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I guess everything is virtual for a while and maybe a few more months, I was wondering if anyone had any tips for online play.
I had my first session the other night and I noticed it had some similarities, and some differences.
I noticed that people spontaneously take breaks when I play in person, but when I was online we went 90 minutes with no break. When should you take breaks? Every 45-60 minutes? How long? Maybe I'll set a timer next time.
In person, I can game for hours, maybe all day (if I'm not the GM). Online, at least with a headset, the limit seems lower. At 1.5 hours I think everyone in my group had enough, maybe I could have gone for another 30 minutes before needing a break or calling it a day. Is it better to have micro sessions or just take a 15-30 minute break every few hours? Or have 4-6 hour sessions like in person games?
I was playing with the complex options in Roll20 and tried them out, but it takes so much time to set them up with little benefit, I will use them sparingly. (I guess it demos well). I'll be using my own tokens, no macros for monsters, and normal fog of war (like a normal tabletop where parts of the map are revealed). I think basic is better, at least for me. If I was more invested in online play, I would buy the Bestiary for $50 to have everything done for me, but scenarios have so many custom monsters, it wouldn't cover everything.
Any thoughts, advice, or tips for online play, virtual tabletops, or Roll20?
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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You're right about the breaks. Since most people don't play with webcam on (screen real estate is at a premium), you can't see that someone is absent. Which would be obvious at a real life table. So a bit more coordination is required. Generally though, I've seen anyone can propose a "bio-break" (sounds gross) to go to the toilet, get a snack, put the kettle on.
As for the complexity of Roll20: it has a lot of possibilities. You can extend it in many ways with macros. But the beautiful thing is: most of that is just extras, not required. When just starting out, make sure people know about the very basics of rolling stuff:
is enough to let a player make a to-hit roll
rolls 10d6 and multiplies by 1.5, handy for the player with empowered fireball. Everything in between those double square brackets is treated as a "dice expression", which can do math. You don't even need to involve dice: = 2.
Macros aren't actually difficult. They sound intimidating but they're actually extremely handy for speeding up repetitive tasks. Instead of trying to type your attack roll correctly every time, just make a basic macro and have it ready all the time.
The most important macro of all is initiative. As a GM, you'll want to have this one:
This shows off two things: sending a result to the turn tracker, and using a "roll query". When you use this macro, you get a popup box asking you for an "initiative modifier". When you're rolling for a bunch of different monsters, just select their tokens one by one and use this macro and type in that monster's initiative modifier.
You can use that roll query for attack rolls too. For example, if you have a character that makes multiple attacks per round, but later attacks are at a penalty. Or if there's a bard in the party that gives bonuses sometimes. Then an attack macro can be:
So if the bard hasn't done anything yet and it's the first attack, you just leave the modifier at 0 and it's the character's normal attack at +10 to hit and 1d8+5 damage. If it's his second attack which is at -5 to hit, but the bard is singing for +1 to hit and damage, you would put a (-5 +1) = -4 on the to-hit modifier instead of 0, and 1 on the damage modifier.
So by using a roll query, you can have a macro that's more flexible under the circumstances.
The rabbit hole goes much, much deeper, with lots of cool special effects and really handy tricks to save time and reduce typing errors, but these are just basics that are easy to learn. The cool thing about roll20 is that you really don't need all that much to play, the rest is just nice extras.
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2 hours then break in a 4 hour game seems to be the standard, with maybe another break before the boss fight if its running long. Most people will also take one spontaneous break or two in between but since you can't see them leave the table its a bit harder to notice.
VERY basic roll 20 guide you're likely past this point, but might get a player who isn't at your table or wandering through the forums
How to make a quick and dirty roll 20 table Which has two or three ways to make an NPC quickly without filling out a character sheet. you CAN just sit at your computer and roll dice, but i find being able to click a button speeds things at the game up a LOT.
Omniwoof quickie sheet designed for starfinder monsters, but its turning into a "macros 202" level course.
Pictures really set the mood and tell a story. Both the enemies, the maps, and things they interact with on the map are going to be defined by their picture.
Social scenes need pictures and a flow chart just as much as combat does. Who's talking to who, what round is it, who's gone and who has to go this round etc... the minigames need an expressive map. Just because its role playing doesn't mean you can skimp on the prep
Put. names on peoples tokens. Either adjust that to be visible in the game settings (leave the table, go to the game, click the gear, scroll down) so people know what to call each other.
