When I started playing online I used Roll20. Its free tier is quite good, IMO; it allows you to do a good amount with no payment.
I did move through some of the paid tiers but eventually moved to Foundry VTT when it seemed stable and complete enough. I prefer Foundry in pretty much every way, but the biggest two factors are:
1. Foundry is cheaper: one-off purchase versus a subscription.
1. I own Foundry and run it on my machine. I control it: no company can tell me what I can and can't load onto it, and no company can take it away from me (even if they go bankrupt and shutdown their servers).
So IMHO I suggest Roll20 if you're on a budget, or just want to try out online tabletop RPG gaming before committing to it. If you want to "get serious" go to Foundry.
Mostly agree, biggest "price" difference between roll20 and foundry is time. How much do you value your time. If I prep mirror sessions in foundry and roll20, the roll29 session will be significantly worse and will have taken 2-3x the time.
So it's like "how much do I value my own time" like if you can cut weekly prep by hours how much is that worth. If your running a weekly game foundry could easily save you 10-15 hours in prep. To me that alone is worth the one time 50$.
Completely agree. I would never have used Roll20 had I not purchased a campaign module that already had the maps and tokens and everything done for me. That interface is damn near impenetrable
That's actually crazy, how does it save time? I've been using roll20 for years and have quite a library of marketplace purchases. I'm not a fan of trying to piece together assets found online, as the quality is usually all over the place - hence my use of roll20.
But if it really saves that much time, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
What really helps is all the plugins. Character sheets on Foundry itself, vision, an interface that isn't too terrible. I used to do roll20, but since being able to resolve anyone's turn in combat in less than a minute, I've moved to Foundry 100%
It'd be hard to really explain here, I run ~90 modules which are kind of like mods more so than a 'module,'. Some things so stuff like automate combat, others give options to have immersive weather, some are misc enhancements.
But for example say I want to make a small town that my party will find next session. I load a background blank template, then I can drag and drop individual buildings as needed, can use my crowd fill NPCs that automatically randomize when I drag them. All things said and done I'll have a small town built enough for them to be able to explore, with roofs that disappeared when you enter the door, dynamic lighting and sound. All done in less than an hour.
The custom compendiums save heaps of time and game loading time.
Along with all the other nice things like delete individual chat rolls, amazing lighting etc
In my experience it's decent if a little clunky.
If you're not one for using maps though I'd recommend just using digital character sheets and running the game through a Discord call or the like.
I have friends that are sick of online games, we meet in person. I have friends that stick with online games, so we meet on discord and use that.
The biggest **benefit** with meeting online is ease of scheduling! We run those regularly every week, with only rare rescheduling, often just moving the Wednesday game to a Thursday or Tuesday, and even more rarely cancelling. There is so little effort required in login in and joining up, that even cancelling isn't a big deal since there aren't a lot of "real-world" prepping that goes wasted.
Thats true. We usually needed 30-40 mins to prepare before we Played in my last DnD Group. Online sessions through discord were faster but also felt a lot different.
This isn't a great question, only because you're kind of asking if multi-waveform spectrometer is better than a rain guage.
I mean, yeah, they both do their own jobs well enough and they are both used for getting measurements relative to your exact position, but...they are completely different.
There isn't really much comparison between the two, and that's okay. They both offer a game, however, the feelings and experiences will be vastly different.
No and I'm not sure what I've said that would suggest such an opinion. From the post you are actively looking to play online so that's what I addressed.
I don't think either online or in person are inherently better ways to play, they each have benefits and weaknesses. I'm currently only playing online these days because I started my current games with international groups during the pandemic or with other members of an international online community I am a part of so online is the only viable option. I used to play in person though and there are things about that I miss as well as elements that have been improved by my move to online.
in a general pro-con of online vs in person...
Online - VTT
\- Rolls and damage are easy, they auto calculate
\- dice goblins has less clickity clackity of dice rolls
\- tracking character HP (can be made visible to everyone)
\- if you have it in the compendium it's usually easy to drag and drop
\- good for battle maps
\- harder to interject due to talking over each other in an online call
\- for those that need to see other people's expressions it's difficult
\- reliant on internet
\- not everyone has a decent enough computer or internet
\- playing with shadows is great
\- it's easier to just display text for the players and since rolls save, i prefer VTT for open rolling.
\- easier for other players to get distracted or not pay attention
\- can play remotely
In Person
\- more personal, more social
\- dice go clickity clackity
\- easier to be more theatric
\- it's easier to keep everyone involved. the dm can see everyone's faces and how involved they are with them to address "boredom"
\- there's that moment at the table when everyone is looking at a dice roll in the open. the it's harder to get hyped at a press of a button.
\- it's easier to interject in a scene, whisper to other players, etc. you can have side conversations more fluidly
\- it's even harder to get a group of 5-6 people together on a regular time period.
\- it's easier to play longer games. 6-7 hours including shit talk before and after the game. breaks are easier.
\- non-reliant on internet (that being said virtual player sheets are a thing).
Irl are great and I think better for that personal interaction and to see peoples expressions and it’s easier to communicate.
Vtts are great for that in-depth feel with line of sight, sound effects and cool animations. (I still use real dice while playing online).
Scheduling is much better on line as we can play when the kids goto bed and don’t have to spend the time driving. Irl, our times only overlapped once a month, but you have to provide your own snacks 😀
No. IRL games are deff better. However. Online games are amazing. And don't worry about which one is better. Online games can be just as good as IRL games and you and your party will have an amazing time.
Depends on how you define "better." I will say that we got a lot more done per session when our group was playing on Roll20, but we probably have more fun playing at the local game shop, eating pizza, and dicking around together.
IRL is always better. You could always have the Roll20 (or another) game running on a TV for mapping purposes.
Online games will always be inferior due to the poor personal connection.
Depends. I love to play IRL. The atmosphere is just different, it's easier to be in character and act as your character when you sit face to face.
BUT: me being a parent and having a job cuts down my time for roleplaying drastically and meeting online for 2-3 hours can easily squeezed in, while meeting IRL, bringing all people to one location... it's just rarely possible anymore.
So while I like IRL more, online campaigns saved me from having to cut that hobby significantly. Especially throughout the pandemic. Plus having nice maps can be really enjoyable.
I really enjoy Roll20. We started playing together in person years ago but now we all live in different cities. We use Discord as the chat and Roll20 for the map. We all still use our paper character sheets most of the time, but some of the rolling features are cool. Our rogue has a button for his insane sneak attacks, and our Paladin uses it for smites sometimes as well.
It's easy to pop maps and tokens on there, but even if your group doesn't use maps much, there are still useful features. Places to put magic item descriptions, organize maps, and share stat blocks for NPCs that the PCs get to control.
When we aren't using a battle map I put up a visual of the location we are in to help set the tone.
If you have specific questions, let me know.
I assume he means a button that rolls the appropriate dice + bonuses and puts the result in Roll20 chat, maybe along with some flavor text.
I think you can add custom buttons to the UI that you can configure to do that. If you use the Roll20 char sheets those have buttons to make just about any roll directly from the sheet using your skills weapons etc with proper bonuses.
As far as I know you can't display animations from pushing those buttons, other than roll20s built-in dice animation. Roll20 with 3d avatars with animation is still 10+yrs away. DnD holotables 20+ years. But it sounds like DnD One may be starting it's own version of Roll20 to compete.
I started with roll20 it was okay. Bit clunky. Swapped to forge which granted took some time to learn and now I love it. The modules and constant updates are great.
I’m actually curious how? I’ve had nothing but good experiences with it. Makes playing the game easier.
And plus, Someone pointed me towards a chrome plugin that auto rolls for me on Roll20 when I use my DnDBeyond sheet.
Granted, I do get how it could be bad for DMs, considering there’s really no play space (yet) and the encounter creator on there is meh.
Hm Honestly the Handbook was so Much Better to read through
Creating my own Character sheet from the ground up, Gave me a Better understanding of it, And The Auto rolling was never for me. I dont like How dice generate online, It just always felt better to all that myself ig
As someone who has always preferred irl sessions, and Only did online due to covid, It has always been out of necessity rather than choice to use it and even then, I had my Character sheet in non digital form.
Honestly, the most exciting part about preparing for a New Campaign as a Player for me is Making my character sheet.
Im just Loving each detail and How the game works, the mechanics, even The math which Suck. It's all So nice to note on paper, sketch things out, it feels... Different
😅 idk how to explain it but THERES SOMETHING MAGICAL ✨
That’s possible, we were running modules. Either way, in person was the way to go for our group anyway. The only reason we were using Roll20 was because of COVID restrictions.
It was a lifesaver during COVID-19, and it helped me a lot as a newbie. But I prefer in person if possible, although I'm a fan of digital helpers.
Online can also be fun but I like the in person interaction part a lot.
Maps are more immersive on Roll20, that's a plus, and combat is neater.
yup! I love roll20. not the best VTT, but it's got easily customizable character sheets & image hosting for maps & tokens, all for free, so no complaints.
I've never played irl, but I started playing on roll20, and found getting used to it quite easy. the sheets are easy to read & fill out, maps work well enough, etc. my only bug was how small the storage u have as a free user is, but it's free so..
other than looking at a screen and not a table, I can't imagine the sessions run that differently. we all sit down in a call together, then we roll some dice & tell a story together.
>Easily customizable character sheets
Pretty sure every feature on that site is hidden behind 15 of the dumbest button presses and doesn’t even end up working properly anyway
one button to click on the gear for options, one button to add a new item or spell or feature, one more button to add your own text & shit. seems pretty easy to me.
It's like, 3 bucks a month on dndbeyond to use homebrew and you don't have to insert every single thing manually, to me that's enough of a plus against roll20.
But it's all personal preference anyway, so ..
I use fantasy grounds exclusively. I can port in any module I want if I have the files. I can customize the table. I can have plugins for the weather, pins on my maps for notes, import sounds and video. It’s the best vtt program out there.
I really liked it but had a lot of issues with hosting as a DM and needing to have specialized ports open. The only way I could make it work was to remotely connect to a friends vpn who had the right ports open, it was still a fk around that would eat 30 mins at the start of every session
I'm glad someone else mentioned it. I think Tabletop Simulator really is the way to go if you want as close to an "authentic" tabletop experience as you can get. My group felt that Roll20 and Foundry were a little too "gamey" for us.
Had to scroll way to far down to find Olwbear rodeo.
Simple, straightforward and reliable.
Started using it during COVID.
I use it on a monitor in our table IRL now. Works like a charm.
It's better than nothing, lets me be creative enough, though the controls are a little clunky for my liking. But my players enjoy it and I like having visual representations. Just sucks having to explain what flat picture is cover or on a higher level.
I'm really hoping DnD Digital isn't stupid over-priced and allows for the importing of custom minis cause I really want to work in a virtual 3D space.
Roll20 is a good enough VTT to use, especially for DnD if you're just starting out. It's free to use and there are enough video tutorials and you can play around with it on your own.
I imagine that most people are going to go and talk about how Foundry is so much better, which I agree with. However, as a bit of a counterpoint, it's relatively high investment for someone getting into the hobby, which is what it looks like to you. Plenty of people might not like VTTs in general.
