I'm working up my first ever homebrew campaign for later this year. I'm at the point where I need to start coming up with some maps.
The plan right now is for 4 or 5 players in a face-to-face game, but I'd like to use a digital tool to display battle maps since I think it will increase the immersion.
The tools I currently have at my disposal (as in, stuff I've already paid for and/or downloaded) include Wonderdraft, Dungeondraft, Maptool, Talespire, and of course D&D Beyond. I'm currently debating whether or not to jump on the new hotness with Foundry VTT
As you all know, just owning or having access to all these programs does not imply any degree of competence with them. So, I'm at a crossroads here. I need to decide how much time I want to spend learning how to create and/or implement the maps I want in my game, and which programs to focus my energy on. Regardless of which direction I choose, I know there are a ton of pre-made assets available by people who have already done most of the hard work that I can basically drag-and-drop into my campaign with little or no sweat. But I do want to have some original creations of my own, and I am not sure where to direct my attention right now.
Primary reasons for wanting the virtual tabletop experience for in-person gaming include :1) Immersion, as mentioned: Having a cool, colorful and engaging map makes the world feel more "real" to me, and hopefully to my PC's as well. 2) Tactical Considerations: I like being able to easily determine what each character is able to see on the map without having to check the character sheets to figure out what flavor of vision they all have. Also, my memory is not good enough to remember from one turn to another how far away any given character is from the bad guy in order to determine range.
I don't need the software to roll dice for me (but I'm open to it if the players prefer that), and I don't need automated spell effects. Basically I'm seeking a middle ground where players and I will all know exactly what's going on on the battlefield, but it's not feeling like a videogame. I've been watching a lot of tutorials on the various software sets available. Dungeondraft + Foundry looks awesome, but I can already tell there is enough technical depth there that I might get lost easily trying to create something original. So I'm currently leaning towards building and playing in Talespire. Drawing in all the shadows and vision blocking walls seems like a pain, and setting up the levels modules to work correctly might drive me crazy. Drawbacks on Talespire include the weakness of the fog of war functionality, and the apparent lack of support for different vision modes currently. Seems like these will probably be addressed soon, but I'm wondering who has used it and how smoothly it went?
Talespire is a little barebones at the moment, and rather than concentrating on adding more assets they are messing around with implementing characters from Heroforge. Of which if you want to include one of those characters you need to purchase them separately first.
I would avoid Talespire at the moment, and use something else. Apparently this guy uses Dynamic Dungeons. Just something that i saw recently.
VT's come in two forms. One form is the digital campaign manager VT's like Roll20, Fantasy Grounds and The Forge. These systems presume that your intention is to bring all of your content to run the game online.. books, adventures, characters sheets etc..
Talespire is a member of the visual table top simulators. These include tools like Tabletop Simulator, virtual role-play and of course Talespire. With this simulators you get the basics of a real table top, miniatures, terrain, dice and basic character tracking, but it assumes that the circumstances of your game are the same as a real face to face session. Books, character sheets etc.. are managed in the real world.
So either way, character sheets, books, adventures are separate so whats your point. In fact DnD Beyond character sheets and Roll20 can be connected with an extension.
Its a matter of preference how you want to run your online D&D game, but the thing about Talespire is that you can have a gorgeous representation of your game ready to rock in minutes. I mean, prep work in Talespire is insanely fast, I can build a map ready for play faster then I can do it with a paper and pencil sketch thanks to community content like Talespire bazzar.
You can do the same on Roll20. Download a background (loads are readily available), add the grid. You make it sound like Talespire is the only answer. Not to mention the problems with the fog of war.
I used to spend hundreds of hours with Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds trying to get a online games going, it just sucked sooo much that I pretty much didn't want to play D&D online because of it, Talespire literarly saved it for me.
I guess personal preference and all that. Don't get me wrong, I'd use Talespire (it is beautiful) if it wasn't so limiting, especially online. Limited assets (unless there are mods available?), no birds-eye view (I wanted to create maps and copy them over to Roll20) , messing around with hero-forge (requiring further purchases), all participants have to purchase the game if online (I personally have had trouble finding a D&D group).
I already have access to the content I need through DDB. As I mentioned, I'm not looking for automation, I prefer the crunchy stuff stays in meatspace as much as possible.
I really am just trying to figure out which path (2d vs 3d basically) is the bigger investment in terms of time and effort on my part. Right now it seems like Foundry is the better option for what I want to do, but if Bouncy Rock gets things operating smoothly soon, Talespire might require less new skill-building on my part.
I believe Talespire has awesome potential for my in-person group. The main downsides I see right now are the lack of support for different vision types for each character, and the super-clunky fog-of-war mechanics happening. I'm probably going to start doing some design/build work in Talespire and hopefully the devs or modders can work something out.
