I have an eye on D20Pro because FGG has support for that software and I'm a big fan of FGG. But others have said Roll20 is good, and free.
How much utility do these programs have for PbP? Has anyone used them in that context?
IMO Roll20 is "good enough" for most campaigns. When I GM I use Maptool, but when I'm a player, the guy who GMs is using Roll20.
Roll20 still suffers for not being complete, and has UI problems, that annoy me to no end.
If you wanna make beautiful maps with loads of ressources and the opportunity to make as much of your VTT as you want to, if you pour enough time into it, I suggest maptool. If you just need something that is functional, if not alot else, then Roll20 fits the bill just fine.
I'm afraid I have no experience with D20Pro, so I cannot offer any advice there.
Hope it helps.
-Nearyn
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I've seen numerous folks use Maptool with a PbP game, adjusting the tokens for each player at the end of each combat round, then pasting a screenshot or exported image into their GM post.
I have used Maptool for years for online live games. It is a very easy to use program, but with as much upward learning curve as you care to apply (it has its own scripting language built in). Roll20, although in its infancy, is also an easy to learn solution, but some of their design choices and limitations bother some Maptool users like myself.
Grimmy,
I'm an avid D20Pro user- been on it for over a year with my Rappan Athuk campaign (20+sessions) and really like it. I game with 3 other guys (Egypt, Germany and Virginia) and have had a great experience with it. It is by no means perfect, but it's a damned fine system and once you get your head around using it is nice. Also as a fan of FFG, I've really enjoyed using the resources they've put out. It costs a bit of money, but I've never regretted it. If you have specific questions or areas your curious about, ask away.
I have never used it for a PbP, so not too sure about that.
Jeff...
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D20Pro is by far the most complete option. We've used it for years, and is the only system out there that handles the combat engine as well, and it does a very good job of it. The other ones have their niceties, but it boils down to just being a displayer of maps.
D20Pro has advanced a lot over the last couple of years, and it has full compatibility with Herolab, which we love.
Can't recommend it enough.
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I've been using MapTool for four years or so, three campaigns. I definately like it better than Roll20, but I hear Roll20 has been making strides.
I've never used any of the paid VTTs, because, well, why would I when MapTool lets me do as much or as little as I want?
It does have a learning curve, and I don't do as much with it as some, but I've got a nice template I've made that has everything I like to use - which is more than what Roll20 offers at this time.
I'm downloading the trial of D20 pro, going to check it out.
I see I missed out on a kickstarter for FGG content for D20pro. Does anyone know when the Stoneheart Valley files will be available to the general public?
Grimmy,
Goood luck with D20 Pro and I'm 90% sure the Stoneheart Valley stuff is currently on the D20Pro store. Don't have access now, so can't check,
Jeff...
Is that the marketplace you access from within the app? I am looking there, and I see Rappan Athuk, and Tome of Horrors, but no Stoneheart Valley yet. (Also looking forward to some of the other Kickstarted content like ONS 5: Scorned)
Jeff I think I'm going to spring for it. Since I tend to run so much FGG I think I should go with the vtt that is supported. It seems like Blonde Frog has already done most of the daunting work for me.
Grimmy,
Yeah, that's the store I meant. I know that I got it as part of the KS project, but I can't imagine them not selling it. Maybe ask one of the frogs if they're an ETA for public sales? And I LOVE that the work has been done! Now let's convense Piazo to do it for their Adventure Paths/Modules too, as well as all other publishers I like... Enjoy!
Jeff...
Hey Jeff do you have any idea how I would generate maps with fog of war implemented for a PbP? That is to say, how would I export a map with what should be visible to players despite having the judge view on my screen?
Sorry for noob question I'm a bit technically impaired :)
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I would just have a license with unnamed external logins so that people can log in at their leisure and look at the map.
Otherwise, I imagine you could turn on FoW and take a screenshot of it and email it out.
How to do Fog of War: http://d20pro.com/help/UGGPFoW.php
How to do everything else: http://d20pro.com/help/index.php
They have some Youtube videos to look at stuff. There's a little learning curve, but once you get going, it is awesome.
I would just have a license with unnamed external logins so that people can log in at their leisure and look at the map.
That makes sense but so far with the trial I've noticed when I'm away from the program for a few minutes I get logged out for inactivity. I wonder how I can make sure PbP players can access the map any time of day.
It's not a noob question as far as I'm concerned! I've only used the program online as the DM. I know that what I have under the fog of war appears black on the player's screen, might be a weird work around, but log on as a player to your own campaign and copy from there? Or maybe have it active online so your players can log on and observe the scene?
Another thought is a judicious use of zooming? In that you zoom in on the room with the battle to highlight that?
These are just random thoughts, because I don't know an easy way of doing that, your best bet might be posting it as a separate question here for those D20Pro guys out there or D20Pro has a forum site, you might have some luck if you ask it there as a technician question there.
Jeff…
It has been happening after only a few minutes, but I haven't bought a license yet, maybe that is why.
Yeah, not sure why, it's definately not a normal issue. I've left mine open for hours with out messing with it. Not sure why it's happening- might need to check your computer settings? (I am not a tech guy, sorry!)