A 10 minute "avengers assemble" moment is good in any session, but a lot more mandatory in online play where the players have a harder time cutting in to interact with each other during the game. Using shift + z on a token during their intro will pop out the token so it can be seen (which will help you visualize the character even when its shrunk back down)
Going to look into some of the above
I tried it out last night and included the character sheet option which helped with lots of rolling but you can’t seem to upload them if you play with different groups. And filling it in is time consuming
I also had time to make “npc” sheets for the monsters but is a fair amount of work
When I tried reading the macros guide page on Roll20 it absolutely blew my mind. I had no idea what it was saying
*
Incidentally I assume the expectation is still to play a whole society scenario in one sitting rather than, say, 2 x 2 hour ones
I am looking at quests first so it is not immediately an issue
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Going to look into some of the above
I tried it out last night and included the character sheet option which helped with lots of rolling but you can’t seem to upload them if you play with different groups. And filling it in is time consuming
The process for uploading a character sheet from one group to another is called importing a character. There's a button by button guide on how to do that linked in flutters guide to branching out appendix 1 (linkified above as a very basic roll 20 guide). It requires
either you or the DM who's table you're going to to have a paid account (the 5 dollar a month level will do)
IF you rely on the sheet, the characters have to be using the same sheet (pathfinder community, starfinder simple, official pathfinder, official starfinder etc) as the table. Most PFS/SFS groups use the community/simple sheet and NOT the official one.
You can work around needing a paid account on occasion by setting your character to be seen and owned by everyone (commie mode) , then waving down someone with a paid account. They can then hop on your table, snag the character into their vault, and boop them over to a table for you.
So you create a table, call it "my character bar" , click the add button to adds sheets, the roll 20 names them something horrific with a name generator, you edit it, change the name, fill in what you need etc. Then when game time rolls around use the character vault to import your character to the vault then export them to the table.
I also had time to make “npc” sheets for the monsters but is a fair amount of work
Monsters are pretty easy, since they have set single and multi attack routines. A drop down menu or a few buttons can function for attacks saves, and whisper the DM its AC and HP
When I tried reading the macros guide page on Roll20 it absolutely blew my mind. I had no idea what it was saying
Yeah its... pretty bad on launching right into theory without providing a concrete example on the assumption that people can pull the very specific workable thing from the theory. They also seem to skip right into the deep end of the pool with coding sheets (which requires the 10 bucks a month thing and would make it really hard for you to use your sheet on anyone elses table) I have seen very few programmers that can explain programming well to a non programmer.
Start with the very basic roll 20 guide linked above and go from there.
Incidentally I assume the expectation is still to play a whole society scenario in one sitting rather than, say, 2 x 2 hour ones
with a 15 minute biobreak in the middle thats about right. getting everyone together two times is just a bit of a hassle.
I am looking at quests first so it is not immediately an issue
Most quests tend to get run all at once. Someone could bail early but then its going to be hard to get the same character into part of another run.
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Ah I don’t have a paid account so that explains why there was no option to export !
I also didn’t notice there was such thing as “community simple”. Why is the official one not used?
I will need to check if you can change the type of character sheet after the game has been set up . But will do that shortly
Will definitely look at the guide as I have been using Roll20 for ages without really using the features. And I have 6 people keen to at least play the Quests (and a friend who wants to start GMing a homebrew on Roll20 ). So will be worth the time
Thanks for the links !
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Yeah BigNorseWolf's guides are really nice, helped me past the hump too.
My main advice: take it one step at a time. In practice, you often don't need that many macros for a monster all configured. Initiative, attacks, saves will cover 80% of everything the monster does. Anything the monster might only roll once isn't worth spending time on to automate.
Rather than starting a new post:
For playing and reporting a “home” PFS game am I right that I need to go and get an event ID for that ? Even for just one quest or scenario?
That is my reading of it
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Rather than starting a new post:
For playing and reporting a “home” PFS game am I right that I need to go and get an event ID for that ? Even for just one quest or scenario?
That is my reading of it
SOP would be for you to get one event code for the event "Lanathars home games" and use that for all your events rather than getting an event code for every quest
Going to look into some of the above
I tried it out last night and included the character sheet option which helped with lots of rolling but you can’t seem to upload them if you play with different groups. And filling it in is time consuming
The process for uploading a character sheet from one group to another is called importing a character. There's a button by button guide on how to do that linked in flutters guide to branching out appendix 1 (linkified above as a very basic roll 20 guide). It requires
either you or the DM who's table you're going to to have a paid account (the 5 dollar a month level will do)
IF you rely on the sheet, the characters have to be using the same sheet (pathfinder community, starfinder simple, official pathfinder, official starfinder etc) as the table. Most PFS/SFS groups use the community/simple sheet and NOT the official one.
You can work around needing a paid account on occasion by setting your character to be seen and owned by everyone (commie mode) , then waving down someone with a paid account. They can then hop on your table, snag the character into their vault, and boop them over to a table for you.
So you create a table, call it "my character bar" , click the add button to adds sheets, the roll 20 names them something horrific with a name generator, you edit it, change the name, fill in what you need etc. Then when game time rolls around use the character vault to import your character to the vault then export them to the table.
I also had time to make “npc” sheets for the monsters but is a fair amount of workMonsters are pretty easy, since they have set single and multi attack routines. A drop down menu or a few buttons can function for attacks saves, and whisper the DM its AC and HP...
I have finally got a chance to look at the other sheets. The community and simple sheets are first edition ones. Are these the ones used for 2E as well?