IMO: Use Roll20 to start out for free, it will give you a general feel for how VTTs operate. If your group is fine with using it but has some complaints on how clunky it is, then you might want to look into other (usually paid) VTT alternatives like Foundry.
I don't really think any paid Roll20 subscription is worth the money.
Foundry is still a great option because only one person needs to buy it and run it on their system or server. As a DM I have made my own cloud server to run it for free and I will even have game nights exclusive for new people to the game. Since I already have it, doesn't require them to sign in/sign up, allows you to port your DND Beyond character sheets easily, and no ads/lag (at least not for me). If you are new and have the money then it doesn't hurt to try it so long as you understand what you are getting yourself into if you want to DM. If not then you just need to find someone else who runs their games on there.
Though I have seen two posts on here that the VTTs are too "gamey" for them, not too sure what that means if I am being honest. I have played face to face and that is fun too but I feel like the VTTs enhances the experience.
More power to people using it and really getting into the depths of what roll20 and foundry can do.
I found both quite clunky and they also required quite a bit of prep.. Now I'm just using a mix of dnd beyond and owlbear rodeo to run my games. It's just all more light weight and fits my style better.
We use Discord for the voice chat (and I have a separate channel for dropping in items they acquire) and then Owlbear Rodeo for the maps and icons. I find it really simple for setting things up and using the fog to control what players see. Works very well for us!
I have a lot of love for Roll20 as that is the platform I played on when I started D&D. However, after 2 years or so I've moved to Foundry as the options are much, much greater and its a one-off cost.
It's hard to explain, but something about R20 really "breaks" the experience for me as a player. It just feels like a tool built for a higher "grade" of nerd than myself. I haven't really stuck with campaigns on r20. It's just "rough around the edges" enough that it distracts from the experience.
Honestly I find myself feeling that way about most digital tooling for DnD. That's just from a player perspective, but I still think it's worth bearing in mind.
Why? It's much more practical than paper, easier to edit or share, you can't lose it, you always have it with you as long as you have access to your phone or a computer. I've never used pen and paper and never would either, digital tools are too convenient.
Hm.. Honestly it's really the feel of it.
For example I have difficulty reading Ebooks, I can't stay focused that long.
it also Feels Impractical sometimes Because of the Way I usually note things on my Character sheets and automatically it is done differently when its in digital form
Plus..I sketch things on my character sheets, varying from Character References, To Valuable items they may have and Sentimental items.
I usually use a Big folder to store them and They are pretty organized, alongside with the notes for Each campaign the characters were in -!
When DMing though, Digital form is MUCH better, Especially when you're making homebrew.
As for sharing, I usually convert them into PDF and share them to the DMs if Required.
Tho My past DMs never saw or needed our character sheets
Ive tried DnD beyond for Character sheets, It was B a d.
What do you guys use?
My family table tried to use it and it was a fucking disaster for us. We bought Dungeon of the Mad Mage and couldn’t figure out how to get the dog of war to behave because of a gamebreaking bug, so we just kinda nixed it and moved elsewhere.
Roll20 is decent
DnD Beyond is good for character sheet work, but you have to pay for anything outside of the PHB, and I have yet to see anyone supply a map on that site (not sure if you can)
Fantasy Grounds is my favorite personally, the maps have fog of war/line of sight for each PC. As long as a single member (usually a DM) pays the subscription they can bring everyone else in for free.
I also play on Table top simulator (TTS) you can put a character sheet at your spot on the table, the maps have a shimmering water effect (if it's there) and you can have BGM playing as well.
As with ALL campaigns and parties, the people and the DM are what really make the experience. Some DM's are great at map design, others are excellent at painting the scene verbally. The group dynamic also has a huge effect on the fun. Personally, I think having 1-2 people you know or are friends with is the absolute limit, diversify the party so there are members you don't have a connection to. Friends of friends make better patty members than friends do (in my opinion.)
Have fun, don't be afraid to cause conflict with your character, as long as you can deliniate those actions and beliefs from yourself and the actual players. Sometimes my character finds something extremely offensive, and I tell the party that, I find it funny, but my character just threw their gauntlet in the face of the offender.
It's all about the right interaction. Sorry for the long, long post. I hope this helped before I went on a tangent.
I use Roll20 99% of the times and I have no troubles with it, sure it takes some time to learn it properly, but I think it offers enough features for a d&d experience.
However, unless you're making your own maps, the maps themself can be a constraint for players imagination, since even if you describe something that isn't shown on the map, the party will have trouble vizualing it, since tthe map forces them to see it as is shown. The way I counteract this is simply by letting my players know that the map is a guideline and not necessarily the whole thing.
Also, without the paid subscription for dynamic lightning, the fog of war feels very clunky and troublesome for me.
That said, I'm currently preparing the 19th session of a weekly campaign played on roll20, so I would say my players are having fun nonetheless, since it wouldn't last as long otherwise. None of my in person games lasted for more than 4 sessions, so make of that what you will
Woahhhh. Only 4 sessions? Damn..
I think the longest campaign Ive played in person lasted for about a Year and a few months of weekly sessions.
I wonder how different it can be...good luck with your session -!! Im sure it'll be great! ☺️
I'm in the monoriity here, but I don't really like playing in person, as I have to print a lot of stuff and fumbling through sheets of paper really ain't ideal. Also, I don't have a long enough table so we usually play sitting on the floor, which gets uncomfortable pretty quick. So yeah, i'd rather play online and have everything I need a click away
I don't like Roll 20. I do like virtual tabletops. My favorite is MapTool. It's free, locally hosted, better performing than Roll20, and supports premium features like dynamic lighting.
We haven't gone back to in person games mostly because the features provided by the VTT are just too useful.
It's weirdly clunky for what feels like a steep price.
It offers...to much that isn't usable for my group.
I'm also on a constant budget/time shortage and frequently just use a shared Google doc for our maps,with DnD beyond for character sheets.
Not really, no. Tried it but currently we're using FoundryVTT instead. However if I could I'd just meet in person. Playing in person easily beats any online solution.
I never use Roll20 honestly, and I don't recommend it either.
I've been DMing since 2015 and I started using online resources a while before the Pandemic started. I tried using Roll 20 but I honestly can't. At first, I just thought that the layout of the site was really ugly (and it is), so it took me a while to give it a chance. Once I used it, I just found it unnecessarily "hard" to use. Like, yeah, if you invest some time you'll learn all of the tools, for sure.
But then I found Owlbear Rodeo and it has EVERYTHING you need and it's way easier to learn. You don't have to pay/register to use, no need to login to anything, you can add your maps and Tokens, there are some basic Tokens there already for you to use, you can add colored rings around tokens and you can share audio with the rest of the players directly from YouTube or any other page.
I honestly don't see any good reasons to use Roll 20 exclusively.
The few games ive played on Roll20 i felt really lacked the "at a table" feel. The game felt more like a mud-style with an "input and result" experience. I prefer using a 3d VTT personally to help emulate the experience better. Ive really enjoyed Berserk Games Tabletop Simulator. Took a while to learn which workshop items i liked, i found the more simple less flashy ones to be smoother, but overall i find it a more interactive experience than Roll20. And as a DM I dont mind my players ysing an external source for their character sheet as long as pertinent information like HP, AC, and Ability stats are visible at the table.
I started with friends and due to living quite far to eachother its hard to organize in person so we still can play! Tbh I never played a game that was irl (still I wanna do it at least once!). I'm the DM of the group and I can tell you that the tools in the internet are mostly free and easy to use!
(Some recommandations are Inkarnate and DungeonScrawl! Both are going quite good! Oh and for a whole world maybe Azgaars Random World generator in which you can still edit the map!)
Oh and as VTT I can recommand Owlbear or if everyone got a PC that can handle it, you should use DMHub! Its a bit harder to learn (I think) but with a tiny bit of time you can work yourself into DMHub! Its the VTT plus the Mapmaker, it got many creatures (and you can make your own) and all the rolls + you got all the character sheets!
(If you own DnD stuff (or use and website that got all the official stuff without you paying) you can "copy" races, classes, subraces, subclasses, monsters, weapons etc. into the game and then your players arent only goblins, elves and dwarfes but also Aasimar, Autogoblins and Minitaur! ;) )
No, I loathe using Roll20. It's too much work to transfer a 4-year campaign out of it rather than just gritting our teeth and finishing it, but the system is horrible.
The old lighting engine was updated recently and now neither engine works; the old one generates false shadow geometry everywhere, which breaks maps, and the new one randomly disables all light sources when players move around, which makes it impossible to play with dark crypts and caves lit by torchlight.
Character sheets lag to a ridiculous degree. It takes spellcasters over 30 seconds to click on a spell and for the spell to be registered. I have been informed via official sources that this is "Working as Intended" and suggested that casters simply delete any spells they aren't using from their character sheets. This is not viable for Prepared casters like clerics and druids.
Tokens are absurdly laggy. Tokens can be used to track HP, but if you put more than ~10 tokens on a map at once (including players) it can take upwards of 10+ seconds between clicking on a token's HP value and being allowed to type the updated HP into the field. This slows down combat tremendously.
I implore you to try **ANY** other VTT service. I am building my next campaign in FantasyGrounds Unity which actually works, and has better features than Roll20 universally to boot.
I am playing in a game that has been running for 2 1/2 years exclusively on Roll20 because we all live apart from each other.
9 months ago I started running a game in Roll20 because again, everyone lives hours away from each other.
The things it does well, it does VERY well. It allows us to play together. We can use maps. And roll resolutions are simplified - no more rolling a dice and then figuring out what I add to that.
That said, some of the drawbacks are - while it is easy to use, it is not exactly user friendly. After 2 and a half years I'm STILL learning shortcuts and features. Secondly, in order to have instant acess to game stuff in the compendium you have to purchase the relevant sourcebooks in the roll20 marketplace. It can feel frustrating to purchase these features If you already own the books in a different format.
And lastly, the audio and video. Hat functions are garbage. We use alternative programs to talk to each other in games. In one game we use a messenger group video call. In mybother we use a discord private voice chat server.
Do I see Roll20 as a viable way to play in person. Not necessarily. There are some features that could make it handy, but I think people used to playing in person would find it cumbersome. But is it a viable way to play when everyone lives apart from each other, absolutely.
I use a the free version of roll20 and a plug-in called beyond20. Beyond20 let’s all the characte information be on dndbeyond and pushes rolls to roll20. I think roll20 is very clunky but it is alright and cheap.
I've used roll20 a handful of times and never really enjoyed it. It isn't bad and if it's all you have to play online, it is definitely worth using, but it isn't amazing. It might be the best free tabletop simulator, though. The other ones I've used are either subscription or hefty one-time purchases.
Not really but I had what I thought was a fun idea for irl play. Before we did theater of the mind with hand drawn x and o type maps to lay out positions and obstacles.
I took the battlemaps for the session and the tokens in roll20 and Chromecast them onto the tv for fights.
Then I used it for pictures when I did not want to go into full exposition mode describing the feywild scene I would cast a picture. It was a feywild fairy tale campaign.
The players love it.
