You should try out Tabletop Simulator for board games, or Roll20 for tabletop roleplaying like D&D. Both of these offer good options for online gaming in this space.
As an aside, does anyone know where I could learn about Tabletop Simulator? I keep seeing it recommended, but when I got a copy I can't stand the UI. I feel like I'm always grabbing the wrong thing and accidentally losing pieces off the edge etc. I've tried playing the puzzle game and the Majong and both were terrible. I then tried a community version of Race for the Galaxy that nearly drove me crazy.
Yeah, it seems insane to me that the whole thing is predicated on the idea that simulated physics is the best way to play a board-game online. (i guess this is the nature of current game engines, when you have a hammer everything lookslike a nail)
If you're used to navigating 3d space in video games or whatever you can probably pick it up but my gaming group is almost exclusively non-videogamers and the idea of getting them to play games through this thing is just a total non-starter.
Also it feels like a bit of a slap in the face to game designers that every player needs their own copy of TTS (~$20 each) yet designers -- whose wokr and IP is the pretty much the whole selling point -- will see none of that.
> it seems insane to me that the whole thing is predicated on the idea that simulated physics is the best way to play a board-game online
I disagree that's the approach of Tabletop Simulator. I mean, yes, it is a physics playground, but it is also much more. It includes some common actions like flipping, shuffling or drawing from a deck of cards. It includes grids to easily align game pieces. And most of all, it includes scripts which actually put some constraints on the "simulated physics" part, automating "maintenance" parts of a game, while also potentially enforcing game rules.
Yeah, I know that but it the physics and 3d first and the other stuff is optional -- the price of entry is being able to navigate a 3d world with pretty janky physics inside a computer. It's certainly a flexible toolset (though there are some real gotchas in there e.g. how bags work (they're decks so don't forget to shuffle them, you know, like you have to do with real bags)) but I find the approach of somethign like boardgamelab[1] more promising, particularly in terms of accessibility.
All I can say to you is that it takes a bit of patience to get good in TTS. I was very clumsy in the beginning. The community made games vary a lot in quality. You should look for mods that have a bit of scripting to help with setup and game admin, sometimes the scripts are broken, though. We do a voice call with all players during the game.
It has a tutorial function that works well enough. If you're playing with friends with mics you can just ask them if you don't know how to do a certain action.
I beg to differ - RPG's played via roll2d0 Fantasy ground etc are not different to those played FTF.
Personally I don't like TTRPG as DnD precedes Computer based RPG's by decades and also TTRPG makes me think or more wargaming derived skirmish games 7tv or even Force on Force and so on.
An industry is booming if you're buying their products, and people use the same books to play D&D whether they're doing it in person or using a virtual tabletop. I admit this is more true for roleplaying games than board games, because you don't really need to buy a board game to play it on Tabletop Simulator, but Roll20 definitely sells a lot of WotC products, with their own value add (virtual tabletop integration) on top of it bumping the price a bit. Which arbitrary point you choose to start considering them to be computer games isn't important when it's the same industry either way.