Certainly Talespire has come a long way but it has plenty of room to expand, but as it is today, from where I'm sitting, its the best thing to happen to playing D&D online in years.
What kind of stock options do they offer?
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Above VTT, I only use that now and I have 3 DM friends who I have converted, 2 have cancelled roll20 subscriptions and the other who owns foundry has stopped using it for DnD Switching to above VTT. Another friend who uses tailspire has told me he will be switching as well. The main reason because it seamlessly intergrates with DnD beyond and it is free.
I make my maps in Inkarnate.
Foundry is good but it very much depends what you want your VTT to do, if your running an in person game individual fog of war is pointless as everyone is looking at the same map. Even online I find it pointless, if your playing in person you all see what everyone else sees so why hide it online. The main reason we chose foundry as a group was that we play many systems not just DnD, but as Above VTT is free that’s ok we still use foundry for cyberpunk, Cthulhu, vampire, seventh sea etc.
My other question why wait to start your campaign. If you have 2-3 sessions of stuff just go now, my rule of thumb for a campaign, start as soon as I have a paragraph of stuff And players and then make the rest up as I go. I have seen so many campaigns never get going because the DM was “working on the campaign” and then the players just drifted away.
There's a ton of content for Talespire via Tales Tavern. You can download entire towns and just have to Ctrl-V to paste them onto your board. To be honest, the only reason why I revisited DnD 5E (been gone for almost 4 years) is because Talespire delivers the same (if not better) feeling of using minis IRL but for today's distance gaming. I treat Talespire as if it was my table at home, where instead of Warhammer Fantasy models, they're closer represented by fantasy 3d models. Of course they're not perfect and not nearly as accurate as buying the minis directly from Wizards of the Coast, but its an awesome reminder of how my games always have been for me IRL: Using cool detailed minis to represent player characters and monsters, while using graph paper to represent my battlemap, and having a manila folder filled with character sheets to manage the PC's. My new D&D games now substitute the minis with Stat-programmable 3d models, a beautiful selection of assets and slabs ready to build a cool environment complete with ambiance and music, and DDB to alt-tab into instead of physical character sheets. That's just my 2 cents, hope it helps.
Also, if I sound like a shill, its because I recently discovered this software (both Talespire and DDB) and been having fun DM'ing for my old group of friends who grew old, had kids, and live in different states than me. Now we are running DnD 5E and able to get gaming time in using DDB, Talespire, and Discord. We all feel like Highschoolers again playing with little miniatures, throwing dice around, and screaming when a player's HP reaches 0. Even if it is just a 4 hour session a week.
No, but I looked it up and now I want it. Sadly I'm short on funds. (Not asking for money, just lamenting my ill-fortune) Thank you for introducing it to me.
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Hi, I am not a chest. I deny with 100% certainty that I am a chest. I can neither confirm nor deny what I am beyond that.
I used to portray Krathian, Q'ilbrith, Jim, Tara, Turin, Nathan, Tench, Finn, Alvin, and other characters in various taverns.
I have used Talespire a lot in my current campaign, and to be honest I love it!! I have been able to build engaging and exiting maps for my player to explore, and yes at the moment it is a bit limited, but it is only in early dev so I am hopeful that more stuff is to come.
There are different ways to work around Talespires current weaknesses, but in my opinion, its a great tool for, at least a discord campaign such as mine, because I get to share my vision with the players, and they get to have a map to run around on, which also saves me a lot of description time when they can see tjings for themselves.
I tried some of the other map making tools out there, but I am not very savy with a lot of them, but Talespire is super easy to use, and I get to use my imagination to build awsome things.
But in the end, its really a prefference thing, do what you feel most comfortable with, I recommend it highly.
Just got done running a starting module for a longer campaign using TaleSpire. Have run about 12 solid sessions through it for an all-online group. As the DM I just streamed TaleSpire running on my machine and let the players view it since they did not all own a copy of have machines that could run it. It went great and if I couldn't find the exact map I needed it was very easy to take and existing one and modify it as needed. Much faster from a prep standpoint. Also using mods we got everyone who bought a heroforge mini into the game and as small of a thing as that was it really helped with player buy in to the world and game.
I have been using TaleSpire in my online games for the last 3 weeks. I can honestly say, it has revolutionized my game, not only in the visual experience, but also in the way I think about prep and mapmaking. This program is the future as far as I am concerned. Period. And, it's still only in Early Access.
Imagine if you could sculpt your worlds out of 3D Legos and then walk all around and up and down with your minis. Including flying. And underwater. It is mind blowing.
The development is rapid, and lots of good things are in the works, including official HeroForge support. I cannot say enough good things about this program as a tabletop environment.