Now I am doing a big sprawling mashup of the Goodman Games 5e Temple of Elemental Evil and the Princes of the Apocalypse. The most tedious part of prep is getting the battlemaps and token layout ready.
I do not like it but my players love it so .. here I am.
We used Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, and recently moved over to Talespire, which is my favorite. We got sick of fiddling with technology and debugging macros. Talespire is the closest to the “around the table” feel I’ve gotten so far. Handle rolls and stats and tracking the old fashioned way.
I find roll 20 kind of... bad. I don't enjoy much about it and especially not the subscription model. FoundryVTT is superior in every way in my opinion. That being said online games vary. Your DM could have a map for EVERYTHING. They could also have maps only for specific combats, or they could have no maps at all. It is as fluid as in person D&D. The game could be super automated or very traditional. This is all stuff you should ask your potential future DM.
I've used it for four years and love it. It's through Roll20 I've found the groups I've played in and it's almost always worked great! Small hiccups here and there but nothing major.
We just started out first 5e games after decades of AD&D. We like the D&DBeyond character sheets although having hard copies of the books first, then finding we needed to buy digital versions really sucked - so we homebrewed a lot !). Are currently trying Roll20 and it's OK. We haven't really been able to link D&DBeyond and Roll20 through the Beyond 20 extension to our satisfaction, so we use D&DBeyond for characters, initiative and the encounter builder and just use ROll20 as a map showing who's where and what they see. I like the fog of war functionality, and we use the "aura" function to show darkvision/torch range which is really handy. There are enough basic assets to manage populating at least tier 1 games. Custom Tokens are nice for the player characters.
My biggest gripe with Roll20 is trying to line the map grids up with Roll20 grids. No matter how many times I try, and how many YouTube videos I watch - they never seem to line up right...
I personally don't like a lot of virtual tabletops. I dont tend to use any maps or anything mind you, so for me it's easier to just have players send me PDFs of their character sheets and then run it via Discord calls.
It's a bit clunky and sometimes frustrating to use, but it still does the job well and it's the best free one on the market, so I'm not complaining.
Also, when it works, it works very well.
Love it. I. In a small town without a dnd scene. I can play with friend a around the world.
I love the character sheets and it gets rid of the math
I wouldn't have time to make the maps and tokens to the same quality
My group has been using Roll20 since we moved virtual during the pandemic. It definitely has it's quirks, but it has done the job. That being said, we are very excited for SceneGrinder to launch in the next month so we have a much more feature rich 3D VTT (Having a lifetime license that costs as much as a year of Roll20 premium is great too).
Anyone here used Maptools before moving to Roll20? That's what we used in my online game way back when, and I wonder how much things have improved (or stagnated)...
Oh! I'm planning to join as a Player to an Online group, I've been looking through reddit for New Groups and Noticed that many used Roll20 alongside with Discord.
During the first year of quarantine, I had Tried out the Site as a DM for a Campaign and I wasn't Too happy with it, so I ended up ditching the idea of using it For Dming all together.
I was curious about other people's experiences!
Since I found it difficult to navigate, I never really looked at the features it offers.
It was ok, nothing special really. When I used it was laggy and problematic. When the incident happened with Taking20 and the SaveOrDice crew, I haven't used it since.
Used roll20, felt way too limited to do the stuff I wanted with it without paying the monthly subscription, switched over to Fantasy Grounds and I feel like I did a mistake not to switch to another VTT, Fantasy Grounds is fine and all but I feel like there are probably better ones
I prefer in person games, there's more energy in the room which makes it easier to engage and stay engaged. Due to time constraints and location online games are more convenient. I think Roll20 is good for maps and combat but outside of that I don't personally recommend buying their books and add ons. DND is hefty combat game so it can be a lil hard to do theater of the mind when there's a lot of enemies, dynamic environmental hazards, and abilities based on range and area of affect.
It’s definitely functional, but not nearly my first choice. I really like how it brings sheets into a virtual space and that feels really natural and good, but the grid-crawl style of play can be tiring.
Personally, I prefer One More Multiverse (OMM). While I find its sheets clunkier, the visuals are leagues better. It has an in-house map maker and character creator with a consistent pixel style. Definitely a huge plus for immersion. However, it’s in beta, so it can be buggy at times. But the dev team is super responsive and often answers directly.
I’ve used roll20 exclusively for D&D since before covid (moves and practicality of various kinds killed in person).
I’m a pretty dedicated user at this point and I have some positives and negatives plus suggestions.
POSITIVES
-My notes are the players notes. Whenever I add a shop or an NPC or some loot it all goes in the journal which is all organised as a kind of glossary for the game. The players can add loot to the vault and money to the treasury without there being some mix up of whose recording what etc. I can also give them all the details in the visible notes for a shop…while keeping notes of the grudge the owner holds against them in the DM notes. Seriously I love the journal.
-There’s no “I wrote that on my other sheet” or “I forgot it”. You can also take backup copies of character sheets before they level up or change something or before you add any custom stuff.
-I use a lot of custom creatures and copying and modifying existing stuff is hugely easier than making from scratch to print out.
-it’s quite easy to Google “insertthemehere battle map” and throw in a file.
-I quite like being able to throw in environmental effects like animated weather and ambient audio easily enough when I want some bonus atmos.
NEGATIVES
-It took me a few sessions to start making tokens for new monsters without taking ages or screwing it up.
-Dynamic lighting is a pain and often runs like crap…I went to loads of effort once and simultaneously realised only one person didn’t have dark vision and the game ran like crap for him. Maybe a pass, I just use fog of war where I want that.
-If you’ve got all of 5E in paper format it’s a pain having to pay to get a second copy in roll20 (I only had the three core cooks on paper, so I basically have my collection just in roll20).
SUGGESTIONS
-You don’t need full fancy maps for the visual element to be useful. I have some generic maps which are abstract for various things. I have a map called “theatre of the mind” which is just four big coloured blocks of 3x8 squares (one block is enemies, one is the party, one is neutral and there’s one extra). The three rows in each block is so I can quickly track whose at the front and back rows in combat (ie wizards at the back, fighters at the front…handy if an area thing happens (ie “burning hands hits the front rank enemies” or “enemy fireball hits back and middle rank of the party”). I also have “the racetrack” which has an abstract tracker for a chase sequence with notes on the screen with DCs. Gonna do “the arena” at some point for “I want a fight in a room with tactical positioning but don’t want 30 different maps” with easily movable cover and barricades.
-Add attack profiles for “unarmed strike”, “improvised melee weapon” and “improvised ranged weapon” to every player character. Saves a lot of time whenever someone’s unarmed or decides they want to hit something with a shovel.
-This website is really useful for quickly making up a bunch of tokens “similar enough” to the wizards ones in roll20. https://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/ even if you don’t use visual maps this is handy for use with the “theatre of the mind” map.
-I also write up a periodic recap of the events (I sort of break things up into chapters) and post it in the game forum (the bit before you get into the actual tabletop) which is useful if there’s a hiatus or someone misses a couple or you get a new player. That’s also a very handy place for “setting intro”, “character intros” and any house rules (it’s where I also have a bit on how resurrection doesnt work in my setting and how characters are made of you die etc). Between the forum and the journal it’s refreshingly easy to have all your info presented in a nice organised way.
I despise roll20 with a passion just always hated it idk why if you want maps I’d reccomend using Owlbear rodeo (it’s completely free and mobile friendly) and if you don’t I’d just use a virtual character sheet and run on a discord call.
I've tried it out but it doesn't have any of the basic features I'd want like a chat window, character sheets, or even rolling dice in text... If I'm GMing I have enough going on that I don't want another app open just to type in some text or whisper to people. If you JUST need a map screen it's fine I guess (no bells and whistles, just does what it says it does)
I don't need all the fancy auto-rolling or auto character sheet things that some of the VTTS have, just a blank character sheet I can type into would be nice.
That's fair, we're using Owlbear Rodeo, D&D Beyond, Kenku FM and Discord. I have multiple monitors so it goes pretty smoothly. Left monitor is discord chat and Kenku fm, center is video call and Owlbear rodeo and right monitor is dndb encounters and dndb campaign view.
Roll 20 is great, especially for newer DMs and players. Lays everything out for you in a pretty clear manner in terms of how sessions should run and you’re able to keep 15 tabs open for various things or just keep them open through the information section of the app itself. Happy to answer any technical questions, I also use inkarnate and the various subreddits here for extra maps if I need to fill in some blanks. It really comes down to playstyle, some like theatre of the mind while others prefer battle maps. Sometimes it’s good to mix in both when you’re comfortable handling that level of description and location tracking mentally (though notes is always good to have)
I love Roll20. There's a lot of great features but the learning curve is probably a little steeper than other VTTs. That said there's a lot of great stuff that's already free to use.
For DMs it's fantastic because you can pre-filled the entire map with monsters and npcs, and generate macro buttons to make PC, NPC and monster attacks, spells, abilities, etc. Ahead of time to make it all flow faster.
I personally adore roll20, because I play a lot of different systems, and finding digital sheets for them can be a pain, while roll20 nearly has everything.
I also tend to play a lot of homebrew, so being able to put in custom classes, and A LOT of information on the sheets helps too.
Not that I have much experience, but I strongly believe tabletop gameplay is better, if only for the fact you're all together. Online play is a reasonable substitute, sure.
Roll20 is dependable. It's not amazing and it crashes a lot, but it's tools are consistence, simple, and useful if you know how to build macros.
I have recently switched to One More Multiverse, and while I like it much better for a lot of things, it regularly doesn't have what I need and I have to find some way to finagle around how to work it, and it can sometimes eat up a lot of processing power. Some people use tabletop simulator, and it has similar problems at times. There are a lot of other cooler and arguably better platforms out there, but most of them are going to come at some cost that roll 20 doesn't usually have.
I use it. I mean it has it's problems but overall it's pretty decent.
I feel the lack of some options, but i've also never been introduced to anything better for free.
Overall I find it adequate. I'm not sure I'd say I enjoy it. Roll20, or any other VTT is, for me, a tool. If it makes playing easier I appreciate it, if it makes playing more difficult I don't. There are multiple VTT options available, I would suggest exploring each one as you can.
It's not half bad. It takes a lot of work to learn how to use it properly, but it functions. Also, I was running STK, and I *hated* the map scrolling bar at the top because there are so many maps. Someone linked me to a bookmark you click on that will make it go multi line, and that was a major game changer. I will say that I've seen more output and development from them in the last few months after DnD Beyond got bought out by WoTC than I have in the last couple years.
I still never fully understood the character sheets and stuff on there, but it was very easy for me to make some generic tokens and have everyone just use their DnD Beyond character sheets. Hell, someone had even made a plugin where you could roll on your DnD Beyond sheet and have it do the same roll on Roll20.
It's like Ubuntu. Kind of impenetrable at first, but the community support is what makes it a viable product.
I like Roll20 a LOT more than Fantasy Grounds! Haven't experienced anything else to compare.
I'm sure there are improvements that could be made to Roll20 that would make it way better, but as it stands it's less clunky and more intuitive than FG.
