So I've recently ended like years of RPG campaigns and due to a change in schedule, I have a sudden glut of free time, but....roll20 looks dead, and I don't see any gamefinder threads here anymore. Various discords I was on are silent or gone. What happened? Not only are there like zero text-based games to join(and the only ones are like westmarches ERP pbp, nothing live text in sessions), but roll20 looks like a ghost town these days. It's all queers-only voicegames on reddit.

Did RPGs die? I haven't seen a dearth of online games looking for players for over a decade. Things were even more active in the pre-R20 days. Like I guessed something was wrong when I saw a few years back that r20 was full of nothing but paid games, but damn.

Did people move elsewhere to a place I'm not aware of? Because I'm used to seeing a ton of games open up over summers.

>>95881404 (OP)
>Did people move elsewhere to a place I'm not aware of?
Discord servers you're not invited to.

>>95881733
Well that fucking sucks. But it doesn't surprise me considering there seemed to be drama with the /tg/ discord.

>>95881404 (OP)
Thankfully normies FINALLY moved from D&D, despite how hard WotC tried to pander to them.

>>95881910
There was never drama with the tg discord? Its been up and running the whole time. There was an issue years back where undesirables all got booted started a server which then instantly died but the main server and erp server didnt really notice.

>>95881733
Public Discord servers are also available and active, I found and joined a couple for my country and they have multiple games every night.

>>95881404 (OP)
>text games
Here's your problem. Most traditional games fucking suck to play over text. Ever tried to get through a round of D&D combat over text? You could watch the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy in the same amount of time.

>>95881404 (OP)
I came on here today to make this exact thread. Roll20 has been very disappointing lately. I've joined and left four groups in the last two months. Everything on roll20 is either a westmarch or an LGBT circlejerk, and the few normal games you can find are usually full of extreme social retards, even by tabletop RPG standards. I've tried other LFG sites, but places like dnd beyond are hardly better.
Even if you do find a group, the GM quality is low. Just once I'd like to meet a 5e DM on roll20 that runs more than one encounter per long rest.

>>95881404 (OP)
RPGs are alive and well. We don't just use voice--we turn our cameras on. Then we use a VTT and play over discord much as if we were sitting around a table together. Man up and talk to other human beings.

>insecure voicefags come rolling in

>the voicefags who don't even RP have arrived in the chat

>>95881404 (OP)
>thinking gamefinder threads and roll20 randos were ever even remotely real options
>in the hobby where you will meet the absolute worst human beings you have ever met when they randomly join your table
ngmi, unless you live in Antarctica or something. Don't you have friends?

>>95883912
I can't imagine the roll20 group finder ever having been my go-to. The one time I tried to join a game there, it got nuked before it even started by one of those social retards you mentioned. In general, I avoid LFGs of all kinds, it's hard to get excited for a game full of strangers with no pre-existing chemistry.

That said, as an experiment, I once advertised a game on a public discord to see if I can put together a functional group. I prepared a whole vetting process, had some questions I touched on with everyone who applied. What I learned is that there is an unbelievable number of retards who don't even read the post, assume you're playing dnd, already have a character prepared and think they can just roll up on the day of the session with zero pre-amble or communication. Even if you state the system and setting in the advert.

Anyway, after sifting out those people, the results were shockingly good. Game went on for 3 years, and we're all still friends. I've even met some of them, even though we all live in different countries. Fluke or a working method? No idea.

>>95884015
The local pool is shallow and is full of flakes. Online play has been the standard I go to for a long time, it's just that I wanna pick up more than 1 game per week and things seem really dry.

>>95883989
>>95883998
>All this projection

>>95881733
>>95881910
>>95882032
You don't want to find a game on these discord servers. They are filled with narcissistic trannies. Go on fucking reddit if you have to, there's a subreddit called r/lfg where you have a CHANCE at finding normal sane people to game with.
Other than that, ask your friends to play IRL (>implying)

>>95881404 (OP)
>Online faggot unable to find an actual group
I'm fucking dying here

>>95884629
Reddit is tranny central

>>95884735
You're online too, dipshit.

