We are an in-person group, but of course, right now, were #socialdistancing. Most of our combats are ToM, and I was planning to meet next week using Hangouts for video (since everyone in the group has it) and either “Presenting” in Hangouts for visuals or (and I tested this out a few weeks ago at our final sort-of-in-person session) Google Jamboard.
I’m trying to keep things simple as we only meet twice/month, and I hope to be back in person in May (trying to be optimistic), but this unique situation does have me wondering about VTTs.
I’m 100% Homebrew in my world building, and they’ll be starting out next week’s session walking into a city that I created using Cityographer, so I have an overview map of the city, but then they’ll be headed into the mountains, and I don’t want it to feel like a video game and certainly don’t want to map out the mountain passes, but when they get ambushed in a mountain pass or make it to the temple at the top, some of those tools, especially the line-of-sight tools, could be handy, and combat tracking is a nice plus if its easy.
So easy is the biggest issue. I chose Google tools because it didn’t require creating another account. I hate to make them do that. And since I only plan to use this for a month or 2, I don’t want anything real expensive or requiring a long term contract. Since I’m heavily invested in DDB, being able to import characters & homebrew monsters would be a big plus.
I looked at Roll20 & Fantasy Grounds a few years ago, and both looked pretty complicated to set up. I just tonight discovered Astral and mostly noted that it can import DDB character sheets. Fantasy Grounds seems the most expensive and impressed me the least, but it was a while ago, and I don’t remember details anymore.
So I’m interested in people’s experiences with the various VTTs, especially the free versions. Biggest factor is ease of use for both me and the players, but especially for the players.
Roll20 is free, has a nice tutorial tutorial for GMs (takes about 30 minutes) and can be explained in about 10 minutes to your players.
With Beyond20 (https://beyond20.here-for-more.info/) you can even use dndbeyond for dice rolls. In theory. In practice we had an easier time rolling manually in the Roll20 chat, but it might work for you.
For Voice Chat we use the Discord App, since it is free, easy to use and works on just about any system setup (I have several players on "custom" Linux systems).
Discord also allows you to stream your screen, and in combination with Roll20's option to "Re-join as player" (in the settings, next to "exit game") this is an excellent way to give your players a live tutorial on how to use Roll20 + Beyond20.
We prefer the app since the Discord Webapp is a bit unstable, but you can try both.
If you want detailed battlemaps, Patreon has some very talented artists that offer you dozens to hundreds of maps for about 1-5$. "Cze and Peku", "Party of Two" and "Map Hammer" are my favorites there. :-)
And MusicD20 on patreon has some really nice background music... although you can also use Tabletopaudio, which is free and integrated with Roll20.
Astral Tabletop is offering full pro version for free until 4/30. It's fairly easy to use for most things, although you have to go through all kinds of hoops to get a secret door to work right (as far as I can tell).
It offers line of sight, multiple layers to maps, lockable (regular) doors, and the like. It will also track initiative and do die rolls for you if you put the character stats into it, but this would have to be done manually. They don't seem to have any sort of contract with Wizards so you can't just "buy the Monster Manual" and have all the monsters in it like you can with something such as FG.
But... if you are only doing this for a month or 2, Astral might be the way to go. Free till 4/30, and then just pay $9 or whatever it is for one more month till you're done with it.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'll second Roll20 and the Beyond20 browser extension. The only thing you might want to buy in Roll20 might be the monster manual so that you can easily drop the monsters onto the map with HP, AC, etc. The adventures are nice as well, but only if you really want the dynamic lighting (requiring a Roll20 sub anyway) and the pre-built maps. Beyond20 is awesome since you and your players can create characters with all of the content you already have unlocked here (that was the deciding factor to me), assuming you have the subscription to share content of course. So you don't have to buy all of the contest twice. Plus you just can't beat the character sheet here.