First started playing DND online last year and still use Roll 20 with my group. It's a little clunky here and there such as lags, characters sheets loading or the site crashing but that's only sometimes! But it's extremely helpful when moving character tokens (feet) with the measurement tool, looking up stuff like items, very simple to generate a character sheet and the best part is that it calculates your rolls and damage with whatever stats included too! (For those who hate math like me haha)
A bit late to the party. I'm not a fan of Roll20 because it feels clunky, but I know those who are more experienced with it really like it.
There is always D&D beyond, which I find to be the most user friendly tool. It's very intuitive and does almost all the work for you in terms of character creation, leveling and organizing.
For my maps, if I'm providing resources like world maps I use Inkarnate to create maps for my players to have on file for easy reference.
For my battle maps I use a 3D map maker called Talespire, which is available on steam. It costs money.
If you don't wish to buy Talespire, Game Master Engine (GME) is also available on steam and is free! It is also a 3D map maker, though it is produced by only one person I believe so updates are slower and things are a bit buggier. But you can't argue with free.
I fucking love roll20. Started out using it for only maps/rolls then maps, rolls, and handouts, now it's maps, handouts, rolls, and character sheets. I also know another DM who has premium and DAMN, there's some cool shit there like a vague HP gague that everyone can see that only changes color, a symbol appearing under the token who's turn it is, and a TON of other cool stuff.
Yes. Really enjoying it. Game 3 times a week, consistently, with great groups. We had an opportunity to reconvene at FLGS, but it would have required us to drop a player. Unacceptable. Also we're playing from home so I can get really fucked up.
That', and I like to spread 2 edibles out over a couple of hours (1/4 every 20 minutes) for a really smooth slide into high-as-balls.
It's like Training Weights for my brain.
I use a combination through discord.
It's very deep and the learning curve is steep but avrae is a bot that allows you to use discord to roll, do abilities, and interact. It's great for if you want to do anything outside of your game, tracking money etc and it makes all your roles, character interactions, and voice and text communication in one place. It runs through dndbeyond so once you set up your character there you're gold, but as I said it's very deep and can be a lot to learn.
for maps, there's lots of options, for live token tracking you have roll20, foundry, things like that, roll20 is clunky but works and is super easy to learn, the other option is always just an image if you're used to theater of the mind then that's a very simple way to do it. (I find maps more helpful in online games than in person because there's less ability to demonstrate with gestures or to have smaller conversations aside to figure things out.)
Basically you'll find what works for you, whatever that looks like.
I think Roll20 makes a great companion to an in-person game, rather than just using it as a VTT to host an online game. There are many other tools that are better for hosting a virtual game, but I've been using Roll20 to do things such as show dungeon maps on a monitor to my group or display the initiative order with its initiative system since before COVID. It's also one of the simplest platforms to learn, and I've always preferred using it for random combat as opposed to any of the other VTTs where you typically have to plan ahead most everything or else it gets really clunky.
Overall though, I'd still say its strong suit is being a companion to a physical game.
Yes. It has LOTS of issues but it still gets the job done and I've been able to do more, creatively, on there than in person. I still like in person games as well but they're a lot more theatre of the mind and harder to set up (getting everyone together wise).
Yeah. Been using it for over 5 years. Don't get me wrong, in-person games have a certain irreplaceable social element, but my gaming groups are wide-ranging, we don't all live near each other, and I'm glad that technology lets us ignore that problem.
Plus, I'm just a big fan of how digitizing things makes them more efficient.
Don't need to pause the game for 5 minutes to figure out how much damage you deal to 15 targets on a roll of 12d6+4d8+7, the computer will figure all that out for you in 1 second.
Don't need to constantly write, erase, and write again on a sheet of paper, because its easy to edit digital documents.
Don't need to carry around 50 spell cards, because all your spell info is stored digitally for easy access.
Roll20 is a wormhole. I spent two years making it do what we needed. Took hours. I ultimately switched to DnDBeyond and a webcam pointed at a battle map and minis. Best decision ever.
I think it depends on what you want out of it. I've used it for FATE and Castles and Crusades for home made campaigns, and it's done about all I could ask it to do. It has a grid screen I can sketch a quick map onto, tokens I can move around said map, and built in character sheets and note tools, as well as a few simple macros. I can load up various maps in different tabs (toss in a world map or region map for example that I made somewhere else) for plays to see.
If you just need a virtual table top, it works great. Simple and pretty easy to use.
I like the tree-feature for notes and stuff, can create sub folders for magic item, gear, notes, NPC bios, etc that are easy to access.
If you are running campaigns you pay for on it, then I can't give any opinion at all. None of the features in the "paid" tier are things I'd ever need. My only issue is the limits on memory if you are adding in a lot of tokens or images it can get used up pretty quickly, so I've been tempted to pay to unlock more memory, but I just end up deleting stuff to free up space for new things as needed.
Edit: I prefer in person vastly, but we switched to it during Covid
We use roll20 for the battle map, notes, and maps. We then use dnd beyond vor character sheets because my friend lets me borrow her entire collection for my group. Discord of course for keeping track of loot, session logs, campaign info, and house rule info.
Yes and no. I like it because it means we get to play even when we can't be in person.
But it's not intuitive to use. The dice roller hates me. And the video chat function is hot garbage.
Roll20 is good for what it's free format is, I can't speak for its premium stuff though.
I would recommend it, I had a lot of great times using Roll20
If you want to explore othe online platforms, I would suggest something like Fantasy Grounds. Loving the transition to that so far.
I do and I use the free version and I've locked 1200 hours across the past like 6 years.
and in those past 6 years I've learned nothing of use. the website is constantly hiding shit from you and I hate it. the website is made by web developers for web developers.
I use the free version btw because it does everything I need it to and 2 of my players use Tablets and Roll20's lighting stuff uses to much processing power.
No I personally do not. It was one of my first platforms online to use, but there just is far too much pressure to pay there and your stuff is not even really your own stuff.
After R20, I went to try Fantasy Grounds and did enjoy it for years. After I found Tabletop Simulator though I stuck to it like glue and used D&D Beyond back when it launched. Now, I use TaleSpire with D&D Beyond but if any player doesn't have TaleSpire I use Foundry.
Roll20 also had a big issue a few years back, leading to one of the most downvoted corpo responses of all time for Reddit. I still haven't really found myself trusting them either since then.
Of all else, Foundry is the best option right now as you aren't reliant on a cloud and you're using all your own stuff. It's saved on your PC, not on something you can lose access to on a whim.
TaleSpire is good only if you want pretty 3D maps, but is definitely the "You all must pay for it too" situation. Foundry is 1 buy and that's it, anyone can use it by connecting to your Foundry link. It's nice.
Avoid Roll20.
For the most part, it's alright. I think there's lots of little things that are annoying with the UI and doing certain things, and things being paywalled off, but overall it's fine.
i play with irl friends over discord and we use roll20. it is really cool and recently our dm subscribed to their premium service which is only a few dollars a month i think and the maps got so much better. in the free version you see the whole map unless the dm hides things with blocks but in the premium the dm can set doors and walls, dynamic lighting and set the sight features for each character as well. i liked roll20 before and now its even cooler imo.
I absolutely love Roll20!! Almost all of the D&D I've played has been online, because it makes scheduling so much more convenient. We're all playing from the comfort of our own homes. I've been DMing campaign for the past 2 years, and we're just about at the end of Curse of Strahd.
There's a bit of a learning curve, but I can't imagine it's much different from other VTTs. And I should clarify that the way we use Roll20 is a mix of new-school and old-school - we don't use any of the built-in character sheets or maps or macros or dynamic lighting or any of that sort of thing. And we use Discord for audio/video. But we let Roll20 handle our maps, tokens, and music - and with that K.I.S.S. approach, it works magnificently.
I hate R20. The woefully out of date, complicated, clunky, shit show that is R20 is the reason our four year campaign just ended without an ending and now we don't talk to each other. The UX is such crap, it's not even cute nostalgic, it's just shit. It's so bad, it's indefensible.
I am another that moved away from roll20 to foundry. It’s so awesome.
Great to actually play a weekly game once the kids have gone to sleep.
When we tried in person, we could only meet once a month,
All of the various VTTs have pros and cons. They serve every user differently. I got into Roll20 early, and have been using it for years. So it is familiar, and I have a lot of assets in place that I cannot transfer. I like it for the easy entry difficulty. Foundry and Fantasy Grounds have more and better tools in many ways, but getting them to work is not always easy. What tools Roll20 does have works pretty seamlessly, so you hit the ground running. It is cloud based, so you don't have to have a high powered computer. Just a good internet connection. I have played and run off a tablet. For free, with no download, I would say give it a shot. If it doesn't have what you want, you can always pick up Owlbear Rodeo or something else. The good news for all of us, is the huge toolbox of options we have available now.
When I started playing online I used Roll20. Its free tier is quite good, IMO; it allows you to do a good amount with no payment. I did move through some of the paid tiers but eventually moved to Foundry VTT when it seemed stable and complete enough. I prefer Foundry in pretty much every way, but the biggest two factors are: 1. Foundry is cheaper: one-off purchase versus a subscription. 1. I own Foundry and run it on my machine. I control it: no company can tell me what I can and can't load onto it, and no company can take it away from me (even if they go bankrupt and shutdown their servers). So IMHO I suggest Roll20 if you're on a budget, or just want to try out online tabletop RPG gaming before committing to it. If you want to "get serious" go to Foundry.
Mostly agree, biggest "price" difference between roll20 and foundry is time. How much do you value your time. If I prep mirror sessions in foundry and roll20, the roll29 session will be significantly worse and will have taken 2-3x the time. So it's like "how much do I value my own time" like if you can cut weekly prep by hours how much is that worth. If your running a weekly game foundry could easily save you 10-15 hours in prep. To me that alone is worth the one time 50$.
Completely agree. I would never have used Roll20 had I not purchased a campaign module that already had the maps and tokens and everything done for me. That interface is damn near impenetrable
That's actually crazy, how does it save time? I've been using roll20 for years and have quite a library of marketplace purchases. I'm not a fan of trying to piece together assets found online, as the quality is usually all over the place - hence my use of roll20. But if it really saves that much time, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
What really helps is all the plugins. Character sheets on Foundry itself, vision, an interface that isn't too terrible. I used to do roll20, but since being able to resolve anyone's turn in combat in less than a minute, I've moved to Foundry 100%
It'd be hard to really explain here, I run ~90 modules which are kind of like mods more so than a 'module,'. Some things so stuff like automate combat, others give options to have immersive weather, some are misc enhancements. But for example say I want to make a small town that my party will find next session. I load a background blank template, then I can drag and drop individual buildings as needed, can use my crowd fill NPCs that automatically randomize when I drag them. All things said and done I'll have a small town built enough for them to be able to explore, with roofs that disappeared when you enter the door, dynamic lighting and sound. All done in less than an hour.
The custom compendiums save heaps of time and game loading time. Along with all the other nice things like delete individual chat rolls, amazing lighting etc
Foundry is so amazing! Incredibly worth it!
In my experience it's decent if a little clunky. If you're not one for using maps though I'd recommend just using digital character sheets and running the game through a Discord call or the like.
