What are our options?

[Morrus]

So we’ve been playing via Zoom since the lockdown. Works great. We don’t really need the modules and dice rollers and online character sheets and stuff; we just play it like we were in the same room, with our actual sheets and dice.

However. There is one big weakness — Zoom’s shared whiteboard works for the purpose of sketching a battlemap, but it’s a bit rubbish, and you can’t use images or tokens on it. The Star moves to attack the Question Mark.

So, that‘s the bit we’d like to improve. “Use Roll20!” I hear you say. Sadly not an option as one player’s laptop is a work laptop and won’t let him access Roll20.

So I guess we’re looking for generic options - a better shared whiteboard, or some other app, with better use of images and stuff, which isn‘t going to be flagged as gaming by his work. Any ideas?

 

[Pawndream]

So we’ve been playing via Zoom since the lockdown. Works great. We don’t really need the modules and dice rollers and online character sheets and stuff; we just play it like we were in the same room, with our actual sheets and dice.

However. There is one big weakness — Zoom’s shared whiteboard works for the purpose of sketching a battlemap, but it’s a bit rubbish, and you can’t use images or tokens on it. The Star moves to attack the Question Mark.

So, that‘s the bit we’d like to improve. “Use Roll20!” I hear you say. Sadly not an option as one player’s laptop is a work laptop and won’t let him access Roll20.

So I guess we’re looking for generic options - a better shared whiteboard, or some other app, with better use of images and stuff, which isn‘t going to be flagged as gaming by his work. Any ideas?

Google docs. Upload a battle map then import tokens. Make editable by all players. Quick and easy

Here is a video showing the basic idea:

 

[atanakar]

Go low tech !

I use my Chessex mat:

And this. I draw then put it in front of the camera.

 

[GMMichael]

So I guess we’re looking for generic options - a better shared whiteboard, or some other app, with better use of images and stuff, which isn‘t going to be flagged as gaming by his work. Any ideas?

Two ideas:

Theatre of the mind.

Invite the boss to play. Then it doesn't matter if he's flagged.

 

[schneeland]

I saw a few people recommending the use of AWW as an online whiteboard (AWW App | Online Whiteboard for Realtime Visual Collaboration) - as far as I can tell, you can upload and place images there.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I used Microsoft Excel.

Opened up a blank sheet and imported a map (been playing Lost Mines, so it was Cragmaw Castle). Excel allowed me to enlarge and shrink the map image to size it correctly to my laptop screen. Then for tokens I used the Shapes option in Excel to just create a whole bunch of filled colored circles and squares the size of the grid on the map to use for PCs and monsters. They don't have pictures in them, but we didn't care.

Then in Zoom I just left everything in Share Screen mode-- map within Excel on left side of page and the Gallery view of my players on the right side. That way everyone could see their tokens and the monster tokens and decide where they wanted to move. And because they are just individual Shapes, I can grab them and move them around on top of the map image to their places on the map with ease.

Now granted, because it was a Share Screen the players weren't able to move their own tokens, I had to move them all for them... but it was easy enough for them to say "move up to the castle wall and as far left as possible" and I could do it with little issue. And what was nice was that if I needed more tokens I could just highlight one then copy/paste and a new one would appear. And on top of that, Zoom's pencil drawing options work on the Share Screen too... so I was able to draw on top of the map as well (when I needed to circle areas of effect.)

It worked exceedingly well and cost me or my players nothing. And if I ever want one with "fog of war"? I would just use the Free Shape tool in Shapes and create black-filled shapes that cover parts of the map, then when PCs enter those areas I just click and delete those shapes to reveal the map underneath. So long as the circle and square tokens are "Bring to Front", they never get lost under the shapes or the map.

 

[J-H]

Excel with a grid and screenshots dropped into the Discord chat. Here's a map from Thursday.

 

[MNblockhead]

MapTool. You as the DM will run two instances, the GM instance and the player instance. Share the player instance (share window, or if you have a second screen, share the screen) on Zoom.

MapTool can be intimidating and I don't recommend it for a full VTT experience as the networking is a pain. But it is rock solid for throwing up a map with fog of war, easy to use tools for manually revealing portions, and throwing on some tokens. The basic drawing tools are not as fancy and most mapping tools, but if you are just trying to replace a Chessex map, they are fine.

The area of effect tool is great.

It is also free and open source.

The other option is to get a decent web cam that you can mount on a small tripod, as well as on top of your monitor. I use a Logitech C920 pro. It is not very expensive (seen it for under USD 60), and it can be easily placed on top of any monitor I've tried, from ultralight laptop screen to large plasma TV, on top of your DM screen, or you can screw it onto a camera tripod. I have small tripod that I can set up on my table.

I used it when I had in-person games with one player attending remotely. I could just point the camera at my battlemap with the minis and one of the other players would just move his mini for him. But will everyone remote, I find it easier to software.

 

[Mark CMG]

If only one player cannot use Roll20, why not set up a camera on someone's monitor to capture a view of Roll20 that the one player can follow on Zoom? Perhaps not ideal that the one player cannot move their own token but it isn't that difficult for someone else to have control of that player's token and be asked to move it along as needed. The advantage here is that you know that one payer can definitely use Zoom and so no surprises down the line. If you all transition to , let's say, Fantasy Grounds, and then that one player encounters problems with that, you'll be back to square one.

 

[Zio_the_dark]

You can try this one

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