Help Me Figure Out Roll20

[Reynard]

This might belong in Other Media. If so, mods please move.

I have been a Fantasy Grounds user for years. I have also had a paid Roll20 account for years but did not use it much (I am one of those people that forgets to cancel it every year. ::sigh:: Anyway)

I own both Dragonbane and Marvel Multiverse on Roll20 because bundles, and I want to run the latter to get a handle on the system prior to running it at a con in April. The thing is, I really don't know how to run games on Roll20.
Does anyone have a EILI5 video series on using roll20 to run games. If they are specific to MM, great, but I assume the interface looks similar regardless of system.

I don't know why this is such a PITA for me. I use software all day as an engineer, but for some reason every time I fire up Roll20 my brain turns off.

Thanks.

 

[TheHand]

I've been running a Dragonbane game in Roll20. I don't have a video tutorial, though Roll20 does have a Youtube channel where I think they go through a lot of their features, but here's some of the basics that I hope are helpful...

So once you have your game created and have selected the Dragonbane character sheet (which I think is a well crafted sheet), the first thing you'll want to play with is making a "Page" for a battlemap or art background (depending whether you want a more grid/miniatures type experience or imagery to feature in a more Theater of the Mind experience). The Page is the primary playing field for Roll20.

To create a Page, switch between existing Pages, and , click on the "Page Settings" folder.

Spoiler: Page Settings

This will take you to a screen where you can manage your Pages, switch between them, and organize them into folders. To make a new Page, you can click the [+] button in the upper right. Roll20 will then generate a new page for you.

Each page has settings you can play with, including using Grids, setting the dimensions of the grid squares, background colors, etc.

Spoiler: Create Page

 

[TheHand]

To control which Page your players can see, there is a Golden Ribbon. You can either click that and drag it onto the map you want to use, or right click on the desired page and choose "Move Party Ribbon Here"

Spoiler: Party Ribbon

 

[TheHand]

Oh and one thing that might be helpful for you and your players. In my games we use Discord for chat and voice, but Roll20 has its own built-in voice system. If you wish to disable it, click on the Gear Icon in the far upper right, choose Audio & Video, and under Chat Tech you can change it to your preference.

Another setting I like to change while on this page is how big the avatar pictures of each player shows. It's under "Video Display", I like to set it to "Names Only".

Spoiler: Audo & Video

 

[TheHand]

OK! Now that you have a Page built, take a look at the Layers. Roll20 has 3 main Layers, the GM layer (where objects can only be seen by the GM), the Map Layer (which will sit at the bottom and won't be interacted with by the players), and the Token Layer (where all your character and creature tokens live).
Roll20 has some other fancier, newer layers like "Fore" and various lighting effects but I tried them once and found them too time-consuming to set up.

You can right click on any object you've placed and change the layer.

Spoiler: Layers

 

[TheHand]

When you're ready to start creating characters and NPCs, you can click the "+ CHARACTER" button. The Dragonbane sheet will start off fairly minimal. Where it says "Sheet Type", you can change it to be a PC/NPC, Monster, or "Party/GM". I do wish it had a minimalist option for NPCs, but it creates a full PC character sheet when you choose PC/NPC.

Once you have your sheet you can start editing the numbers. I don't have any Roll20 Dragonbane books, so I just put in everything manually.

Spoiler: Starting Character Sheet

Spoiler: PC Sheet

 

[Reynard]

Thank you @TheHand !!!

 

[TheHand]

Once you have a character created, you can assign it a token by uploading a picture. To make my tokens with borders, I use a web page called Token Stamp 2, but it can be any picture.

Once you have a token attached to your character sheet, you can edit it to link up to 3 bars with numbers you'll find useful. For Dragonbane I like to link the blue bar to armor rating, and set the red one to hp. Any value you link to your character sheet will change the corresponding numbers on the sheet, so for generic NPCs I don't usually actually link the HP directly, so that I can copy/paste lots of tokens without changing my generic NPC sheet.

Also take note of the "Nameplate" checkbox which will show the name of the character/NPC on the map... if you also want the players see the token name, you'll need to click the 3 vertical dots and click the checkbox that allows it to be visible to players. The vertical dots by the 3 tracking bars lets you control visibility there too (by default, you as the GM can see the hp trackers, but players can't).

Spoiler: Token Edit Screen

 

[TheHand]

Now that you have some characters and tokens created, you can add them to the map just by dragging and dropping.

Spoiler: Drag Drop Token

By default only you as the GM can move the tokens around, so in the properties page you may need to grant your players permissions to move around their own characters or allied NPCs.

 

[TheHand]

So as you well know, Dragonbane uses a card-based Initiative, and this is where it gets a little wonky with Roll20.

You need to create a "Character" (I have one called Init Tracker"). Set the Sheet Type to "Party/GM", then click the little people icon in the upper right.

Once you've created it, you need to have this character sheet open and click on the token you want to roll initiative for. I found it's best if the GM roll for everybody, because due to some glitch it always creates duplicate initiative entries when I let the players do it.

So click on a token so it's selected, then click on the Card icon to have it draw an initiative card for you.

Spoiler: Initiative Tracker