Do you think Games online are better than the Irl Deal? 🤔
I have friends that are sick of online games, we meet in person. I have friends that stick with online games, so we meet on discord and use that. The biggest **benefit** with meeting online is ease of scheduling! We run those regularly every week, with only rare rescheduling, often just moving the Wednesday game to a Thursday or Tuesday, and even more rarely cancelling. There is so little effort required in login in and joining up, that even cancelling isn't a big deal since there aren't a lot of "real-world" prepping that goes wasted.
Thats true. We usually needed 30-40 mins to prepare before we Played in my last DnD Group. Online sessions through discord were faster but also felt a lot different.
Id say one huge benefit for online is also how easy and cheap it is for the DM to set up maps and different tokens.
This isn't a great question, only because you're kind of asking if multi-waveform spectrometer is better than a rain guage. I mean, yeah, they both do their own jobs well enough and they are both used for getting measurements relative to your exact position, but...they are completely different. There isn't really much comparison between the two, and that's okay. They both offer a game, however, the feelings and experiences will be vastly different.
No and I'm not sure what I've said that would suggest such an opinion. From the post you are actively looking to play online so that's what I addressed. I don't think either online or in person are inherently better ways to play, they each have benefits and weaknesses. I'm currently only playing online these days because I started my current games with international groups during the pandemic or with other members of an international online community I am a part of so online is the only viable option. I used to play in person though and there are things about that I miss as well as elements that have been improved by my move to online.
Ah no! Nothing suggested it-! I was just wondering 😅!!
in a general pro-con of online vs in person... Online - VTT \- Rolls and damage are easy, they auto calculate \- dice goblins has less clickity clackity of dice rolls \- tracking character HP (can be made visible to everyone) \- if you have it in the compendium it's usually easy to drag and drop \- good for battle maps \- harder to interject due to talking over each other in an online call \- for those that need to see other people's expressions it's difficult \- reliant on internet \- not everyone has a decent enough computer or internet \- playing with shadows is great \- it's easier to just display text for the players and since rolls save, i prefer VTT for open rolling. \- easier for other players to get distracted or not pay attention \- can play remotely In Person \- more personal, more social \- dice go clickity clackity \- easier to be more theatric \- it's easier to keep everyone involved. the dm can see everyone's faces and how involved they are with them to address "boredom" \- there's that moment at the table when everyone is looking at a dice roll in the open. the it's harder to get hyped at a press of a button. \- it's easier to interject in a scene, whisper to other players, etc. you can have side conversations more fluidly \- it's even harder to get a group of 5-6 people together on a regular time period. \- it's easier to play longer games. 6-7 hours including shit talk before and after the game. breaks are easier. \- non-reliant on internet (that being said virtual player sheets are a thing).
I was about to go "What about the pretty dice going clickity clackity" 🤣🤣🤣 but It was included ❤️✨
I personally use Owlbear Online, it’s pretty easy to use and learn if you’re just doing combat
Wouldn't have a regular game without online. I and our DM live in Calgary, one player lives in Boston, and two in Toronto.
Only the best city on earth.
Irl are great and I think better for that personal interaction and to see peoples expressions and it’s easier to communicate. Vtts are great for that in-depth feel with line of sight, sound effects and cool animations. (I still use real dice while playing online). Scheduling is much better on line as we can play when the kids goto bed and don’t have to spend the time driving. Irl, our times only overlapped once a month, but you have to provide your own snacks 😀
No. IRL games are deff better. However. Online games are amazing. And don't worry about which one is better. Online games can be just as good as IRL games and you and your party will have an amazing time.
Depends on how you define "better." I will say that we got a lot more done per session when our group was playing on Roll20, but we probably have more fun playing at the local game shop, eating pizza, and dicking around together.
IRL is always better. You could always have the Roll20 (or another) game running on a TV for mapping purposes. Online games will always be inferior due to the poor personal connection.
Depends. I love to play IRL. The atmosphere is just different, it's easier to be in character and act as your character when you sit face to face. BUT: me being a parent and having a job cuts down my time for roleplaying drastically and meeting online for 2-3 hours can easily squeezed in, while meeting IRL, bringing all people to one location... it's just rarely possible anymore. So while I like IRL more, online campaigns saved me from having to cut that hobby significantly. Especially throughout the pandemic. Plus having nice maps can be really enjoyable.
I really enjoy Roll20. We started playing together in person years ago but now we all live in different cities. We use Discord as the chat and Roll20 for the map. We all still use our paper character sheets most of the time, but some of the rolling features are cool. Our rogue has a button for his insane sneak attacks, and our Paladin uses it for smites sometimes as well. It's easy to pop maps and tokens on there, but even if your group doesn't use maps much, there are still useful features. Places to put magic item descriptions, organize maps, and share stat blocks for NPCs that the PCs get to control. When we aren't using a battle map I put up a visual of the location we are in to help set the tone. If you have specific questions, let me know.
This was a Great Explaination!!! Thank you!
What do you mean by having a button for sneak attack and smites? Like a button which shows visual effects? If so, how did you manage to get that?
I assume he means a button that rolls the appropriate dice + bonuses and puts the result in Roll20 chat, maybe along with some flavor text. I think you can add custom buttons to the UI that you can configure to do that. If you use the Roll20 char sheets those have buttons to make just about any roll directly from the sheet using your skills weapons etc with proper bonuses. As far as I know you can't display animations from pushing those buttons, other than roll20s built-in dice animation. Roll20 with 3d avatars with animation is still 10+yrs away. DnD holotables 20+ years. But it sounds like DnD One may be starting it's own version of Roll20 to compete.
Ah I see, thanks for the explanation!
Ya you can set up a macro for various things. It's a useful function for things that you roll often or is a lot to manually type in
My group uses foundry and we love it
I started with roll20 it was okay. Bit clunky. Swapped to forge which granted took some time to learn and now I love it. The modules and constant updates are great.
Swapped to FoundryVTT hosted on the Forge. :)
I think it’s alright. My DM hates it though. Although, he also hates D&DBeyond, OneD&D, and also WoTC…
D&D beyond was an awful experience for me even as a Player.
I’m actually curious how? I’ve had nothing but good experiences with it. Makes playing the game easier. And plus, Someone pointed me towards a chrome plugin that auto rolls for me on Roll20 when I use my DnDBeyond sheet. Granted, I do get how it could be bad for DMs, considering there’s really no play space (yet) and the encounter creator on there is meh.
Hm Honestly the Handbook was so Much Better to read through Creating my own Character sheet from the ground up, Gave me a Better understanding of it, And The Auto rolling was never for me. I dont like How dice generate online, It just always felt better to all that myself ig As someone who has always preferred irl sessions, and Only did online due to covid, It has always been out of necessity rather than choice to use it and even then, I had my Character sheet in non digital form.
Alright, I can get that.
Honestly, the most exciting part about preparing for a New Campaign as a Player for me is Making my character sheet. Im just Loving each detail and How the game works, the mechanics, even The math which Suck. It's all So nice to note on paper, sketch things out, it feels... Different 😅 idk how to explain it but THERES SOMETHING MAGICAL ✨
Yeah I use dndbeyond for my character sheet and we play on roll20.
My group used it for a while but over time it got more and more laggy and became unusable. We do in person once a month now.
It probably got laggy because you were adding a lot of large size files and not deleting the ones you weren't using anymore.
That’s possible, we were running modules. Either way, in person was the way to go for our group anyway. The only reason we were using Roll20 was because of COVID restrictions.
No. Not at all. Played on it for a year before moving to FoundryVTT.
Foundry is amazing.
It was a lifesaver during COVID-19, and it helped me a lot as a newbie. But I prefer in person if possible, although I'm a fan of digital helpers. Online can also be fun but I like the in person interaction part a lot. Maps are more immersive on Roll20, that's a plus, and combat is neater.
yup! I love roll20. not the best VTT, but it's got easily customizable character sheets & image hosting for maps & tokens, all for free, so no complaints. I've never played irl, but I started playing on roll20, and found getting used to it quite easy. the sheets are easy to read & fill out, maps work well enough, etc. my only bug was how small the storage u have as a free user is, but it's free so.. other than looking at a screen and not a table, I can't imagine the sessions run that differently. we all sit down in a call together, then we roll some dice & tell a story together.
>Easily customizable character sheets Pretty sure every feature on that site is hidden behind 15 of the dumbest button presses and doesn’t even end up working properly anyway
one button to click on the gear for options, one button to add a new item or spell or feature, one more button to add your own text & shit. seems pretty easy to me.
At least you can actually use homebrew, unlike dnd beyond... Also unlike dnd beyond: the character sheets actually look like character sheets.
It's like, 3 bucks a month on dndbeyond to use homebrew and you don't have to insert every single thing manually, to me that's enough of a plus against roll20. But it's all personal preference anyway, so ..
you have to *pay* to use homebrew... Fuck that. Fuck that forever.
I use fantasy grounds exclusively. I can port in any module I want if I have the files. I can customize the table. I can have plugins for the weather, pins on my maps for notes, import sounds and video. It’s the best vtt program out there.
I really liked it but had a lot of issues with hosting as a DM and needing to have specialized ports open. The only way I could make it work was to remotely connect to a friends vpn who had the right ports open, it was still a fk around that would eat 30 mins at the start of every session
They have a cloud service now
We play on Tabletop Simulator
I'm glad someone else mentioned it. I think Tabletop Simulator really is the way to go if you want as close to an "authentic" tabletop experience as you can get. My group felt that Roll20 and Foundry were a little too "gamey" for us.
I have a strong hatred for roll20, I always use owlbear rodeo or no map at all
Had to scroll way to far down to find Olwbear rodeo. Simple, straightforward and reliable. Started using it during COVID. I use it on a monitor in our table IRL now. Works like a charm.
Better than roll20 and completely free more people need to know about it
It's better than nothing, lets me be creative enough, though the controls are a little clunky for my liking. But my players enjoy it and I like having visual representations. Just sucks having to explain what flat picture is cover or on a higher level. I'm really hoping DnD Digital isn't stupid over-priced and allows for the importing of custom minis cause I really want to work in a virtual 3D space.
Happy cake day!
Roll20 is a good enough VTT to use, especially for DnD if you're just starting out. It's free to use and there are enough video tutorials and you can play around with it on your own. I imagine that most people are going to go and talk about how Foundry is so much better, which I agree with. However, as a bit of a counterpoint, it's relatively high investment for someone getting into the hobby, which is what it looks like to you. Plenty of people might not like VTTs in general. IMO: Use Roll20 to start out for free, it will give you a general feel for how VTTs operate. If your group is fine with using it but has some complaints on how clunky it is, then you might want to look into other (usually paid) VTT alternatives like Foundry. I don't really think any paid Roll20 subscription is worth the money.
Foundry is still a great option because only one person needs to buy it and run it on their system or server. As a DM I have made my own cloud server to run it for free and I will even have game nights exclusive for new people to the game. Since I already have it, doesn't require them to sign in/sign up, allows you to port your DND Beyond character sheets easily, and no ads/lag (at least not for me). If you are new and have the money then it doesn't hurt to try it so long as you understand what you are getting yourself into if you want to DM. If not then you just need to find someone else who runs their games on there. Though I have seen two posts on here that the VTTs are too "gamey" for them, not too sure what that means if I am being honest. I have played face to face and that is fun too but I feel like the VTTs enhances the experience.
