's get tempted to try it, and can convince their probably-even-more-casual players to give it a go. Those GMs need to drag their player groups with them. Everything we can do to smooth that process will increase the chances of the group switching platforms to FGVTT (to the GM's great relief!)

I don't think FGVTT should try to be all things to all people. If you are really only after something to sketch out a whiteboard map and move a few tokens around, a lighter-weight game system agnostic tool will inevitably be easier to learn. You CAN do that with FGVTT, but it's like turning to full-blown Pro Photoshop to crop a snapshot taken on your phone. (You'd do it if you are already familiar with Photoshop, but probably not otherwise).

These days though I think a slick tool with a good UI can entice even casual players in. D&D Beyond being the perfect case study, and also why I'm so excited to have Adam on the FGVTT team now!





Since I started this thread FGVTT has gone free to play, and that's a massive step in this direction ;)

In the thread about the news on ENWorld, "you have to install the software" cropped up as a complaint immediately.



Sorry, that was a bit of a ramble. Concretely, my suggestion is that a facility to allow players to connect via the web in a manner of a remote terminal type connection via a web browser to a Cloud- or GM-hosted PLAYER instance running off on a machine somewhere physically separate from the player who is connecting, with the GM still running FGVTT themselves on a local machine but allowing players to connect to that remote instance and have a good experience eg with touch controls is worth investigating. People have done this eg via AWS in the past but it's required considerably more tech input than would be ideal.

It's one of those things that might be an absolute ton of work, or to be unplayably slow because of latencies, but the fact that techie users have set it up in the past makes me think it is viable. It'll be work and possibly expense for the GM but that's always the way, Foundry has a cottage industry of cloud providers doing this for GMs to run on a Cloud machine and players to connect to that already. We probably don't mind engaging more, prepping player instances, making sure they are there to connect - all to save the lazy bums from having to install anything? Yeh, but also to make it possible for gaming groups with non-techies, non-PC-owners, and less engaged players to connect on a whim - like for one-shots, conventions, taster sessions, "first session free" paid GM campaigns, and so on.

Cheers, Hywel

[SieferSeesSomething]

It's so true on your point #5 lol. My players seemed at first ambivalent about all the features, but then started to learn to love some of them as they learned about them, like automating stat changes with wild shape, arrows and shapes to help describe where spells go, fog of war, things like that. But it took some time and learning as they went on.

But as a DM I can tell you I truly loved it way more right from the jump, well right after my first FG Academy lesson. It made campaign management for a complicated political game I was running so much easier, all the quest, story, and loot tools were a godsend, and some extensions helped even more (like Player Agency).

Some of them seemed to feel like that when they tried Foundry after me, which makes sense. The video game animations and sound zones probably give a player who's looking for immersion or a video game-like experience that feeling. But from a DM point of view (the one with all the work) I got that feeling from seeing things like being able to open a map, link places on the map to descriptions or ste, some of which the player can see, some of which they couldn't, along with encounters that are also linked to all the NPC's in there, along with the experience and loot. And then running a battle where half the stuff was taken care for me so I can focus on enemy tactics and not their hit points, initiative, who hit who, saves, etc. Or being able to make a custom module with all my homebrew items and spells and import it in, or make up some for the campaign and then export it later to use them for future campaigns. Omg it was great lol.