Going Nuclear:1D&D

[Oofta]

For real! For all the accusations of it being videogamey, 4e is way harder to play virtually than in-person with battle mat and tokens!

Huh. I guess I wouldn't see much of a difference as long as you're using a map. Of course 4E wasn't set up for TotM, but as for the rest I'm not sure what difference it would make.

 

[Nefermandias]

Huh. I guess I wouldn't see much of a difference as long as you're using a map. Of course 4E wasn't set up for TotM, but as for the rest I'm not sure what difference it would make.

Because of all the forced movement, terrain powers and the way encounters were built, it's rather cumbersome to replicate on a VTT. Also, it's nice to have your cards in your hands.

It's hard to explain, but 4e was a very tactile experience.

Now with 5e you can just Google something like "evil temple battlemap", drag into roll 20, put 2d6+3 cultists and one lich in it and you are probably good to go. This approach just doesn't work with 4e.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For me there's also the problem that 4e isn't really good to be played online, contrary to what most people believe. It's so much easier to play 5e if you're going to use a VTT.

Physical minis+dungeon tiles+power cards is the way to go.

I very much disagree with that. If you can get your powers coded up in Roll20, 4e is extremely smooth. It's why I am so sad they never actually made an official 4e VTT. If they had, a LOT of the problems with it would have disappeared.

 

[Charlaquin]

Because of all the forced movement, terrain powers and the way encounters were built, it's rather cumbersome to replicate on a VTT. Also, it's nice to have your cards in your hands.

It's hard to explain, but 4e was a very tactile experience.

Now with 5e you can just Google something like "evil temple battlemap", drag into roll 20, put 2d6+3 cultists and one lich in it and you are probably good to go. This approach just doesn't work with 4e.

Exactly

 

[payn]

I very much disagree with that. If you can get your powers coded up in Roll20, 4e is extremely smooth. It's why I am so sad they never actually made an official 4e VTT. If they had, a LOT of the problems with it would have disappeared.

At the moment, many games seem too difficult for VTT. I blame that largely on the lack of custom built modules available for folks. VTTs can do anything, and do it well, but you have to find it or code it yourself. Most folks seem to lack the know how and/or the time to do it themselves. Thats understandable, though the notion that it "just doesn't work on VTT" seems to be a handwringing of the fact.

 

[Oofta]

Because of all the forced movement, terrain powers and the way encounters were built, it's rather cumbersome to replicate on a VTT. Also, it's nice to have your cards in your hands.

It's hard to explain, but 4e was a very tactile experience.

Now with 5e you can just Google something like "evil temple battlemap", drag into roll 20, put 2d6+3 cultists and one lich in it and you are probably good to go. This approach just doesn't work with 4e.

I guess I just don't see it. I never had character sheets online when I did VTT for 5E. It's not like I check their sheets when we're playing in person either. I'd probably allow players to move tokens for forced movement and environmental factors wouldn't be any different.

With a bit of effort I'm sure someone would figure out a way to handle some of the overhead like ongoing conditions as well.

Not that it matters now, I have no plans on going back to VTT if I can help it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

At the moment, many games seem too difficult for VTT. I blame that largely on the lack of custom built modules available for folks. VTTs can do anything, and do it well, but you have to find it or code it yourself. Most folks seem to lack the know how and/or the time to do it themselves. Thats understandable, though the notion that it "just doesn't work on VTT" seems to be a handwringing of the fact.

It's been like six years since I last touched the Roll20 4e character sheet code stuff, but once you got the hang of it it was actually extremely powerful. I'm almost certain that a user-friendly front end could have been coded for it. And if the VTT had actually been designed for it from the ground up, all the better. Forced movement would have been a vital feature of any such thing (and should be perfectly easy to program on the whole, since you only move integer numbers of squares.) Heck, automatic forced movement for stuff that doesn't require user-selected placement (e.g. an AoE push effect) could probably be handled automatically, and a really good VTT would let you rewind turns or rounds with the click of a button.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

For me there's also the problem that 4e isn't really good to be played online, contrary to what most people believe. It's so much easier to play 5e if you're going to use a VTT.

Physical minis+dungeon tiles+power cards is the way to go.

yes I agree 4e is much better in person and 5e is the easier of the two to play on a VTT... funny, its the video game edition

 

[payn]

It's been like six years since I last touched the Roll20 4e character sheet code stuff, but once you got the hang of it it was actually extremely powerful. I'm almost certain that a user-friendly front end could have been coded for it. And if the VTT had actually been designed for it from the ground up, all the better. Forced movement would have been a vital feature of any such thing (and should be perfectly easy to program on the whole, since you only move integer numbers of squares.) Heck, automatic forced movement for stuff that doesn't require user-selected placement (e.g. an AoE push effect) could probably be handled automatically, and a really good VTT would let you rewind turns or rounds with the click of a button.

Absolutely. I think many folks don't think things can work on a VTT because they don't want to use it in the first place. That's fine for a preference but its not a fact of capability.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I thought it was an advanced form of the old D&D miniatures game.

Has some influence I suppose from video games eg encounter powers are essentially cooldowns.

Apart from that ...

I mean the funny part is those video games were influenced by those games, then the evolution of those games get said to be copping them...

It's like people that say Tolkien is so cliché and paint by numbers all fantasy has X Y and Z... but those became cliché AFTER he wrote that.