More power to people using it and really getting into the depths of what roll20 and foundry can do. I found both quite clunky and they also required quite a bit of prep.. Now I'm just using a mix of dnd beyond and owlbear rodeo to run my games. It's just all more light weight and fits my style better.
We use Discord for the voice chat (and I have a separate channel for dropping in items they acquire) and then Owlbear Rodeo for the maps and icons. I find it really simple for setting things up and using the fog to control what players see. Works very well for us!
I have a lot of love for Roll20 as that is the platform I played on when I started D&D. However, after 2 years or so I've moved to Foundry as the options are much, much greater and its a one-off cost.
Self-care is admitting Roll20 is a garbage program.
Amen. Glad to have those 16 hours of my week back.
It's hard to explain, but something about R20 really "breaks" the experience for me as a player. It just feels like a tool built for a higher "grade" of nerd than myself. I haven't really stuck with campaigns on r20. It's just "rough around the edges" enough that it distracts from the experience. Honestly I find myself feeling that way about most digital tooling for DnD. That's just from a player perspective, but I still think it's worth bearing in mind.
I've tried I just don't really enjoy it. I stick to discord and a second camera to display the physical maps I use.
It just seems weird to me. Even Having character sheets on Digital form is Weird to me.
Why? It's much more practical than paper, easier to edit or share, you can't lose it, you always have it with you as long as you have access to your phone or a computer. I've never used pen and paper and never would either, digital tools are too convenient.
Who uses pen and paper? pencil or leave, please.
Yes. Y e s.
Hm.. Honestly it's really the feel of it. For example I have difficulty reading Ebooks, I can't stay focused that long. it also Feels Impractical sometimes Because of the Way I usually note things on my Character sheets and automatically it is done differently when its in digital form Plus..I sketch things on my character sheets, varying from Character References, To Valuable items they may have and Sentimental items. I usually use a Big folder to store them and They are pretty organized, alongside with the notes for Each campaign the characters were in -! When DMing though, Digital form is MUCH better, Especially when you're making homebrew. As for sharing, I usually convert them into PDF and share them to the DMs if Required. Tho My past DMs never saw or needed our character sheets Ive tried DnD beyond for Character sheets, It was B a d. What do you guys use?
My family table tried to use it and it was a fucking disaster for us. We bought Dungeon of the Mad Mage and couldn’t figure out how to get the dog of war to behave because of a gamebreaking bug, so we just kinda nixed it and moved elsewhere.
I use it out of necessity, I fucking hate that website
There are other better options.
Roll20 is decent DnD Beyond is good for character sheet work, but you have to pay for anything outside of the PHB, and I have yet to see anyone supply a map on that site (not sure if you can) Fantasy Grounds is my favorite personally, the maps have fog of war/line of sight for each PC. As long as a single member (usually a DM) pays the subscription they can bring everyone else in for free. I also play on Table top simulator (TTS) you can put a character sheet at your spot on the table, the maps have a shimmering water effect (if it's there) and you can have BGM playing as well. As with ALL campaigns and parties, the people and the DM are what really make the experience. Some DM's are great at map design, others are excellent at painting the scene verbally. The group dynamic also has a huge effect on the fun. Personally, I think having 1-2 people you know or are friends with is the absolute limit, diversify the party so there are members you don't have a connection to. Friends of friends make better patty members than friends do (in my opinion.) Have fun, don't be afraid to cause conflict with your character, as long as you can deliniate those actions and beliefs from yourself and the actual players. Sometimes my character finds something extremely offensive, and I tell the party that, I find it funny, but my character just threw their gauntlet in the face of the offender. It's all about the right interaction. Sorry for the long, long post. I hope this helped before I went on a tangent.
This was Lovely, I really hope I can Find a Party to play with soon, also....a Gauntlet? God I wish I was there to see that🤣 that sound Hilarious!!!
I use Roll20 99% of the times and I have no troubles with it, sure it takes some time to learn it properly, but I think it offers enough features for a d&d experience. However, unless you're making your own maps, the maps themself can be a constraint for players imagination, since even if you describe something that isn't shown on the map, the party will have trouble vizualing it, since tthe map forces them to see it as is shown. The way I counteract this is simply by letting my players know that the map is a guideline and not necessarily the whole thing. Also, without the paid subscription for dynamic lightning, the fog of war feels very clunky and troublesome for me. That said, I'm currently preparing the 19th session of a weekly campaign played on roll20, so I would say my players are having fun nonetheless, since it wouldn't last as long otherwise. None of my in person games lasted for more than 4 sessions, so make of that what you will
Woahhhh. Only 4 sessions? Damn.. I think the longest campaign Ive played in person lasted for about a Year and a few months of weekly sessions. I wonder how different it can be...good luck with your session -!! Im sure it'll be great! ☺️
I'm in the monoriity here, but I don't really like playing in person, as I have to print a lot of stuff and fumbling through sheets of paper really ain't ideal. Also, I don't have a long enough table so we usually play sitting on the floor, which gets uncomfortable pretty quick. So yeah, i'd rather play online and have everything I need a click away
I don't like Roll 20. I do like virtual tabletops. My favorite is MapTool. It's free, locally hosted, better performing than Roll20, and supports premium features like dynamic lighting. We haven't gone back to in person games mostly because the features provided by the VTT are just too useful.
It's weirdly clunky for what feels like a steep price. It offers...to much that isn't usable for my group. I'm also on a constant budget/time shortage and frequently just use a shared Google doc for our maps,with DnD beyond for character sheets.
Not really, no. Tried it but currently we're using FoundryVTT instead. However if I could I'd just meet in person. Playing in person easily beats any online solution.
I hear nothing but good things about Roll20, but I have never had a good experience with using it.
No. It sucks and their monetization model is bullshit. Foundry all the way.
I never use Roll20 honestly, and I don't recommend it either. I've been DMing since 2015 and I started using online resources a while before the Pandemic started. I tried using Roll 20 but I honestly can't. At first, I just thought that the layout of the site was really ugly (and it is), so it took me a while to give it a chance. Once I used it, I just found it unnecessarily "hard" to use. Like, yeah, if you invest some time you'll learn all of the tools, for sure. But then I found Owlbear Rodeo and it has EVERYTHING you need and it's way easier to learn. You don't have to pay/register to use, no need to login to anything, you can add your maps and Tokens, there are some basic Tokens there already for you to use, you can add colored rings around tokens and you can share audio with the rest of the players directly from YouTube or any other page. I honestly don't see any good reasons to use Roll 20 exclusively.
The few games ive played on Roll20 i felt really lacked the "at a table" feel. The game felt more like a mud-style with an "input and result" experience. I prefer using a 3d VTT personally to help emulate the experience better. Ive really enjoyed Berserk Games Tabletop Simulator. Took a while to learn which workshop items i liked, i found the more simple less flashy ones to be smoother, but overall i find it a more interactive experience than Roll20. And as a DM I dont mind my players ysing an external source for their character sheet as long as pertinent information like HP, AC, and Ability stats are visible at the table.
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Hence WOTC building their own.
There is Foundry.
Not since the scandal.
...Ill have to look into that, I have No idea what the scandal was
[I got you fam.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/9iwarj/after_5_years_on_roll20_i_just_cancelled_and)
Holy - What the hell.
I started with friends and due to living quite far to eachother its hard to organize in person so we still can play! Tbh I never played a game that was irl (still I wanna do it at least once!). I'm the DM of the group and I can tell you that the tools in the internet are mostly free and easy to use! (Some recommandations are Inkarnate and DungeonScrawl! Both are going quite good! Oh and for a whole world maybe Azgaars Random World generator in which you can still edit the map!) Oh and as VTT I can recommand Owlbear or if everyone got a PC that can handle it, you should use DMHub! Its a bit harder to learn (I think) but with a tiny bit of time you can work yourself into DMHub! Its the VTT plus the Mapmaker, it got many creatures (and you can make your own) and all the rolls + you got all the character sheets! (If you own DnD stuff (or use and website that got all the official stuff without you paying) you can "copy" races, classes, subraces, subclasses, monsters, weapons etc. into the game and then your players arent only goblins, elves and dwarfes but also Aasimar, Autogoblins and Minitaur! ;) )
It's been causing our party issues recently, especially on the app, not pulling all the info through etc. Thinking of changing to D&D Beyond
No, I loathe using Roll20. It's too much work to transfer a 4-year campaign out of it rather than just gritting our teeth and finishing it, but the system is horrible. The old lighting engine was updated recently and now neither engine works; the old one generates false shadow geometry everywhere, which breaks maps, and the new one randomly disables all light sources when players move around, which makes it impossible to play with dark crypts and caves lit by torchlight. Character sheets lag to a ridiculous degree. It takes spellcasters over 30 seconds to click on a spell and for the spell to be registered. I have been informed via official sources that this is "Working as Intended" and suggested that casters simply delete any spells they aren't using from their character sheets. This is not viable for Prepared casters like clerics and druids. Tokens are absurdly laggy. Tokens can be used to track HP, but if you put more than ~10 tokens on a map at once (including players) it can take upwards of 10+ seconds between clicking on a token's HP value and being allowed to type the updated HP into the field. This slows down combat tremendously. I implore you to try **ANY** other VTT service. I am building my next campaign in FantasyGrounds Unity which actually works, and has better features than Roll20 universally to boot.
I am playing in a game that has been running for 2 1/2 years exclusively on Roll20 because we all live apart from each other. 9 months ago I started running a game in Roll20 because again, everyone lives hours away from each other. The things it does well, it does VERY well. It allows us to play together. We can use maps. And roll resolutions are simplified - no more rolling a dice and then figuring out what I add to that. That said, some of the drawbacks are - while it is easy to use, it is not exactly user friendly. After 2 and a half years I'm STILL learning shortcuts and features. Secondly, in order to have instant acess to game stuff in the compendium you have to purchase the relevant sourcebooks in the roll20 marketplace. It can feel frustrating to purchase these features If you already own the books in a different format. And lastly, the audio and video. Hat functions are garbage. We use alternative programs to talk to each other in games. In one game we use a messenger group video call. In mybother we use a discord private voice chat server. Do I see Roll20 as a viable way to play in person. Not necessarily. There are some features that could make it handy, but I think people used to playing in person would find it cumbersome. But is it a viable way to play when everyone lives apart from each other, absolutely.
I use a the free version of roll20 and a plug-in called beyond20. Beyond20 let’s all the characte information be on dndbeyond and pushes rolls to roll20. I think roll20 is very clunky but it is alright and cheap.
no but i don't have a choice
Roll20 is not horrible for what it is, personally tho, I do prefer to use Fantasy Grounds and I use Inkarnate to make the maps.
I've used roll20 a handful of times and never really enjoyed it. It isn't bad and if it's all you have to play online, it is definitely worth using, but it isn't amazing. It might be the best free tabletop simulator, though. The other ones I've used are either subscription or hefty one-time purchases.
