Instant Gaming!

There should be a place where players who want to play at any given time can find games that are looking for players at that time. Like instant Group find. This would create a lot more players and allow open gaming all the time.

There is such a thing. It's called "Looking For Group" and is between the "Community Forums" and "Player Directory" tabs.

but it is mostly for games in the future not for games tonight.

This seems to me more to be a community issue rather than a lack of features within the site itself. I don't think the community here is large enough to have games running constantly enough to find one "at this exact moment". If there were listings in addition to players needed, something along the lines of "Stand-ins/Backup players needed" that you could sign up for that would be a nice feature and keep things running smoothly. Although, there would be some problems with that feature.

Kelly is probably referring to a live chat area where it shows everyone on the site and can chat with each other. It has been mentioned in the mentors section but got no support. There use to be a live chat page but to much abusive actions happened so it was closed and removed.

Abusive actions covers name calling, cyberbullying, sharing links to illegal sites which would have illegal software, porn links, and etc.

Perhaps if there was a listing of games and when they're going to happen/ happening right then. Like a calendar perhaps. [Edit: I'm clearly not helping much, so I apologize. I think I need some rest before I type anything more.]

edit: Re-wrote this because the first one came off as condesending, as I hadn't realized you posted almost exactly the same thing above. What I mean is that the LFG tab at the top of the screen works as an active calendar of all available games with open availability and their going to happen time. Additional edit to address OP: There is a looking for game forum. It's hit and miss as to whether there are people running on a given night, but I have seen it happen and participated in spontaneous games!

While it answers various posters questions and comments, it doesn't truly answer the OP's suggestion. It is a good suggestion just not sure of it getting any support.

Yeah I think you need to make it where people who want to play can play. We live in a world of instant gratification. If we don't have it we will go play a video game. I think there need to be stand by DM who have pre-made games ready to go and a feature or chat feature to allow people who want to play find a game.

In such a diverse community such as this place you wont find standby GMs because of the many rule systems and play styles. I know i will probably never find a standby gm because my preferred system and style of play.

The very nature of RPGs usually precludes pickup games. Most RPGs require hours of preparation on the part of both players and GMs. Other types of games such as wargames can be more instant in nature but Roll20 is mostly RPG players. With that said, using the current Looking for Game listing tools you can narrow the focus to the current day of the week. That should help find any 'instant' games. Note: I am not actually commenting on the suggestion. Just on the problem behind the suggestion. - Gauss

I would wager that if there were a DM who had a module ready to run, they could fill it up very quickly and get a game running within an hour. Unfortunately, DM'ing a game takes a fair amount of preparation, even if you're just running a pre-made module. With that in mind, I suspect that the number of players ready for a pick-up game _far_ exceeds the number of DM's looking for players. In fact, the number of responses each game in the LFG section gets seems to back this up. Maybe if you're looking for an instant-play game (or nearly instant, there's always going to be some delay in finding folks to play) you should find a pre-made module and DM it yourself? As a solution to the instant gratification thing, maybe the community could decide on an unofficial Roll20 IRC channel or something? It would be a place where folks wanting to chat about Roll20, or arrange games, or talk PnP RPGs or just whatever could all hang out. It wouldn't do anything to deal with abuse, links to illegal sites, etc, but it would be at enough of a distance that the Roll20 team could not conceivably be held liable.

Not sure how many other members here know what irc is or how to get to it (there are very many different ways including browser based) but I'm not to interested in that. There is forum based chat software (I posted about it in the mentors forum) that would work and the cost could be rolled into the subscription price but that is neither here or there. Your suggestion is a valid one and would work if you could get enough people willing to use it.

Understand we all have specific games we like to play or run. But if I was running a Savage world game right now sure I could find many players to pick up and play. Even if it was a game of Traveler, Star Wars, or even Tunnels and Trolls people would play if there was something starting now.

I am saying as a DM if you have run a game a few times even for your regular group. why not use the same maps and encounters etc and run it for a pick up group. Very little prep time and will expose the game to more people and allow us to grow this community.

I will run pick up games once I am used to running games on this system. In fact I will run my Conan campaign I am starting for pick up and let multiple groups play the things I am preparing. If I had prepared things I would run them a few times a week to help grow the community.

It is hard to try to join a pick-up RPG since it takes a lot of preparation on the part of the DM. Also, the LFG postings self-cancel EXACTLY at the time you set, even though in the real world players might come 10 minutes to a half-hour late. I find I have to set a game at 7 p.m. for example, and then just before 7 p.m. if my intention is to pick up more players reset the time to 8 p.m. Those who already arrived understand it was really for 7 but we are waiting for a few more players, and that lets new people still see the LFG post.

This isn't a video game where you just hop from server to server willy nilly. Perhaps there could be a looking for group flag for one-shots, but you would still be signing up in advance.

But if people can get on an play without a lot of waiting it will spur more people trying and learn to play the system. Not saying a you can't do with out a sign up. But let's say I want to run a game in 2 hours notice now. Players should be able to find a game that is happening within the next few hours.

LFG feature can take up to 2 hours to list once you've posted it. But the community LFG forums are instant. I've rarely had a problem filling a group on short notice, if I'm willing to bring in new players. (It takes a bit longer, sometimes days, to get a group of players experienced with the system.) It helps that I run popular systems generally. Some have created campaigns for a specific system and then posted their campaign link in the LFG forums for anyone to join. Once you get a big enough base of players in that campaign, you should be able to have people just go into in-game chat and work out when to play something or via use of the campaign forums. Having said that, I've joined such communities and I never actually see any games going on. Mostly it's just a lot of talk about who's available when with no actual gaming. That's frustrating. Maybe those communities just need better community leads to organize them better.

Depending on the system some games get filled within a few minutes of posting. My latest game I started running was full within 30 minutes of my posting and I'm taking my time on my next game to have it setup properly then post a recruitment ad. This allows me to decide on pregens or not and have something of an introduction session ready to start with. One cool thing is the ability to clone the game. This allows me to setup a game board and run one-shots without much prep after the first board (my master board) and with the transmogifier ability, I can pull sheets from any game I created and put them in my storage board. Lets me store up a lot of npc/pcs fast, along with various sheets I made. The only down side is the independent macros (non character sheet) have to be done by hand (work around is copy and paste them into a journal so they can be moved also)

It's been done before in this LFG forum. Headhunter Jones is correct in that this forum is a place where such can happen. <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/269182/dnd-4e-dm" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/269182/dnd-4e-dm</a>... <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/389894/brand-new" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/389894/brand-new</a>... <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/362117/d-and-d4e" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/362117/d-and-d4e</a>... <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/375524/dm-lookin" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/375524/dm-lookin</a>... I have also been able to find games on the LFG Listings in an almost instant fashion on the days I was looking, focusing the time of interest to today - for example - like Gauss has suggested. This could get one into an ongoing campaign of sorts if they are still looking for players or whatnot. Like this one... <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/398640/dnd-4e-da" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/398640/dnd-4e-da</a>... For an ongoing instant player campaign though - that would be an idea. Never thought about it before. I would think most GM's would object to that idea, and I imagine for a plethora of reasons. That simply wouldn't be the classic way of doing it. I think that would have to warrant another discussion.