For those of you that have purchased / accessed the Adventures within DDB, how does that work? When I DM’d, I got used to having the adventure text in a booklet (so accessing online would be fine) but also have printed maps and visual aids. Is one expected to print these themselves from the virtual adventure? Would one rely on virtual platforms (like Roll20) to provide layouts and such?
As of a year ago, I had never in 20 years run a printed module, only done homebrew (sometimes in established settings). Six months ago I started running Waterdeep: Dragonheist. I bought it on Roll20, and ran it from there. I read the whole sourcebook both paperback and on DDB. I just referenced the web page when I needed it. About a month ago I started converting the module manually into Foundry VTT (a different tabletop than Roll20). What I did was copy the player versions of necessary maps and some art from here, on DDB, and pasted it into the module, then aligned the map to the grid, created light walls and tokens and added light. It takes time, but I'm finding that by manually doing that conversion my familiarity with the module is significantly improved.
It's not a waste to buy the module on something like Roll20 because that work gets tedious; but honestly, converting it is just a matter of investing your time, which you've always got to do as a DM anyway.
I use Roll20 since my players and I are not co-located. You can download the maps and visual aids as images and then upload into Roll20 for use a backgrounds or in handouts.
If you are running in person, then you would have to print out the maps or just rough draw by hand. As for the visual aids, you can view the image on it own in pretty much any browser, and then just turn your phone / monitor / tablet around to show the players, just like with a hardcover.
Hello there
For those of you that have purchased / accessed the Adventures within DDB, how does that work? When I DM’d, I got used to having the adventure text in a booklet (so accessing online would be fine) but also have printed maps and visual aids. Is one expected to print these themselves from the virtual adventure? Would one rely on virtual platforms (like Roll20) to provide layouts and such?
How does one make it work?
As of a year ago, I had never in 20 years run a printed module, only done homebrew (sometimes in established settings). Six months ago I started running Waterdeep: Dragonheist. I bought it on Roll20, and ran it from there. I read the whole sourcebook both paperback and on DDB. I just referenced the web page when I needed it. About a month ago I started converting the module manually into Foundry VTT (a different tabletop than Roll20). What I did was copy the player versions of necessary maps and some art from here, on DDB, and pasted it into the module, then aligned the map to the grid, created light walls and tokens and added light. It takes time, but I'm finding that by manually doing that conversion my familiarity with the module is significantly improved.
It's not a waste to buy the module on something like Roll20 because that work gets tedious; but honestly, converting it is just a matter of investing your time, which you've always got to do as a DM anyway.
I use Roll20 since my players and I are not co-located. You can download the maps and visual aids as images and then upload into Roll20 for use a backgrounds or in handouts.
If you are running in person, then you would have to print out the maps or just rough draw by hand. As for the visual aids, you can view the image on it own in pretty much any browser, and then just turn your phone / monitor / tablet around to show the players, just like with a hardcover.
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