Are there any challenges during an in-person game that aren’t a factor online?

Question

I have been asked to run a one-shot D&D game by a friend for a certain event. The game will be an in-person session, with everyone physically present, whereas I only have experience running online. All the games I’ve run and played have been through Roll20 with Discord for voice. Is there anything that will need to be handled differently or any challenges that don’t apply to online games?

So far I’ve come up with these:

• obviously rolling dice, Roll20 does most of the maths and keeps track of modifiers by itself so I’ll have to do all that manually
• maps, tokens and props will need to be printed out if I want to use them
• without dynamic lighting or fog of war applied automatically I will have to manually uncover portions of the map as the party advances

Is there anything that I haven’t thought of?
In case this is relevant, the system is 5E and the adventure I’m planning to run is the first one from Candlekeep Mysteries.
The players are kind-of new (not brand new but they only played through a couple sessions each) and it will be their first in-person session too, they’ve also only played using Roll20 + Discord before.

Some more information about the setting: this is for a teambuilding event at an office-based workplace, the game will be open for other people to drop in and watch, the players are all co-workers and know each other to varying degree but at the very least as acquaintances but have never played together.

Answer 1

Here are a few things I ususally pack for in person gaming:

• Adventure Book. Don't forget to bring it. It has happened to me before.

• Dice. Obviously. Bring enough multiples of the types you need to speed things up, especially d6 and d20 for rolling things like falling damage, fireballs, or attacks by multiple monsters.

• Master Screen. If you want to hide your notes, dice rolling, and the open adventure, and to look up common reference materials a Master Screen is a great tool. It is not a must have, but quite helpful. You can also have a sheet there for notes, timekeeping and tracking monster hp in fights.

• Rule Books and page markers. To look up things, you can use your mobile phone or ask players to use theirs, but the rule books, in particular the Monster Manual, are also useful. Best have some markers, Post-Its or bookmarks to stick in so you can quickly find what you need.

• Floor Plan We usually do not print the plans, we draw them on a coated gridded plan, which is fast and very flexible. You obviously can also preprint them, and try to cover them, but in my experience, that is more cumbersome than just drawing what people see as you go along. You also can draw on a sheet of graph paper, and only move to the big plan when combat happens.

• Tokens or Miniatures. Printed pogs can work well, having 3-D minis makes for a nicer visualisation. We find the clear plastic boxes in which some dice sets come quite useful to indicate flying creatures, too (you can put them over other pogs/minatiures).

• Pencils, Paper, Boardmakers You may want to write or draw on the map and make notes. If you use pencils, make sure you also have a rubber. For markers, best are ereasable markers that you can wipe off again, if you have a coated battlemap.

• Initiative Tracker There are many ways to do this. But you need one.

On site you will also need:

• Space. Make sure you have a large enough table for the battlemap, best with space for the character sheets, drinks, miniatures, rulebooks, dice rolling area to spare.

• Optional: Food & Drinks. You are playing in person, so you can share food. Make sure you have enough, and depending how long you play, maybe also have some healthy option, not only sweets and chips.

• Optional: Power Outlets, especially if you are playing longer, and there are multiple people that want to charge their phone or laptop. We sometimes bring a power strip.

• Optional: Music. We often have thematic music running in the background to enhance the atmosphere. It can become a bit of a distraction if you fudge around too much with it, but there are also soundscapes like in the inn, forest sounds, battle sounds. Our DM usually brings a compact speaker and streams it.

Answer 2

Handling IC / OOC conversations and meta-communication

I've played in-person for more than forty years and online for nearly six. The biggest difference I have noticed is in terms of handling in character vs. out-of-character discussions, and compartmentalizing information between players. Simply put, it is far easier to 'whisper' between players and between a player and the DM online, so players may react more strongly to evidence that secret information is being shared in person. It is also easier online to have clear boundaries about when a player actually commits to their character's action. This might or might not be an issue - it largely depends on your playgroup and the style they are accustomed to.

'Hey Gwen, I'm at 2hp over here - could I get a heal?'

Some groups treat the 'six second combat round' to mean players must make decisions about their character's actions in a limited amount of time and with limited input from the other players.

