D&D 5E How Did You Get Used to Roll 20 or Fantasy Grounds?

[Shiroiken]

Roll20 is good, and free, which is good for trying things out.

One thing to note, you will spend WAY more time in prep work than before. This is offset by taking up less time drawing out maps and such during the session. It balances out IME, once you get used to it. One suggestion is to only import maps or draw them with the polygon tool, rather than trying to draw them up with terrain (terrain seems cool, but can be distracting in play and takes far more time than it's worth).

In addition, there is a Roll20 Master Series on YouTube, which I've found to be VERY useful.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Like you, I never used maps or minis in my games, for over 20 years. Then two of my players moved away, and we decided to try and keep the campaign going using Roll20.

We used it for video only; we did a 3-way call on our phones for audio. We rolled dice on the table(s) in front of us, just as we always did when we were in the same room.

It took a bit more prep time than I was used to, just to get maps and such loaded and scaled in the system, and uploading handouts and stuff like that. For handmade stuff, that meant extra time scanning it into a digital format as well - but on the plus side, I now have digital copies of the handmade notes and sketches I developed for the campaign.

Overall: I wish I could use it in my regular games. The one I started with fell apart due to scheduling issues, but the "fog of war" feature of Roll20 is not to be underestimated. It cut out so much mapping and confusion time from the game it was insane.

My regular group (such as it is) now meets at a local game store to play, so lugging around multiple monitors and computers and such that would be needed to us the site face to face is just not practical. But man, it's amazing how much time you can save and confusion you can cut out just by having most of the map digitally obscured until you choose to reveal it.

In essence, I think VTT is an excellent compromise between pure TotM play and the miniatures wargame encouraged by the people selling you miniatures. Like any computer program it takes a little bit getting used to to its functionality (expect to spend a while scaling maps until you get the hang of it) but once you do its really something. Plus it's free.

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

I'm a relative new user of FG. My group and I did the comparison between Roll20 and FG and decided to go with FG. What I love, love, love about FG is the automation. It really does a lot of the work for you but there is a bit of a learning curve. I did watch a bunch of YouTube videos and from that, it gave me a pretty good foundation. There's been a bunch of posts here on EN World about the two of them also. A couple of links with some good information:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...sy-Grounds-Roll20-or-both/page2#ixzz4V2qDkCK5
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?464064-Roll20-or-Fantasy-Grounds/page3#ixzz4V2uVXfdn

A YouTube link comparing the two (it helped but is more favorable to FG so take that with a grain of salt):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb-d3Zcznj4

Some high level highlights from those first two posts that I got from it (not my words but lifted straight from a post):

Roll20s strengths are in my experience -
* the free option (though its not really free - you are being subsidised by those who are paying the subs - they stop paying and join the ranks of free users and then the service stops) is hard to beat
* dynamic lighting, this is not available in Fantasy Grounds and probably wont be for at least another 12 months
* better dice macros, you can build exploding and keep and reroll dice pools easier in roll20, this is likely to still be the situation for another 12 months
* integrated video client, whilst video is not for everyone - being able to *see* who is speaking and their Char name is handy
* no firewalls to setup which a Fantasy Grounds GM does have to do - mind you Roll20 also blue screens my computer if I use Chrome and not Firefox so it aint all plain sailing!

I have played a lot of sessions on Fantasy Grounds and have purchased several DLC packages including 5e.

Fantasy Grounds strengths are in my experience -
* outright purchase option is much cheaper than an ongoing subscription - but the subscription option is there also
* GM prep is so much easier on Fantasy Grounds
* pins on maps is just such an intuitive way to prep your campaigns
* encounter setup makes game play so much smoother and cooler
* effects for those rulesets that support them (like 5e/4e/3.5e/PF in particular) are just amazing
* the system supports things like damage reduction, resistance, immunity to specific damage types - eg skeleons and piercing/slashing/bludgeoning weapons, creatures that can only be hit by magic, or fire, or silver, creatures that either resist or take additional damage to damage types like cold, radiant, magic etc
* the core DLC for 5e is just brilliant. its not a character builder - and the main reason for this is because most people house rule *some* aspect of their games so forcing 100% legal builds on you would be limiting - but it does do a good chunk of pointing you in the right direction. full equipment, spells lists. full monsters all statted up. abilities and proficiencies etc.
* the prebuilt modules - Lost Mines of Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Rise of Tiamat and Princes of the Apocalypse are all ready to run. Everything is ready to sit down and play - including the Pre-Gens, Maps, Encounters, Descriptions etc etc.