>>95881404 (OP)
I'm running games with my friends. No, you can't join.

>>95884592
By you, yeah.

>>95881404 (OP)

The Hasbro marketing strategy succeeded. By bringing in the normies they turned DnD into a sort of fashion statement and way to sell collectibles that very few people actually play.

Everyone's attention spans and dopamine receptors have been totally destroyed by phones and binge-watching TV so good lucky getting people to show even if you managed to get a group assembled.

>>95881404 (OP)
Online culture in general has been on the down swing.

>>95886903
Good.

>>95884050
>Fluke or a working method? No idea.
That's how it always is. Sturgeon's Law says 90% of everything is crap, but what it really means is 10% of anything is going to be pretty decent. Including the friends you made along the way.

>>95881404 (OP)
>text
Text games were never alive. In over 15 years of trying I've never had a single satisfying instance of a text game. Get a fucking microphone, retard.
As for roll20 I made an lfg listing because we needed a replacement player and we got some 6 people applying over the span of 2 weeks, picked one and he's a decent player.

>>95884050
I think meeting and vetting people before starting the game and the length of time it went on for were the winning combination. Plenty of games end due to scheduling problems or someone having to take a leave of absence. But, players for online games have to be vetted. You're spending hours a week together so it's best to figure out if people can get along and meet certain standards for attendance, expectations, etc

>>95886903
A lot of people are moving to smaller groups like private discords or just regional discords. Pretty sure everyone is burned out to some extent with how crazy the biggest platforms can be and smaller, private groups are a nice alternative

>>95888061
Do voicefags actually roleplay though? Because IME, IRL tablegames and voicegames have zero RP. It can't aspire to more than beer and pretzels and you have to deal with trannyvoice and ESLs

>last decent game was literally in 2013-4, irl with friends. I dm'd, dnd 3.5
>said friends are now either thoroughly normified or obsessed with, as a previous anon put it, lgbt circlejerks. feelsbadman.jpg
>last year try pathfinder 2 with randos
>tactical skirmisher game with bouts of roleplaying in-between encounters
>constantly derailed by creepy fuckin tranny who refuses to even shave his beard
>nope.avi
Wat do now? I would try games online but I have never before, it just sounds kind of weird.

>>95888180
they don't, voice games are for funnies

>>95888180
Me and my irl group engage in roleplay with voices all the time, even if we suck.

>>95888180
>IRL tablegames and voicegames have zero RP
You must've played with mega shitty players
>>95888314
To me online games are like 90% as good as IRL games. You want a good group though, for me getting one was easy since I am nearly always the GM so I get the final word on who to keep.

>>95882082
>>95883921
>>95884592
>>95888061
>>95888314
Voice games are for people who can't visualize an apple.

>>95891472
Anon be honest: the only reason you wanna play text-only is so that you can pretend to be a woman.

>>95891534
Speaking from experience: trannies are just as likely if not more likely to be voicefags with either the worst tranny voice ever or with just regular ass manvoice. They don't give a shit, hell it probably gives them a thrill.

>>95892369
I have a trans person in my game that we play on video. She's perfectly nice, anon. Maybe your fear of the unknown has something to do with your unfamiliarity with it? I wasn't insulting trans people. I was makin' fun of OP. Trans people got a lot more balls than someone lookin for a text-only ttrpg.

>>95892411
>trans people got a lot more balls

>>95892411
>she

>>95884629
I found a shadowrun campaign with a pretty cool dude from the Foundry VTT discord
in fact I've joined and ran quite a few games from the foundry vtt server over the years and it's been a pretty good experience overall.
Then again maybe I've just been lucky dodging the shit heads and trannies
There's no way people are this unlucky finding a decent group.

>>95893654
>maybe I've just been lucky
Not really. If you're willing to try, you'll find a good group pretty easy 'cuz guess what? The other people who are willing to try are looking for the exact same thing that you are. It's mostly the people who don't get instant gratification who bemoan their inability to find a group.