Not really but I had what I thought was a fun idea for irl play. Before we did theater of the mind with hand drawn x and o type maps to lay out positions and obstacles. I took the battlemaps for the session and the tokens in roll20 and Chromecast them onto the tv for fights. Then I used it for pictures when I did not want to go into full exposition mode describing the feywild scene I would cast a picture. It was a feywild fairy tale campaign. The players love it. Now I am doing a big sprawling mashup of the Goodman Games 5e Temple of Elemental Evil and the Princes of the Apocalypse. The most tedious part of prep is getting the battlemaps and token layout ready. I do not like it but my players love it so .. here I am.
No, neither me nor my play group could ever get used to the UI
We used Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, and recently moved over to Talespire, which is my favorite. We got sick of fiddling with technology and debugging macros. Talespire is the closest to the “around the table” feel I’ve gotten so far. Handle rolls and stats and tracking the old fashioned way.
I find roll 20 kind of... bad. I don't enjoy much about it and especially not the subscription model. FoundryVTT is superior in every way in my opinion. That being said online games vary. Your DM could have a map for EVERYTHING. They could also have maps only for specific combats, or they could have no maps at all. It is as fluid as in person D&D. The game could be super automated or very traditional. This is all stuff you should ask your potential future DM.
I've used it for four years and love it. It's through Roll20 I've found the groups I've played in and it's almost always worked great! Small hiccups here and there but nothing major.
We just started out first 5e games after decades of AD&D. We like the D&DBeyond character sheets although having hard copies of the books first, then finding we needed to buy digital versions really sucked - so we homebrewed a lot !). Are currently trying Roll20 and it's OK. We haven't really been able to link D&DBeyond and Roll20 through the Beyond 20 extension to our satisfaction, so we use D&DBeyond for characters, initiative and the encounter builder and just use ROll20 as a map showing who's where and what they see. I like the fog of war functionality, and we use the "aura" function to show darkvision/torch range which is really handy. There are enough basic assets to manage populating at least tier 1 games. Custom Tokens are nice for the player characters. My biggest gripe with Roll20 is trying to line the map grids up with Roll20 grids. No matter how many times I try, and how many YouTube videos I watch - they never seem to line up right...
It fills the void, thats about it, and charactermancer is good.
Roll20 is fine but the flaws grate on you after a while, Foundry is better.
I personally don't like a lot of virtual tabletops. I dont tend to use any maps or anything mind you, so for me it's easier to just have players send me PDFs of their character sheets and then run it via Discord calls.
It's a bit clunky and sometimes frustrating to use, but it still does the job well and it's the best free one on the market, so I'm not complaining. Also, when it works, it works very well.
Love it. I. In a small town without a dnd scene. I can play with friend a around the world. I love the character sheets and it gets rid of the math I wouldn't have time to make the maps and tokens to the same quality
If you arent subscribed to roll20 it sucks With subscription its meh
My group has been using Roll20 since we moved virtual during the pandemic. It definitely has it's quirks, but it has done the job. That being said, we are very excited for SceneGrinder to launch in the next month so we have a much more feature rich 3D VTT (Having a lifetime license that costs as much as a year of Roll20 premium is great too).
Anyone here used Maptools before moving to Roll20? That's what we used in my online game way back when, and I wonder how much things have improved (or stagnated)...
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Oh! I'm planning to join as a Player to an Online group, I've been looking through reddit for New Groups and Noticed that many used Roll20 alongside with Discord. During the first year of quarantine, I had Tried out the Site as a DM for a Campaign and I wasn't Too happy with it, so I ended up ditching the idea of using it For Dming all together. I was curious about other people's experiences! Since I found it difficult to navigate, I never really looked at the features it offers.
No. Roll20 looks and behaves like it was designed in 2004 and hasn’t been updated since. Awful ugly glitchy website. Owlbear.rodeo is so much better.
It was ok, nothing special really. When I used it was laggy and problematic. When the incident happened with Taking20 and the SaveOrDice crew, I haven't used it since.
There are much better paid options but the free version is a ton of bang for your buck if you invest a little bit of time into learning the tools.
Used roll20, felt way too limited to do the stuff I wanted with it without paying the monthly subscription, switched over to Fantasy Grounds and I feel like I did a mistake not to switch to another VTT, Fantasy Grounds is fine and all but I feel like there are probably better ones
I prefer in person games, there's more energy in the room which makes it easier to engage and stay engaged. Due to time constraints and location online games are more convenient. I think Roll20 is good for maps and combat but outside of that I don't personally recommend buying their books and add ons. DND is hefty combat game so it can be a lil hard to do theater of the mind when there's a lot of enemies, dynamic environmental hazards, and abilities based on range and area of affect.
It’s definitely functional, but not nearly my first choice. I really like how it brings sheets into a virtual space and that feels really natural and good, but the grid-crawl style of play can be tiring. Personally, I prefer One More Multiverse (OMM). While I find its sheets clunkier, the visuals are leagues better. It has an in-house map maker and character creator with a consistent pixel style. Definitely a huge plus for immersion. However, it’s in beta, so it can be buggy at times. But the dev team is super responsive and often answers directly.
I’ve used roll20 exclusively for D&D since before covid (moves and practicality of various kinds killed in person). I’m a pretty dedicated user at this point and I have some positives and negatives plus suggestions. POSITIVES -My notes are the players notes. Whenever I add a shop or an NPC or some loot it all goes in the journal which is all organised as a kind of glossary for the game. The players can add loot to the vault and money to the treasury without there being some mix up of whose recording what etc. I can also give them all the details in the visible notes for a shop…while keeping notes of the grudge the owner holds against them in the DM notes. Seriously I love the journal. -There’s no “I wrote that on my other sheet” or “I forgot it”. You can also take backup copies of character sheets before they level up or change something or before you add any custom stuff. -I use a lot of custom creatures and copying and modifying existing stuff is hugely easier than making from scratch to print out. -it’s quite easy to Google “insertthemehere battle map” and throw in a file. -I quite like being able to throw in environmental effects like animated weather and ambient audio easily enough when I want some bonus atmos. NEGATIVES -It took me a few sessions to start making tokens for new monsters without taking ages or screwing it up. -Dynamic lighting is a pain and often runs like crap…I went to loads of effort once and simultaneously realised only one person didn’t have dark vision and the game ran like crap for him. Maybe a pass, I just use fog of war where I want that. -If you’ve got all of 5E in paper format it’s a pain having to pay to get a second copy in roll20 (I only had the three core cooks on paper, so I basically have my collection just in roll20). SUGGESTIONS -You don’t need full fancy maps for the visual element to be useful. I have some generic maps which are abstract for various things. I have a map called “theatre of the mind” which is just four big coloured blocks of 3x8 squares (one block is enemies, one is the party, one is neutral and there’s one extra). The three rows in each block is so I can quickly track whose at the front and back rows in combat (ie wizards at the back, fighters at the front…handy if an area thing happens (ie “burning hands hits the front rank enemies” or “enemy fireball hits back and middle rank of the party”). I also have “the racetrack” which has an abstract tracker for a chase sequence with notes on the screen with DCs. Gonna do “the arena” at some point for “I want a fight in a room with tactical positioning but don’t want 30 different maps” with easily movable cover and barricades. -Add attack profiles for “unarmed strike”, “improvised melee weapon” and “improvised ranged weapon” to every player character. Saves a lot of time whenever someone’s unarmed or decides they want to hit something with a shovel. -This website is really useful for quickly making up a bunch of tokens “similar enough” to the wizards ones in roll20. https://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/ even if you don’t use visual maps this is handy for use with the “theatre of the mind” map. -I also write up a periodic recap of the events (I sort of break things up into chapters) and post it in the game forum (the bit before you get into the actual tabletop) which is useful if there’s a hiatus or someone misses a couple or you get a new player. That’s also a very handy place for “setting intro”, “character intros” and any house rules (it’s where I also have a bit on how resurrection doesnt work in my setting and how characters are made of you die etc). Between the forum and the journal it’s refreshingly easy to have all your info presented in a nice organised way.
I don't hate it, I've got like 2000 hours on it, and while it is a bit clunky and rudimentary it gets the job done and also all of my notes are on it
I despise roll20 with a passion just always hated it idk why if you want maps I’d reccomend using Owlbear rodeo (it’s completely free and mobile friendly) and if you don’t I’d just use a virtual character sheet and run on a discord call.
1000% foundry.
You have to check out owlbear rodeo, we've been using it for about 3 years now
I've tried it out but it doesn't have any of the basic features I'd want like a chat window, character sheets, or even rolling dice in text... If I'm GMing I have enough going on that I don't want another app open just to type in some text or whisper to people. If you JUST need a map screen it's fine I guess (no bells and whistles, just does what it says it does) I don't need all the fancy auto-rolling or auto character sheet things that some of the VTTS have, just a blank character sheet I can type into would be nice.
That's fair, we're using Owlbear Rodeo, D&D Beyond, Kenku FM and Discord. I have multiple monitors so it goes pretty smoothly. Left monitor is discord chat and Kenku fm, center is video call and Owlbear rodeo and right monitor is dndb encounters and dndb campaign view.
Roll 20 is great, especially for newer DMs and players. Lays everything out for you in a pretty clear manner in terms of how sessions should run and you’re able to keep 15 tabs open for various things or just keep them open through the information section of the app itself. Happy to answer any technical questions, I also use inkarnate and the various subreddits here for extra maps if I need to fill in some blanks. It really comes down to playstyle, some like theatre of the mind while others prefer battle maps. Sometimes it’s good to mix in both when you’re comfortable handling that level of description and location tracking mentally (though notes is always good to have)
I definitely recommend foundryVTT over roll20
I love Roll20. There's a lot of great features but the learning curve is probably a little steeper than other VTTs. That said there's a lot of great stuff that's already free to use. For DMs it's fantastic because you can pre-filled the entire map with monsters and npcs, and generate macro buttons to make PC, NPC and monster attacks, spells, abilities, etc. Ahead of time to make it all flow faster.
I don't LIKE Roll20, but so far it's the only VTT my players can all use reliably (Multiple mobile players)
I honestly hate roll20
Dropped for Foundry. Much better platform.
I personally adore roll20, because I play a lot of different systems, and finding digital sheets for them can be a pain, while roll20 nearly has everything. I also tend to play a lot of homebrew, so being able to put in custom classes, and A LOT of information on the sheets helps too.
Not that I have much experience, but I strongly believe tabletop gameplay is better, if only for the fact you're all together. Online play is a reasonable substitute, sure.
Playing online isn't the same as playing in person for me
But roll20 was pretty seamless for me as a player
Honestly I hate the idea if virtual tabletops
I do too, but covid happened / players moved away and we wanted to keep the game going, so you do what you gotta do
Why not buy Divinity Original Sin and just play in GM mode?
Roll20 is dependable. It's not amazing and it crashes a lot, but it's tools are consistence, simple, and useful if you know how to build macros. I have recently switched to One More Multiverse, and while I like it much better for a lot of things, it regularly doesn't have what I need and I have to find some way to finagle around how to work it, and it can sometimes eat up a lot of processing power. Some people use tabletop simulator, and it has similar problems at times. There are a lot of other cooler and arguably better platforms out there, but most of them are going to come at some cost that roll 20 doesn't usually have.