I second this- I’m using talespire, along with aboveVTT which is a dndbeyond plugin through chrome. In combo- They are awesome! No monthly fees (except heroforge b/c I’m addicted to making minis and some TS patreons), and I take pics of my TS maps and add them into ABoveVTT for those who want a top down experience. It IS more work on the DM, but making maps in TS is a zen-like experience and the visuals are fantastic. Happy if anyone has any questions or if anyone has tips on running TS.
Currently using talespire for my current campaign that I'm running. Not everyone is in the same place so it makes it feel like everyone is right next to me. Plenty of designs to pick from through a couple sites, I have made a few of my own. We have downloaded a few minis through heroforge just so we could have a couple of different looking enemies. I would 100% recommend it now.
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I'm working up my first ever homebrew campaign for later this year. I'm at the point where I need to start coming up with some maps.
The plan right now is for 4 or 5 players in a face-to-face game, but I'd like to use a digital tool to display battle maps since I think it will increase the immersion.
The tools I currently have at my disposal (as in, stuff I've already paid for and/or downloaded) include Wonderdraft, Dungeondraft, Maptool, Talespire, and of course D&D Beyond. I'm currently debating whether or not to jump on the new hotness with Foundry VTT
As you all know, just owning or having access to all these programs does not imply any degree of competence with them. So, I'm at a crossroads here. I need to decide how much time I want to spend learning how to create and/or implement the maps I want in my game, and which programs to focus my energy on. Regardless of which direction I choose, I know there are a ton of pre-made assets available by people who have already done most of the hard work that I can basically drag-and-drop into my campaign with little or no sweat. But I do want to have some original creations of my own, and I am not sure where to direct my attention right now.
Primary reasons for wanting the virtual tabletop experience for in-person gaming include :1) Immersion, as mentioned: Having a cool, colorful and engaging map makes the world feel more "real" to me, and hopefully to my PC's as well. 2) Tactical Considerations: I like being able to easily determine what each character is able to see on the map without having to check the character sheets to figure out what flavor of vision they all have. Also, my memory is not good enough to remember from one turn to another how far away any given character is from the bad guy in order to determine range.
I don't need the software to roll dice for me (but I'm open to it if the players prefer that), and I don't need automated spell effects. Basically I'm seeking a middle ground where players and I will all know exactly what's going on on the battlefield, but it's not feeling like a videogame. I've been watching a lot of tutorials on the various software sets available. Dungeondraft + Foundry looks awesome, but I can already tell there is enough technical depth there that I might get lost easily trying to create something original. So I'm currently leaning towards building and playing in Talespire. Drawing in all the shadows and vision blocking walls seems like a pain, and setting up the levels modules to work correctly might drive me crazy. Drawbacks on Talespire include the weakness of the fog of war functionality, and the apparent lack of support for different vision modes currently. Seems like these will probably be addressed soon, but I'm wondering who has used it and how smoothly it went?
Thanks!
Talespire is a little barebones at the moment, and rather than concentrating on adding more assets they are messing around with implementing characters from Heroforge. Of which if you want to include one of those characters you need to purchase them separately first.
I would avoid Talespire at the moment, and use something else. Apparently this guy uses Dynamic Dungeons. Just something that i saw recently.
So either way, character sheets, books, adventures are separate so whats your point. In fact DnD Beyond character sheets and Roll20 can be connected with an extension.
You can do the same on Roll20. Download a background (loads are readily available), add the grid. You make it sound like Talespire is the only answer. Not to mention the problems with the fog of war.
I guess personal preference and all that. Don't get me wrong, I'd use Talespire (it is beautiful) if it wasn't so limiting, especially online. Limited assets (unless there are mods available?), no birds-eye view (I wanted to create maps and copy them over to Roll20) , messing around with hero-forge (requiring further purchases), all participants have to purchase the game if online (I personally have had trouble finding a D&D group).
I already have access to the content I need through DDB. As I mentioned, I'm not looking for automation, I prefer the crunchy stuff stays in meatspace as much as possible.
I really am just trying to figure out which path (2d vs 3d basically) is the bigger investment in terms of time and effort on my part. Right now it seems like Foundry is the better option for what I want to do, but if Bouncy Rock gets things operating smoothly soon, Talespire might require less new skill-building on my part.
I believe Talespire has awesome potential for my in-person group. The main downsides I see right now are the lack of support for different vision types for each character, and the super-clunky fog-of-war mechanics happening. I'm probably going to start doing some design/build work in Talespire and hopefully the devs or modders can work something out.
What kind of stock options do they offer?
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Above VTT, I only use that now and I have 3 DM friends who I have converted, 2 have cancelled roll20 subscriptions and the other who owns foundry has stopped using it for DnD Switching to above VTT. Another friend who uses tailspire has told me he will be switching as well. The main reason because it seamlessly intergrates with DnD beyond and it is free.
I make my maps in Inkarnate.