>>95881404 (OP)
>Various discords I was on are silent or gone. What happened? Not only are there like zero text-based games to join(and the only ones are like westmarches ERP pbp, nothing live text in sessions), but roll20 looks like a ghost town these days. It's all queers-only voicegames on reddit.
Normies took over, and reddit is the capital. It's only LGBT+ABCD folx over there, avoid it like plague. Same for the great majority of discord servers.
Here's the gamefinders thread >>95894240
>Did people move elsewhere to a place I'm not aware of? Because I'm used to seeing a ton of games open up over summers.
You're right, and the answer is >>95881733 , more or less.
The best way for finding games is going to the official/approved discord of the game you want to play, and look for tables recruiting players. That's how I've found my current group.

>>95881404 (OP)
Find a general thread for a game you want to play. Try to recruit there. This worked for me, and theoretically it can work for you, too. I made good friends and got good games from fa/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls. Some of the people I met were less than stellar players, but none of them were anything like the horror stories I've heard.

>>95888061
One of the best campaigns of my life, or at least the most engrossing, was a text game of AdEva. Two of those players are still very good friends of mine, and one of them I've still never heard over voice. They convinced me text games could be good.

>>95888180
If you find a good voice group, they will roleplay the fuck out of every scene. My main group is like that. We go all-in for the drama, and not a single one of us was a theatre kid, we just get high on the RP. We mostly play Storyteller games like Vampire.

>>95893654
>There's no way people are this unlucky finding a decent group.
Any time someone whines about trannies infesting any group you just have to understand that they've gotten so /tg/brained as to be incapable of functioning in any social group that doesn't rely on /pol/isms and reflexive shitposting.

>>95883998
desu, OOC Voice and IC Text is a perfectly fine compromise.

>>95893704
>>95903725

This sounds about right
Anons are getting ass mad from not finding or staying in a game when they're the ones that are insufferable

>>95881404 (OP)
I'm so tired of it. There's so few decent game ads around. And when I apply to them, they invariably tell me they already filled the slot. But they also say I sound like a great fit for the group... without even asking me any questions.

These fucks just accept he first person to apply for their ad and do ZERO vetting. And most of the games are supposed to be long-term, so why does no one care about the quality of player they're letting in?

>>95904740
Have you considered the option they do not think you'd be a good fit but tell you about lack of free slots to spare your feelings and/or avoid drama?

>>95904800
Right, I'm sure they're all so afraid of having to turn someone else down that they immediately close the ad and decide not to find another player after all.

>>95904740
As someone who has posted ads a number of times, including within the last 6 months: correct. I close it as soon as I get 1 more person than I was looking for. I'll post my discord with an ad. Someone adds me. I say hi, my name, and ask if they added me for the game. If they respond timely and in complete sentences, stating that they're up for my VTT and voice and the game, then they're in. I give other people the benefit of the doubt. I can only think of one person I've ever actually had to kick out, and it's 'cuz he was one of these "my mommy would be so mad if she heard me say this" /pol/ types.

There's nothing to vet beyond that, until I get to know them. You'd be amazed how much "Hey my name is X, what's yours and are you cool w/ hopping onto a video call?" immediately weeds out the people who can't hold their spaghetti. And if you can hold yours, then that's a good enough starting place for me.

>>95904924
>are you cool w/ hopping onto a video call?
That's actually vetting

>>95904951
I agree it's just that it takes 2 seconds, so yeah: I close ads almost as soon as I open them. It takes very, very little time to find a group.

>>95884629
>ask your friends to play IRL
You guys are my friends

>>95905287
Of course we are, Anon. Also, your penis is very big.

>>95904958
I call absolute bullshit on this.
I spent three weeks trying to set up a one shot with a very simple system and I barely even got two players. At this point I don't know if I'm fucking curse or just that damn unlucky when it comes to tabletop RPGs.