And contrary to what many people think - you absolutely can play unsupported games on Fantasy Grounds. CoreRPG by itself or with some extensions can support you playing, very effectively, a lot of games that people dont think you can run on Fantasy Grounds.

And community members also create and release community rulesets that add a huge amount of system specific framework and interfaces for other games. Last month a DCC and a ShadowRun 4 ruleset were both made available by community members.

Another system that is very well supported on Fantasy Grounds is Savage Worlds - an awesome ruleset with lots of settings and variants available.

We just ran FGDaze! 2 weeks ago where we (community members) ran a day of one shots aimed squarely at new comers to Fantasy Grounds. We ran 5e, Pathfinder, Star Wars, Maelstrom, ShadowRun, Savage Worlds and more - totally free for everyone to play - even those with only a free/demo license. We will be running another event in August and then FGCon7 will be running in October.

Sorry for the massive text wall. I hope this helps and good luck with your choice!! A VTT has helped me immensely as I now can game with some of my friends that have moved out of town.

 

[Staccat0]

This has all been super helpful. Thanks so much ya'll. HONESTLY, I think this thread has convinced me to try just sticking to google hangouts and TOTM gameplay.

I kinda assumed that running Tomb of Annihilation on a VTT would take most of the prep work out, but it sounds like this is not the case. If I am gonna do a lot of prep, I wanna save it for the one game that "pays the bills" so to speak.

Unless I am failing to understand something.

This thread has been super useful just the same.

* the prebuilt modules - Lost Mines of Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Rise of Tiamat and Princes of the Apocalypse are all ready to run. Everything is ready to sit down and play - including the Pre-Gens, Maps, Encounters, Descriptions etc etc.

Hrmmmmmmm.... Unless this is super true? I guess I should try it.

 

[Mistwell]

Roll20 is good, and free, which is good for trying things out.

One thing to note, you will spend WAY more time in prep work than before.

I have heard this several times. I have no idea where it is coming from. I've literally pulled up a map from the library and plunked a group of appropriate foes in it in less than 3 minutes. What on earth are you guys doing to have it take so long to prep? Are you just not using the library and drawing everything from scratch? If so...why? Is your layout of trees and roads and rocks and such so much superior to the pre-drawn ones for example?

 

[Mistwell]

Roll20s strengths are in my experience -
* dynamic lighting, this is not available in Fantasy Grounds and probably wont be for at least another 12 months

Wow. I am shocked FG still doesn't have this. It's kinda important.

* the prebuilt modules - Lost Mines of Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Rise of Tiamat and Princes of the Apocalypse are all ready to run. Everything is ready to sit down and play - including the Pre-Gens, Maps, Encounters, Descriptions etc etc.

This, and a couple other highlights you mentioned, are now all also on Roll20. They have the same license with WOTC as FG, and have excellent prebuilt modules now as well for the official adventures, all automated.

 

[iserith]

I have heard this several times. I have no idea where it is coming from. I've literally pulled up a map from the library and plunked a group of appropriate foes in it in less than 3 minutes. What on earth are you guys doing to have it take so long to prep? Are you just not using the library and drawing everything from scratch? If so...why? Is your layout of trees and roads and rocks and such so much superior to the pre-drawn ones for example?

Mine are, but then I'm not complaining about the prep.

I find putting together the maps a fun side project. I file it under "nice to have, not need to have." There are plenty of maps on the internet you can grab and upload in seconds if you don't want to spend the time, as you say.

 

[Staccat0]

How long do official modules usually take to drop onto Roll 20 and FG? Day and date?

 

[Kalshane]

I will say that since the addition of built-in character sheets in Roll20 and being able to drag-and-drop from the SRD my prep time has dropped substantially. I still have to do a decent amount, but part of that is running a Pathfinder module in 5E, so I still have to do a lot of custom stuff. But creating a monster that's actually in the SRD? 5 minutes, tops. (Less if I already have a token.)

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

Wow. I am shocked FG still doesn't have this. It's kinda important.



This, and a couple other highlights you mentioned, are now all also on Roll20. They have the same license with WOTC as FG, and have excellent prebuilt modules now as well for the official adventures, all automated.

Keep in mind I'm somewhat new with FG. However, FG has a "mask" which is basically Fog of War but it is not dynamic lighting. For me, Fog of War works. The Unity version I believe will have this (there is a brief demo of it which looks cool). This is sufficient for my needs.