Some friends and I started playing online sessions of Pathfinder. We recently ran Crypt of the Everburning Flame to test out roll20.net. I've also started prepping a few scenarios for upcoming weeks.
I really liked this virtual tabletop for the following reasons:
- FREE
- web-based, no software to download
- simple interface with only a few buttons. Easy is better.
- allowed to upload your own content (maps, tokens)
- everything build into one design, no need to run chat on a separate service.
So, here are a few tips I've figured out so far. Overall, I think the online game takes about the same amount of time to play as a "real" face-to-face game. However, it does take a bit of prep work.
Preparation:
- I used Adobe Acrobat to open the PDF copy of the module, I frequently used the snapshot tool to extract items from the module. I then used the paint program to clean it up. Saved the image as a JPG then dragged and dropped into roll20. A little bit of resizing on the grid and I was good to go!
- I created a "page one" with a small image of the module cover. I then added "the story so far" and other background fluff I wanted revealed to the players at the onset of the adventure. Players could then log in any time through the week and get the general setup for the adventure. That allowed us to get right to the action once the session started.
- MAPS. I had one person on this message board ask about how to line up maps correctly. It is a little tricky. Snapshot the image out of the PDF then past into paint. Then "trim" the image so the edges line up as perfect as you can get with the grid lines. Then, when you import the image, grab the corner handle and stretch it until it lines up with the grid. This takes a little practice. You sometimes need to expand the size of the tabletop in the page settings menu. 45x45 is the biggest I've needed so far. (I'm sure a digital photo guru would laugh at my caveman instructions.)
- MAPS pt 2. Make sure you are on the "maps" layer of the table and not the token/object layer. Also, if you have a light-colored map (snow terrain) you can change the color of you grid map in the page options.
- Tokens: roll20 has a token library, put you can also drop and drag in your own images into the token layer and they become instant tokens. Try to keep your images mostly square, because it will be fitted into a grid square. I like to snapshot the NPC images from the module, use the eraser tool in paint to remove the surrounding text, then use it as a token. Then in game, you can grab the token, stretch it out so the players can see the image, then shrink it back down to 1x1 and game on. For instance, I did this in Everburning Flame with Asar.
This sounds like a lot, but I just prepped "The Frostfur Captive" a one-session scenario and it took about 30 minutes to extract, edit and upload a few maps, a few named NPC tokens, add some non-special enemy tokens from the built in image library and I'm done. You could of course do way more, but this is bare minimum for running a scenario/module. As many of us rapid fire these rounds, I'm trying to avoid getting bogged down in details.
Running the Game
- You need Google Chrome or Firefox to run roll20. It's been glitchy on Chrome lately, but I tried Firefox today with no problems.
- The video capability is honestly a novelty. It's fun, but after a couple sessions we all turned off our video so save on bandwidth (and no doubt to play in our underwear...)
- Jukebox is also a novelty. I've found a few very ambient sounding tracks and I just let them loop. There is usually too much going on to also play DJ.
- I use my laptop microphone with some headphones to avoid feedback echoes. Don't really need any high-end headset.
- Etiquette: We've set up some guidelines to help keep things moving, such as keeping table talk off the voice channel. Most of the "chatter" occurs on the chat screen or through whispers.
- Fog of War is great, especially when doing a dungeon crawl. I use it on almost every map.
Got to cut this short for now. But post if you have any questions or made any discoveries of your own.