Foundry is good but it very much depends what you want your VTT to do, if your running an in person game individual fog of war is pointless as everyone is looking at the same map. Even online I find it pointless, if your playing in person you all see what everyone else sees so why hide it online. The main reason we chose foundry as a group was that we play many systems not just DnD, but as Above VTT is free that’s ok we still use foundry for cyberpunk, Cthulhu, vampire, seventh sea etc.
My other question why wait to start your campaign. If you have 2-3 sessions of stuff just go now, my rule of thumb for a campaign, start as soon as I have a paragraph of stuff And players and then make the rest up as I go. I have seen so many campaigns never get going because the DM was “working on the campaign” and then the players just drifted away.
There's a ton of content for Talespire via Tales Tavern. You can download entire towns and just have to Ctrl-V to paste them onto your board. To be honest, the only reason why I revisited DnD 5E (been gone for almost 4 years) is because Talespire delivers the same (if not better) feeling of using minis IRL but for today's distance gaming. I treat Talespire as if it was my table at home, where instead of Warhammer Fantasy models, they're closer represented by fantasy 3d models. Of course they're not perfect and not nearly as accurate as buying the minis directly from Wizards of the Coast, but its an awesome reminder of how my games always have been for me IRL: Using cool detailed minis to represent player characters and monsters, while using graph paper to represent my battlemap, and having a manila folder filled with character sheets to manage the PC's. My new D&D games now substitute the minis with Stat-programmable 3d models, a beautiful selection of assets and slabs ready to build a cool environment complete with ambiance and music, and DDB to alt-tab into instead of physical character sheets. That's just my 2 cents, hope it helps.
Also, if I sound like a shill, its because I recently discovered this software (both Talespire and DDB) and been having fun DM'ing for my old group of friends who grew old, had kids, and live in different states than me. Now we are running DnD 5E and able to get gaming time in using DDB, Talespire, and Discord. We all feel like Highschoolers again playing with little miniatures, throwing dice around, and screaming when a player's HP reaches 0. Even if it is just a 4 hour session a week.
No, but I looked it up and now I want it. Sadly I'm short on funds. (Not asking for money, just lamenting my ill-fortune) Thank you for introducing it to me.
Hi, I am not a chest. I deny with 100% certainty that I am a chest. I can neither confirm nor deny what I am beyond that.
I used to portray Krathian, Q'ilbrith, Jim, Tara, Turin, Nathan, Tench, Finn, Alvin, and other characters in various taverns.
I also do homebrew, check out my Spells and Magic Items
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons, even death may die"
I have used Talespire a lot in my current campaign, and to be honest I love it!! I have been able to build engaging and exiting maps for my player to explore, and yes at the moment it is a bit limited, but it is only in early dev so I am hopeful that more stuff is to come.
There are different ways to work around Talespires current weaknesses, but in my opinion, its a great tool for, at least a discord campaign such as mine, because I get to share my vision with the players, and they get to have a map to run around on, which also saves me a lot of description time when they can see tjings for themselves.
I tried some of the other map making tools out there, but I am not very savy with a lot of them, but Talespire is super easy to use, and I get to use my imagination to build awsome things.
But in the end, its really a prefference thing, do what you feel most comfortable with, I recommend it highly.
Just got done running a starting module for a longer campaign using TaleSpire. Have run about 12 solid sessions through it for an all-online group. As the DM I just streamed TaleSpire running on my machine and let the players view it since they did not all own a copy of have machines that could run it. It went great and if I couldn't find the exact map I needed it was very easy to take and existing one and modify it as needed. Much faster from a prep standpoint. Also using mods we got everyone who bought a heroforge mini into the game and as small of a thing as that was it really helped with player buy in to the world and game.
I have been using TaleSpire in my online games for the last 3 weeks. I can honestly say, it has revolutionized my game, not only in the visual experience, but also in the way I think about prep and mapmaking. This program is the future as far as I am concerned. Period. And, it's still only in Early Access.
Imagine if you could sculpt your worlds out of 3D Legos and then walk all around and up and down with your minis. Including flying. And underwater. It is mind blowing.
The development is rapid, and lots of good things are in the works, including official HeroForge support. I cannot say enough good things about this program as a tabletop environment.
I second this- I’m using talespire, along with aboveVTT which is a dndbeyond plugin through chrome. In combo- They are awesome! No monthly fees (except heroforge b/c I’m addicted to making minis and some TS patreons), and I take pics of my TS maps and add them into ABoveVTT for those who want a top down experience. It IS more work on the DM, but making maps in TS is a zen-like experience and the visuals are fantastic. Happy if anyone has any questions or if anyone has tips on running TS.
Currently using talespire for my current campaign that I'm running. Not everyone is in the same place so it makes it feel like everyone is right next to me. Plenty of designs to pick from through a couple sites, I have made a few of my own. We have downloaded a few minis through heroforge just so we could have a couple of different looking enemies. I would 100% recommend it now.