>>95906939
Maybe the other anon offered to run D&D 5e. It's a lot easier to find players for that.

>>95906939
I tried running different short adventures for the people I was in campaigns with, for a smaller community I played one-shots with, a /tg/ discord, as well as a very public and open pathfinder game. Nothing came out of any of them because at most one person would apply.

>>95906939
one shots are ass

>>95892667
Kek

>>95891472
Have you ever tried to wait for a table full of zoomers to type?

>>95881404 (OP)
Only people who play in open online games nowadays are spergs who can't find a IRL gaming group or have been kicked out of too many IRL groups for being a creep.

TL;DR: touch grass and find a offline group OP.

>>95906939
Oneshots suck dick, nobody puts effort into roleplaying for a oneshot. But also yeah like that other anon said, if you're not running one of the big systems, you won't get shit. That has its pros and cons.

>>95891472
Actual games are properly played in person. Every step away from that is a step down. Playing over voice is a practical compromise for friend groups that don't live locally. Playing over text is the final retreat of the utterly socially incapable.

>>95908719
Nope, voice and in person can only do beer and pretzels dog shit.

>>95908719
>>95908537

Doing le funny scottish voice is not roleplaying.

>>95908537
You do realize that some of us live in areas with shallow enough player pools that literally ALL we would have to choose from are flakes, the eternally unwashed, and creeps, right.

I don't even have enough people locally to have multiple IRL groups to be kicked out of, much less to gather enough players who are decent enough to run a game.

>>95908736
>>95908737
>t. the utterly socially incapable

>>95908858
That's the point. I'm here to pretend to be a wizard. I don't ever want to hear about your dog or your girlfriend or your colleagues, I don't care about what sports you like or where your uncle lives. I don't want to have anything to do with you as an actual human being. I don't even want to know your real name.

>>95909018
>I'm here to pretend to be a wizard.
>>>/qst/

Man, what's with all the masculinity zoomers these days that want to act like they can "reclaim" nerd shit by projecting how alpha and based they are that they are above nerds?

>>95909352
>
Being a nerd does not necessitate being an antisocial bug man who can't hold a conversation. A lot of us were probably like that as kids, but you ideally grow out of it. People who insist on being complete loners are usually shallow, conceited, and unintelligent.

Most "nerd" hobbies have always had a social component.

>>95909047
See? Voicetards want to hang out and shoot shit. They don't care about games.

>>95908719
>Playing over voice is a practical compromise for friend groups that don't live locally.
Holy cope

>>95881404 (OP)
Normies have mostly left the hobby—those who didn't shift to OSR, Pathfinder, Daggerheart, or other story-driven games. Many of the Discord servers that normies frequented have faded away. To find games online, you need to search for more dedicated servers, and for that, it's essential to look for posts on forums or other social media sites.

>>95905287
I wish i could be real for you, anon

>>95906939
>trying to set up a one shot with a very simple system
I believe you.
I only play one (1!) specific rpg, which is a niche OSR retroclone, and I'm from Yurope, so no English as main language.... Add to that agreeing to a shared time for meeting and it becomes almost impossible.
Yes, it can be pretty difficult.
>>95908537
>touch grass and find a offline group OP.
Read what I wrote and tell me it's easy to find people.
More than half of my refusals happened because the rulebooks are in English, and they can't read it.
Also >>95908760 , some people do live in bumfucked places, and finding people willing to play is a nightmare.
>t. my first DM for D&D 3.5 moved to an isolated village in the mountains to follow his girlfriend, the only game he found was 2.5 hours by car....and it was D&D 4E, which he hated, but it was the only group he found in the region (this was about 20 years ago).

>>95906939
I dunno what to tell you. Run games people are more interested in playing?

>>95910074
The saddest thing is that I once did have a local gaming store within driving distance. But it shut down in less than a year. And this was when 5th edition was starting to rev up. I'm guessing between 2016 and 2018. My memory's a little shot. But it's been almost 10 years ago. I never really got to go into that rinky dink a little startup. Now I wish I had so that I could at least say that I've been inside of a local gaming store. Before after and enduring the pandemic, I would have had to drive somewhere between two and a half to 5 hours to get to the nearest local gaming store.