Other groups feel free to discuss tactics and plan moves for half an hour before anything actually happens in-game. If, as a DM, you prefer the 'no table-talk / no kibitzing during combat' style, you might think you are enforcing this online, when your players are actually 'whispering' or talking over other channels to one another. Collaboration will be more obvious in person, meaning if you are trying to prevent this you will have to choose how to prevent it, and what to do when the players push back.

'Dorja tells the King to go **** himself' jk

Similarly, each table has its own social contract about what counts as a statement of character intent. Some groups allow only In Character statements, and follow 'if you said it, you did it' protocols. Others are comfortable with the DM saying, "Are you sure that's your action?" after they have insulted NPC's and then said they were Out Of Character joking, or after they have suggested an action and then had fellow players remind them of why that would be a bad idea. If you have players that continually hedge about what their characters are actually doing, it is harder to pin them down at a table. Online you can implement rules like, "If it is in the chat, you did it" and go back and read the record like a court stenographer. In person you may get attempts to say, "I didn't really mean that," or "That's not what I actually said."

DM: 'The Countess enters the room and smiles winningly at each of you, although her eyes linger a half-second longer on Sir Tristan."
Players A, B, C, and D [unconcerned]: 'We bow and wait for her to speak.'
[DM hands Player B a note; Player B makes a roll and shows it to just the DM; Players A, C, and D look at each other, alarmed]
Player A: 'My bard starts to play a counter-charm'
Player C: 'I cast Detect Magic'
Player D: 'I cast Bless on A, C, and myself.'

Online servers are great for handling secret information between players, and between a player and a DM. In-person, communicating in secret is much more obvious - and can result in players using that meta-information in the game. You may have decisions to make about how to handle this.

Answer 3

In my experience of running games both on and offline...

Playing in-person poses a certain challenges, most notably:

• Miniatures are much harder to deploy, and more expensive. You can't just download minis or make unlimited copies of a mini. Most of my in-person games didn't use miniatures at all (this approach is nowadays called "theater of the mind"). It makes very large combats difficult to track.
• Manual map uncovering and fog of war is difficult to do in real life. Oldschool D&D would appoint one player as the mapper, who drew the map based on the DM's descriptions, and it could be inaccurate as a result. Usually, I see the DM draw the map in rough terms, i.e. not necessarily to scale, and only drawing the room to actual scale if necessary for miniatures use when a fight occurs.
• Showing initiative order, hit point values and other stats to all players is tricky. You no longer have an on-screen display to let players get a readout on each enemy's current hit points and make decisions on that information.
• Character sheets are not automatically handled in-person, as they can be online. Some players unfamiliar with the rules may need help calculating their character sheets. If there are a lot of new players, I recommend bringing pre-generated character sheets. The official D&D website has some pre-generated 5e characters.
• Don't forget to bring your books! Online, you're usually in your own home, and have access to your entire collection of D&D books. In-person, if you go to someone else's house, you only have the books you can carry. If you manage to forget your books, you can fall back on the Basic Rules.
• Ideally, you should have a lot of dice, in case some players forget theirs. It's also useful to roll multiple monster attacks at the same time.
• Communication is actually faster in-person. You have none of the delay introduced by having to type and read messages, and you can benefit from body language (even just looking at the person you're talking to can get their attention).
• It's harder to find replacement players who leave in an ongoing in-person campaign. This isn't as much of an issue for a one-shot games.

Answer 4

A few more potential challenges, in no particular order:

• Travel time. Players have to physically go to the game, which increases the odds that someone will be delayed, and especially the odds that they'll be incommunicado — stuck in traffic or held up at work. You may already have a hard start time and policy for absent players, but if not you may want to communicate with your players ahead of time.

• Table chatter. In my experience, meeting in person leads to increased out-of-game conversation — between people sitting next to each other, across the table, or even just getting everyone to settle in to start play. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you may have to do more herding.

• Spills. Most of my old in-person character sheets were stained with tea, coffee, soda, etc. — and usually not my own. (Though those were mostly from long-running games.) Some tables have a “no food or drink at the table” rule, but I personally find that a bit oppressive.

• Dice on the floor. Not a huge challenge, but it's good to have a consistent policy for dice that roll off the table, to head off potential conflict and hurt feelings — even if it's just in your head, so you can call it out as you hear the die clatter away. Common options are “play it as it lies” and “always reroll.”