The Infinite Canvas Changes Player Behavior

Playing online is a lot different than in-person.

Online gaming changes play in subtle ways. Pacing slows a bit. Prep can take longer. Engagement becomes trickier, too.

In-person, I find side chatter keeps energy alive and engenders teamwork. Online, it’s just one mic talking to another, and it becomes too chaotic to hear well when multiple people talk at once. Players mentally drift faster than when gaming around a physical table.

So I’m always interested in tools or techniques that help online games feel more open, conversational, and exploratory.

Often, traditional VTT maps accidentally constrain gameplay. Players stop thinking like explorers and start thinking they’re inside a bounded video game.

That’s why an email from Roleplaying Tips GM Al caught my eye. He pointed me toward a VTT I hadn’t heard of before:

Hi Johnn,

I am finding gamescape.app to be pretty useful.

The aspect I like is the unlimited extent of the maps.

Thanks, Al. I signed up to check it out. It’s like a whiteboard canvas-style app. Here’s a screenshot:

I see it has Fog of War, a laser pointer, and a ruler tool, amongst others.

This isn’t a map creator per se. You import your maps instead, and then use this app to operate tokens, annotate, and run your encounters with. If you’ve used Miro, Zoom Whiteboard, or Discord’s whiteboard before, you’ll be at home.

An infinite canvas like this breaks that video game limiting mindset. It’s easier to run wilderness zones, chases, large combats, urban environments, and situations where the map normally applies arbitrary page edge boundaries.

With more grey hairs popping out, I appreciate simpler apps these days. A lightweight visual canvas keeps the players unconstrained, and pairing it with a fast, minimalist, text-based tool like Campaign Logger keeps my GMing agile.

That said, it’s about the right tool for the job.

Though I’m prepping to start an in-person group soonish, I run all my games right now online. For my upcoming Lost Isle campaign, we’re playing a crunchy system, so methinks we’re going to use Foundry to take advantage of its rules automation.

Also, I rail against combat and action encounters that feel like you’re fighting inside a telephone booth. And not the cool, time-travel type either.

When players get stuck in small areas, battles devolve into static slugfests. An unlimited canvas encourages movement. And adding pressure and objectives beyond just hit point depletion improves encounters dramatically, pun intended!

Anyway, while we’re talking about online gaming, and with peak convention season now upon us, here are some VTT and online gaming tips from the archives you might find of interest.

These articles tackle a few different online GMing problems such as pacing, engagement, tools, and even how to run great sessions without a VTT at all:

Online RPG With VTT: How To Engage Players Better
https://www.roleplayingtips.com/running-games/online-rpg-with-vtt-how-to-engage-players-better/

Players “Checked Out” When Campaign Switched To Virtual Online
https://www.roleplayingtips.com/players-characters/players-checked-out-when-campaign-switched-to-virtual-online/

How To Move Your RPG Campaign Online: Tools
https://www.roleplayingtips.com/running-games/how-to-move-your-rpg-campaign-online-tools/

Kilgon the Sharpshooter (Playing Online Without a VTT)
https://www.roleplayingtips.com/running-games/kilgon-the-sharpshooter-playing-online-without-a-vtt/

Thanks again for the tip, Al.

Roleplaying Tips GM, if you’ve found a great gaming tool or trick lately, hit reply and let me know.

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

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