>>95910105
NTA but if people weren't so iffy about joining in the first place, I could form a group of like-minded people and we could figure out a game that would get all of them excited

A) The RPG bubble burst

B) There's plenty of games - I was able to find two new ones recently.

C) If you don't see what you like, consider running.

>>95911297
All the gaming stores (that I know of) in my city closed down in the last 20 years, I know what you feel.
I'd have to drive to the next city to even try to find an offline group, but I know already that it'll be either GW players or D&D 5E ones...
>>95912897
>If you don't see what you like, consider running.
My problems were:
>Niche game of a niche genre, haven't found 1 guy interested.
>Language barrier: game is English only, and it seems like I'm the only one who can read it fluently out of everyone I've asked.
>No willing players between friends and people I know: no one want to have anything to do with RPGs, Boardgames, Wargames in any way, shape or form.
>No game stores in my city: they all closed down in the last 20 years.
The only reason I'm currently playing is that I got recruited online while checking an advert for a campaign in my native language, in the lfg Discord channel of the game.

>>95881404 (OP)
>Did RPGs die?
Yes.
>lockdowns
>critical role
>normies flooding the hobby and ruin it
>every sane person leaves the hobby
>normies move on
>leave behind a barren wasteland

>>95918509
>>95916720
The market for ttrpgs is alive and well. It's bigger than it's ever been. There are more people playing more games than ever. High schools have clubs. My city has 4 FLGS. I can fill an online game within 10 minutes of posting an ad. The TTRPG market is objectively larger than it has ever been.

>>95918596
But is it worth it if it's full of filthy normies who don't even roleplay?

>>95918758
This is the kinda "take my ball and go home" attitude of a petulant child that demonstrates why you have such a tough time finding a game to play.

People are just people. Few of them are very much better or worse than any others. You're not better than the "normies." You just pretend you're not one of them so that you don't have to face the hurt of being rejected by your peers. Grow up, put yourself out there, meet some friends, play a game.

>>95918919
NTA but I think you're absolutely retarded

>>95918963
I know I know... boohoo normies blah blah just troglodyte things.

>>95910105
That's the thing. I set up several poles not only for availability, but what type of games they would like to play. Hacked I even prepared three different games scenarios for that simple system but they chose the one I put the least effort in. If people stuck to their guns I would be able to run four or five games maybe.

>>95918919
This only applies if you live in like LA and don't have the usual limited pool of people who don't shower to pick and choose from. I have no peers in my local pool.

>>95918758
i thought the emphasis on roleplay was what was killing the game
or have we looped back around to killing orcs in a cave and dreaded narrativists are once again rearing with their heads filled with plothooks and worldbuilding

>>95919904
Please put your strawman away and engage like a normal, non-politicspoisoned human being.

>>95881404 (OP)
>roll20 looks dead
I don't even know what that means.
>I don't see any gamefinder threads here anymore
Because 99% of nu-/tg/ is /pol/shitter faggots who don't play games, just whine about irrelevant culture war garbage.
>Various discords I was on are silent or gone
Find new ones or make your own.
>What happened?
Everyone's found people they enjoy playing with and made private discord servers to play games on, and you clearly didn't make the cut.
>not only are there like zero text-based games to join
They're everywhere online, you're just picky because you're a faggot who's mad he can't spam slurs.
>roll20 looks like a ghost town these days
I use it multiple times a week to run and play games.
>It's all queers-only voicegames on reddit.
And there it is. You deserve to be a gameless faggot because you are, in fact, the kind of person who gets pissy when they can't spam slurs.
>Did RPGs die?
Nope, they're thriving, they've just purged the undesirables like (You).

>>95923356
Yeah, I guess if you're the golden standard of nu-/tg/ gamers talking about politics, then rpgs are dead because it's been colonized by your ilk.