All Text Games... Why not?

Out of curiosity, I'd like to ask the general public. Why does are All-Text games so few and far-between on Roll20? The most often seen argument I've seen is the DM's saying "I don't want to write up a novel".... Yet I feel like All-Text games have the largest amount of character development and the best story telling... while people using their voices.... I don't know, it feels just strange to have the players speaking, it pulls one right out of their immersion.

It depends a lot on the group of players, and to some extent it depends on the system, as well. For many people, for example, it would be much easier and faster to play Exalted 2e or 3e by voice, since the stunt system can really  bog down a game that's text-only. If you want to play text-only games, make that known up-front. If you're having trouble finding a game to join where people are willing to play text-only, try running your own game.

I just find it easier to get things done whenever voice is involved. It's rather quick if you are looking for pacing. Though I do agree with ya Kaloian.

There is a group specifically for text players. but not too much going on either.

A lot of times you might get Hybrids.  GMs do voice, players text.  That way is probably one of the most efficient ways of doing an RPG.  But as a GM with decent typing speed, I would feel INCREDIBLY bogged down with text only on my end. There usually is a small market for text-only games, so you should definitely look in to GMing one and you could probably get a few people soon enough.

Sitting around a table with your friends and not talking would seem weird to me. I have players that listen and answer with text only in Roll 20.

Hmm... Jake actually makes a really good point, a Voice-Acting GM and Text players makes great sense! He can also technically do text as well by having notes, letters, and such on the Handouts! And I agree with Brian as well a bit: Combat and other very "Gameplay" focused games do benefit from Voice Acting, but the Story-telling parts do not...

Kaloian K. said: Out of curiosity, I'd like to ask the general public. Why does are All-Text games so few and far-between on Roll20? The most often seen argument I've seen is the DM's saying "I don't want to write up a novel".... Yet I feel like All-Text games have the largest amount of character development and the best story telling... while people using their voices.... I don't know, it feels just strange to have the players speaking, it pulls one right out of their immersion. Some text based gamers have no choice in it due to noisy environment, medical conditions, or other specific reasons while other text base gamers just make the choice as it is what they are comfortable with due to some are from the IRC world, Openrpg, and other text based gaming methods.  Grimtina said: There is a group specifically for text players. but not too much going on either. There are a few groups but the largest one known is the  Knights of the Written World .

I ran several text games a while back. After a bit all of the players asked to transfer the game to voice. The text portion of the game lasted maybe five games before the players said it was moving too slow. I don't think any of them had a medical condition or anything. We were just trying out different methods.  The one aspect of a text only game I did like was the ability to scroll back and see what someone had written, instead of players claiming they said something one way but didn't. One artifact that stayed with me from the text game is I use the description box on tokens to throw paragraphs of text into the chat window for various things. Takes a bit of preplanning but makes the game run smoother, in my opinion.

I prefere all-text games and so does my players. It's just a matter of taste.

As I think we covered most of the information about why people play text games on roll20 and listed one of the largest groups that cater to that style of play, I'm going to close this thread.  Thank you all for giving a polite and constructive discussion on text games and hope to see you all around.