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We are an in-person group, but of course, right now, were #socialdistancing. Most of our combats are ToM, and I was planning to meet next week using Hangouts for video (since everyone in the group has it) and either “Presenting” in Hangouts for visuals or (and I tested this out a few weeks ago at our final sort-of-in-person session) Google Jamboard.
I’m trying to keep things simple as we only meet twice/month, and I hope to be back in person in May (trying to be optimistic), but this unique situation does have me wondering about VTTs.
I’m 100% Homebrew in my world building, and they’ll be starting out next week’s session walking into a city that I created using Cityographer, so I have an overview map of the city, but then they’ll be headed into the mountains, and I don’t want it to feel like a video game and certainly don’t want to map out the mountain passes, but when they get ambushed in a mountain pass or make it to the temple at the top, some of those tools, especially the line-of-sight tools, could be handy, and combat tracking is a nice plus if its easy.
So easy is the biggest issue. I chose Google tools because it didn’t require creating another account. I hate to make them do that. And since I only plan to use this for a month or 2, I don’t want anything real expensive or requiring a long term contract. Since I’m heavily invested in DDB, being able to import characters & homebrew monsters would be a big plus.
I looked at Roll20 & Fantasy Grounds a few years ago, and both looked pretty complicated to set up. I just tonight discovered Astral and mostly noted that it can import DDB character sheets. Fantasy Grounds seems the most expensive and impressed me the least, but it was a while ago, and I don’t remember details anymore.
So I’m interested in people’s experiences with the various VTTs, especially the free versions. Biggest factor is ease of use for both me and the players, but especially for the players.
Dale
Helping you make lives better through TTRPGs
Roll20 is free, has a nice tutorial tutorial for GMs (takes about 30 minutes) and can be explained in about 10 minutes to your players.
With Beyond20 (https://beyond20.here-for-more.info/) you can even use dndbeyond for dice rolls. In theory. In practice we had an easier time rolling manually in the Roll20 chat, but it might work for you.
For Voice Chat we use the Discord App, since it is free, easy to use and works on just about any system setup (I have several players on "custom" Linux systems).
Discord also allows you to stream your screen, and in combination with Roll20's option to "Re-join as player" (in the settings, next to "exit game") this is an excellent way to give your players a live tutorial on how to use Roll20 + Beyond20.
We prefer the app since the Discord Webapp is a bit unstable, but you can try both.
https://discordapp.com/
If you need / want custom tokens for the VTT, Google Images + Tokenstamp can get you a unified look.
http://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/
If you want detailed battlemaps, Patreon has some very talented artists that offer you dozens to hundreds of maps for about 1-5$. "Cze and Peku", "Party of Two" and "Map Hammer" are my favorites there. :-)
And MusicD20 on patreon has some really nice background music... although you can also use Tabletopaudio, which is free and integrated with Roll20.
https://tabletopaudio.com/
Astral Tabletop is offering full pro version for free until 4/30. It's fairly easy to use for most things, although you have to go through all kinds of hoops to get a secret door to work right (as far as I can tell).
It offers line of sight, multiple layers to maps, lockable (regular) doors, and the like. It will also track initiative and do die rolls for you if you put the character stats into it, but this would have to be done manually. They don't seem to have any sort of contract with Wizards so you can't just "buy the Monster Manual" and have all the monsters in it like you can with something such as FG.
But... if you are only doing this for a month or 2, Astral might be the way to go. Free till 4/30, and then just pay $9 or whatever it is for one more month till you're done with it.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'll second Roll20 and the Beyond20 browser extension. The only thing you might want to buy in Roll20 might be the monster manual so that you can easily drop the monsters onto the map with HP, AC, etc. The adventures are nice as well, but only if you really want the dynamic lighting (requiring a Roll20 sub anyway) and the pre-built maps. Beyond20 is awesome since you and your players can create characters with all of the content you already have unlocked here (that was the deciding factor to me), assuming you have the subscription to share content of course. So you don't have to buy all of the contest twice. Plus you just can't beat the character sheet here.