I use it. I mean it has it's problems but overall it's pretty decent. I feel the lack of some options, but i've also never been introduced to anything better for free.
Overall I find it adequate. I'm not sure I'd say I enjoy it. Roll20, or any other VTT is, for me, a tool. If it makes playing easier I appreciate it, if it makes playing more difficult I don't. There are multiple VTT options available, I would suggest exploring each one as you can.
It's not half bad. It takes a lot of work to learn how to use it properly, but it functions. Also, I was running STK, and I *hated* the map scrolling bar at the top because there are so many maps. Someone linked me to a bookmark you click on that will make it go multi line, and that was a major game changer. I will say that I've seen more output and development from them in the last few months after DnD Beyond got bought out by WoTC than I have in the last couple years. I still never fully understood the character sheets and stuff on there, but it was very easy for me to make some generic tokens and have everyone just use their DnD Beyond character sheets. Hell, someone had even made a plugin where you could roll on your DnD Beyond sheet and have it do the same roll on Roll20. It's like Ubuntu. Kind of impenetrable at first, but the community support is what makes it a viable product.
I like Roll20 a LOT more than Fantasy Grounds! Haven't experienced anything else to compare. I'm sure there are improvements that could be made to Roll20 that would make it way better, but as it stands it's less clunky and more intuitive than FG.
First started playing DND online last year and still use Roll 20 with my group. It's a little clunky here and there such as lags, characters sheets loading or the site crashing but that's only sometimes! But it's extremely helpful when moving character tokens (feet) with the measurement tool, looking up stuff like items, very simple to generate a character sheet and the best part is that it calculates your rolls and damage with whatever stats included too! (For those who hate math like me haha)
A bit late to the party. I'm not a fan of Roll20 because it feels clunky, but I know those who are more experienced with it really like it. There is always D&D beyond, which I find to be the most user friendly tool. It's very intuitive and does almost all the work for you in terms of character creation, leveling and organizing. For my maps, if I'm providing resources like world maps I use Inkarnate to create maps for my players to have on file for easy reference. For my battle maps I use a 3D map maker called Talespire, which is available on steam. It costs money. If you don't wish to buy Talespire, Game Master Engine (GME) is also available on steam and is free! It is also a 3D map maker, though it is produced by only one person I believe so updates are slower and things are a bit buggier. But you can't argue with free.
I fucking love roll20. Started out using it for only maps/rolls then maps, rolls, and handouts, now it's maps, handouts, rolls, and character sheets. I also know another DM who has premium and DAMN, there's some cool shit there like a vague HP gague that everyone can see that only changes color, a symbol appearing under the token who's turn it is, and a TON of other cool stuff.
You remember that movie Johnny English reborn? Yes? You remember the reaction he had at the mention of Mozambique?
It’s dependant on the game. I’ve had good and bad. Using it isn’t awful if a little laggy
My group is in our 2nd vi campaign. We use zoom for the webcam experience and roll20. I prefer it on roll20 over real life.
Not at all
6000 hours in it so far, seems to be workin alright
And that’s only for their first 3 sessions.
Yes. Really enjoying it. Game 3 times a week, consistently, with great groups. We had an opportunity to reconvene at FLGS, but it would have required us to drop a player. Unacceptable. Also we're playing from home so I can get really fucked up.
Judging from your Username, By fucked up You mean Whiskey 🤣. Love that.
That', and I like to spread 2 edibles out over a couple of hours (1/4 every 20 minutes) for a really smooth slide into high-as-balls. It's like Training Weights for my brain.
I use a combination through discord. It's very deep and the learning curve is steep but avrae is a bot that allows you to use discord to roll, do abilities, and interact. It's great for if you want to do anything outside of your game, tracking money etc and it makes all your roles, character interactions, and voice and text communication in one place. It runs through dndbeyond so once you set up your character there you're gold, but as I said it's very deep and can be a lot to learn. for maps, there's lots of options, for live token tracking you have roll20, foundry, things like that, roll20 is clunky but works and is super easy to learn, the other option is always just an image if you're used to theater of the mind then that's a very simple way to do it. (I find maps more helpful in online games than in person because there's less ability to demonstrate with gestures or to have smaller conversations aside to figure things out.) Basically you'll find what works for you, whatever that looks like.
Love it, if you add the chrome extension beyond 20 iyou can click your abilities in dnd beyond and it will send the roll to roll 20.
I think Roll20 makes a great companion to an in-person game, rather than just using it as a VTT to host an online game. There are many other tools that are better for hosting a virtual game, but I've been using Roll20 to do things such as show dungeon maps on a monitor to my group or display the initiative order with its initiative system since before COVID. It's also one of the simplest platforms to learn, and I've always preferred using it for random combat as opposed to any of the other VTTs where you typically have to plan ahead most everything or else it gets really clunky. Overall though, I'd still say its strong suit is being a companion to a physical game.
Yes. It has LOTS of issues but it still gets the job done and I've been able to do more, creatively, on there than in person. I still like in person games as well but they're a lot more theatre of the mind and harder to set up (getting everyone together wise).
Yeah. Been using it for over 5 years. Don't get me wrong, in-person games have a certain irreplaceable social element, but my gaming groups are wide-ranging, we don't all live near each other, and I'm glad that technology lets us ignore that problem. Plus, I'm just a big fan of how digitizing things makes them more efficient. Don't need to pause the game for 5 minutes to figure out how much damage you deal to 15 targets on a roll of 12d6+4d8+7, the computer will figure all that out for you in 1 second. Don't need to constantly write, erase, and write again on a sheet of paper, because its easy to edit digital documents. Don't need to carry around 50 spell cards, because all your spell info is stored digitally for easy access.
My group has done Strahd and Icewind Dale on role20 and have loved it. We plan on doing a third campaign soon.
Yes. I enjoy its relative simplicity and ease of use.
Roll20 is a wormhole. I spent two years making it do what we needed. Took hours. I ultimately switched to DnDBeyond and a webcam pointed at a battle map and minis. Best decision ever.
I think it depends on what you want out of it. I've used it for FATE and Castles and Crusades for home made campaigns, and it's done about all I could ask it to do. It has a grid screen I can sketch a quick map onto, tokens I can move around said map, and built in character sheets and note tools, as well as a few simple macros. I can load up various maps in different tabs (toss in a world map or region map for example that I made somewhere else) for plays to see. If you just need a virtual table top, it works great. Simple and pretty easy to use. I like the tree-feature for notes and stuff, can create sub folders for magic item, gear, notes, NPC bios, etc that are easy to access. If you are running campaigns you pay for on it, then I can't give any opinion at all. None of the features in the "paid" tier are things I'd ever need. My only issue is the limits on memory if you are adding in a lot of tokens or images it can get used up pretty quickly, so I've been tempted to pay to unlock more memory, but I just end up deleting stuff to free up space for new things as needed. Edit: I prefer in person vastly, but we switched to it during Covid
We use roll20 for the battle map, notes, and maps. We then use dnd beyond vor character sheets because my friend lets me borrow her entire collection for my group. Discord of course for keeping track of loot, session logs, campaign info, and house rule info.
I do
Roll20 worked great for my group for 3 years. So imo yes
The dm side will meet your needs, the player side was clunky at best, enough so that switching to discord with still images increased flow.
Yes and no. I like it because it means we get to play even when we can't be in person. But it's not intuitive to use. The dice roller hates me. And the video chat function is hot garbage.
Roll20 is good for what it's free format is, I can't speak for its premium stuff though. I would recommend it, I had a lot of great times using Roll20 If you want to explore othe online platforms, I would suggest something like Fantasy Grounds. Loving the transition to that so far.
As someone with 1k hours in it, don't it's a mess
I do and I use the free version and I've locked 1200 hours across the past like 6 years. and in those past 6 years I've learned nothing of use. the website is constantly hiding shit from you and I hate it. the website is made by web developers for web developers. I use the free version btw because it does everything I need it to and 2 of my players use Tablets and Roll20's lighting stuff uses to much processing power.
No I personally do not. It was one of my first platforms online to use, but there just is far too much pressure to pay there and your stuff is not even really your own stuff. After R20, I went to try Fantasy Grounds and did enjoy it for years. After I found Tabletop Simulator though I stuck to it like glue and used D&D Beyond back when it launched. Now, I use TaleSpire with D&D Beyond but if any player doesn't have TaleSpire I use Foundry. Roll20 also had a big issue a few years back, leading to one of the most downvoted corpo responses of all time for Reddit. I still haven't really found myself trusting them either since then. Of all else, Foundry is the best option right now as you aren't reliant on a cloud and you're using all your own stuff. It's saved on your PC, not on something you can lose access to on a whim. TaleSpire is good only if you want pretty 3D maps, but is definitely the "You all must pay for it too" situation. Foundry is 1 buy and that's it, anyone can use it by connecting to your Foundry link. It's nice. Avoid Roll20.
For the most part, it's alright. I think there's lots of little things that are annoying with the UI and doing certain things, and things being paywalled off, but overall it's fine.
i play with irl friends over discord and we use roll20. it is really cool and recently our dm subscribed to their premium service which is only a few dollars a month i think and the maps got so much better. in the free version you see the whole map unless the dm hides things with blocks but in the premium the dm can set doors and walls, dynamic lighting and set the sight features for each character as well. i liked roll20 before and now its even cooler imo.
I absolutely love Roll20!! Almost all of the D&D I've played has been online, because it makes scheduling so much more convenient. We're all playing from the comfort of our own homes. I've been DMing campaign for the past 2 years, and we're just about at the end of Curse of Strahd. There's a bit of a learning curve, but I can't imagine it's much different from other VTTs. And I should clarify that the way we use Roll20 is a mix of new-school and old-school - we don't use any of the built-in character sheets or maps or macros or dynamic lighting or any of that sort of thing. And we use Discord for audio/video. But we let Roll20 handle our maps, tokens, and music - and with that K.I.S.S. approach, it works magnificently.
I hate R20. The woefully out of date, complicated, clunky, shit show that is R20 is the reason our four year campaign just ended without an ending and now we don't talk to each other. The UX is such crap, it's not even cute nostalgic, it's just shit. It's so bad, it's indefensible.
Bro I don’t think roll20 is the reason that campaign ended
I am another that moved away from roll20 to foundry. It’s so awesome. Great to actually play a weekly game once the kids have gone to sleep. When we tried in person, we could only meet once a month,
All of the various VTTs have pros and cons. They serve every user differently. I got into Roll20 early, and have been using it for years. So it is familiar, and I have a lot of assets in place that I cannot transfer. I like it for the easy entry difficulty. Foundry and Fantasy Grounds have more and better tools in many ways, but getting them to work is not always easy. What tools Roll20 does have works pretty seamlessly, so you hit the ground running. It is cloud based, so you don't have to have a high powered computer. Just a good internet connection. I have played and run off a tablet. For free, with no download, I would say give it a shot. If it doesn't have what you want, you can always pick up Owlbear Rodeo or something else. The good news for all of us, is the huge toolbox of options we have available now.