Watching a game in progress in Vassal

I understand that it is possible to message players and ask if it OK to watch a game in progress and then sync the game if they are happy for you to watch.

It is likely that I am doing something wrong but I refresh the server screen, see the list of games and then click into one to see the players. Then I right click a player name and nothing happens at all. I do not see a pop up box and cannot find any way to interact with the players in a game or indeed the game itself.

Am I doing something wrong or do I misunderstand the whole process?

When you say “refresh the server screen”, are you talking about the server status dialog? If so, don’t use that. Use the connect button to join the server for your active module, and the list of active games will be shown in that window. Then you can right-click players and message them, or just right-click a room and join it. You only need to ask first if they have locked the room. I don’t like to ask privately, because the handling of private messages is awkward and intrusive for someone playing a game (stealing their keyboard focus, for example).

If you join a room, be aware that many modules don’t set limitations on what observers can do. Don’t click on buttons or drag tokens around, because you will often interfere with the game, and just cause more people to lock their rooms.

Also keep in mind that you have to have download and run the same version of the module that is running in the game room for you to be able to connect to it.