Guys I'm really sorry, I think it was only the content marketplace that was logging me out for inactivity. I can't seem to reproduce the problem in the app itself, so I must have misunderstood what was happening. Sorry for troubling you guys with this non-issue.
Grimmy,
Ah, the trials and tribulations of new stuff! If you need help with the port fowarding stuff on D20Pro let me know, I just about died the first time I tried to run and the port forwarding wasn't ste up right, it too me two hours to figure the dmaned thing out. Once you get it, it's nothing, but that morning, I could'a killed!
Jeff...
Heh, "port forwarding", that just sounds scary.
I haven't pulled the trigger on D20 Pro yet, still trying to get some reply from them or the frogs about the eta on FGG content from the kickstarter.
What about fantasy grounds, anyone try that? Really nice looking but seems expensive.
I used to use Maptools extensively, but eventually switched to Roll20. It was just so much simpler and easier to use for everyone. We've used it ever since.
Roll20 seems the easiest to me. I like it best so far. But all that FGG content is on D20Pro.
Yup, sure enough, I can't even figure out how to join a game as a player in D20 Pro.
"Please verify there is a judge running at that address and ther port forwarding and firewall are properly configured."
I used "Public IP" from "What is my IP Address?" in judge tab under Options on the other machine where I'm logged in as judge.
edit: It was local IP. That wasn't so bad.
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My favourite is still Combat Assistant (CA) for its simplicity.
I've tried Roll20 once so far because it's all the rage, but I had a lot of trouble working it out, and I'm not there yet - this is after having played online for the past decade. In the end, the main advantages I've seen over CA are the individual lighting and the ability of the players to move their own tokens rather than tell the GM where they want to go. The pain of setting up a game on Roll20 honestly didn't feel like it was worth it on my first game.
I'm going to keep trying Roll20 to see if it's just beginner's fever, but if I keep having the issues I had in setting up the first couple of games, I'm likely to switch back to CA.
See, to me Roll20 is logical. D20 Pro is confusing.
What Grimmy said. I found it extremely logical and easy especially after using Maptools for months (which was definitely not always logical or easy).
It looks like the one with the prettiest GUI is Fantasy Grounds.
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I've run 2 games in Roll20 now and I can use it reasonably. I have to say though, that the prep work in comparison to using CA has been a staggeringly different experience.
The big advantage of Roll20 is that players can move their own tokens instead of telling the GM where they want to move, and lighting.
Lighting is questionable, because I had one player with no light, one player with 60ft darkvision, one with 40ft low light vision, two players with 20ft torch-likes, and one player with 120ft see in darkness. An issue with the grid is my mistake (apparently Roll20 doesn't like it when you resize the hard grid squares of the VTT - it also resizes the ruler measurements - it insists that you resize the image).
Lighting is actually good in this way, but it created a "realism effect" difficulty that, in the end, I don't really think was worth it. It was kind of cool that players had to rely on communicating what they could see, but we could just as easily have metagamed it correctly like you would on an actual tabletop.
Setting up each individual token seems to be more trouble than it's worth. Even if you don't assign any attributes to them, you still have to dig up an image and move them between layers. In CA, you just use a coloured (usually red) dot with a number/letter on it to indicate who's who, and there's no prep required for it - saving an enormous amount of time.
I registered Roll20 for a month specifically for Dynamic Lighting in Roll20, but Dynamic Lighting doesn't mean what I thought it meant - I believe it refers only to lighting crossing over dungeon light sources. I can count on one hand the amount of scenarios I can think of where this might be useful, but I've never thought to myself that I wish I had that.
I'm still willing to run games in Roll20 if that's what players want, but for me, simplicity is winning out by a longshot, so I'm still inclined to stick to CA. The biggest hurdle is players getting used to saying where they want to move to when they're used to moving their own tokens.
My guess is that the only other reason is that Roll20 comes with chat and dice - something I'm used to using separately in IRC with a dicebot. Our dicebot can spit out spell descriptions, feats and conditions on demand as a bonus - quicker than googling for it.
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Roll20.
I've used d20pro, and I was a huge advocate of MapTool for a long time. Roll20 has in a very short span of time eclipsed both of those.
If you want out-of-the-box automation, d20pro might be the best bet. However, I find in practice that kind of automation is cripplingly restrictive and rather unnecessary.
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Roll20 has one major advantage....your players don't have to pay to use it.
Neither the GM nor the players have to pay to use CA, ever.
Adding to what I said about dynamic lighting in Roll20 earlier, I got it wrong; if the GM is willing to draw out all the rooms on every map, it can add a pretty amazing dimension of atmosphere to the game where players can only see what room they're in, even if you've been to other rooms before - depending on where your token is.
This still requires a lot more prep - the GM has to do it for every applicable room and set up light sources on all the applicable tokens, but it is surprisingly atmospheric. That's Roll20's real selling point (figuratively and literally, I suppose).
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For our PFS scenarios we take the maps out of the file and upload them to our working board.... no drawing required. It can take a bit of fiddly work to get the squares lined up though.
This sounds like you're not using dynamic lighting or polygon reveals in your scenarios at all though? Do you let players see the entire map even if they haven't explored it?