Anyone ever use the option to have the DM validates character movement before the token moves? Is it as cumbersome as it sounds, and does it prevent the kinds of behaviors described by OP with players scouting large chunks of the map by moving their tokens everywhere across the screen?
D&D General Improving your online D&D game
TaranTheWanderer
Legend
I hope people get that I'm not, generally, looking for advice but presenting a forum for people to post their tips and tricks. I illustrated an issue I was having, both as a player and a DM, and presented the tool I used to correct it.
People don't mind if I move their tokens and then they place them in the exact square. Or if they say, "I want to move down this hallway". Then I can narrate what the find and then tell them, "Ok, you can move your token now"
If someone is randomly moving tokens all over the board, I assume they aren't searching or check or anything and they have to deal with any traps/monsters they come across without the benefit of a search/perception check.
Doing it this way prevents piles of retcons: "But I was checking for traps!"
"then you shouldn't have moved your character there"
So, I ask everyone to announce what they are doing and where they are going. Then I narrate, then people move their tokens.
I've been finding dynamic lighting slows things down since players can't often "see". So theatre of the mind narration seems to help.
I also use roll20.
People don't mind if I move their tokens and then they place them in the exact square. Or if they say, "I want to move down this hallway". Then I can narrate what the find and then tell them, "Ok, you can move your token now"
If someone is randomly moving tokens all over the board, I assume they aren't searching or check or anything and they have to deal with any traps/monsters they come across without the benefit of a search/perception check.
Doing it this way prevents piles of retcons: "But I was checking for traps!"
"then you shouldn't have moved your character there"
So, I ask everyone to announce what they are doing and where they are going. Then I narrate, then people move their tokens.
I've been finding dynamic lighting slows things down since players can't often "see". So theatre of the mind narration seems to help.
I also use roll20.
TaranTheWanderer
Legend
I mean, isn't this how it's done at a non-virtual table? DM describes a scene: "you are in a cave that goes down 20 feet and splits both left and right. What do you want to do?"
players describe their actions and you continue.
Then you use the grid only when combat starts. I don't think I ever had a complete dungeon gridded out on the table and the players moved their minis to every intersection. But that's just me.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Here's one worth considering in my view:
If you have a player that has a terrible internet connection, bad microphone, computer prone to problems or the like, don't play with them. Online gaming is just not in the cards for them right now. However much you can eliminate technical glitches from your game, the better your game experience will be. Use the vast pool of players on the internet to build the best possible group you can.
If you have a player that has a terrible internet connection, bad microphone, computer prone to problems or the like, don't play with them. Online gaming is just not in the cards for them right now. However much you can eliminate technical glitches from your game, the better your game experience will be. Use the vast pool of players on the internet to build the best possible group you can.
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
I haven't tried using dynamic lighting yet on Roll20. This has the advantage that when using a full gridded dungeon map, players simply CAN'T drag their guys hither and yon and reveal stuff early. I manually clear the fog of war, so I can check in with their positioning or move them myself before revealing more. Usually we'll have a verbal check-in step before I do so, to make sure their formation is right.
Also on Roll20.
I'm fine with giving characters control of their tokens. Dynamic lighting and the "line of sight blocks movement" feature is enough. If they trigger a trap, opportunity attack, etc, I'll tell them to back up and we'll resolve that first. That happens far less frequently than me having to stop and move every character's token every time, which would only bog down the game for me.
I now prefer online gaming. Don't know if I'll want to go back.
I'm fine with giving characters control of their tokens. Dynamic lighting and the "line of sight blocks movement" feature is enough. If they trigger a trap, opportunity attack, etc, I'll tell them to back up and we'll resolve that first. That happens far less frequently than me having to stop and move every character's token every time, which would only bog down the game for me.
I now prefer online gaming. Don't know if I'll want to go back.
Don Durito
Hero
VTTs are really bad at exploring dungeons.
The way I learnt was that you had an exploration map, drawn by a player, and you might get out minis and draw the room if necessary. You could do something similar with a VTT, have some of scaling map where a single token represents the party and then scale that down, but there seems to be no interest - it's all about the battlemaps. (And I've seen this approached used on the table top too, with the party moving through photocopied maps that get laid out as they move along)
There's a few ways I've found to approach this problem. These are not all meant to be used together. Some are combinatory, but some are alternative approaches.
1) Change the way dungeons work when interacting online. Think a bit more like a computer game designer in regards to locations (especially old school ones where scale was limited). Instead of having lots of rooms with one or two things each, have fewer locations with many things each - even if some of these things seem to verge on implausibly close. A room the party pass through in five minutes on the table top is fine, but if you're prepping a map then it's a wasted map. Instead of putting something in a room, stick it in a nook or alcove. Try and give the illusion of size and scale while actually cutting back.
2) Don't put some kind of art or token to represent every single thing on the map. This tells the party that what they can see on the map is all there is. Put numbers or question marks or something to tell them that there is something there, but they need the GM to tell them exactly what is there.
3) If you want the feel of a vast sprawling dungeon - rethink what exploring means in the context of the VTT. It's tiresome and tedious to have the whole party exploring a huge mapped out dungeon, if most of the space doesn't have much in it. So intead just present the map as a whole with a single "you are here token". At the beginning use fog of war to make most of the map blank - but simply put numbers on the map to the nearest major room location and let them choose, and then skip to that map (approached like 1 above), avoiding wasting time on maps of corridors and the like - just work with assumption there's little of interest in those places. If you want wandering monsters have a separate corridor battle map you can switch to for that.
4) Consider turning off the dynamic lighting. The dynamic lighting basically prompts people to move their token around all over the place to see what's there. If you just turn it off people can basically see what's there to see (unless you've hidden) it, and the pacing actually returns to something more natural. You can always hide monsters in the GM layer and move them forward when the party tells you "we go around the corner" - instead of having one player suddenly move their token around the corner and make the discovery of the monsters through their lighting, while you are busy trying to resolve an action another player is in the middle of.
5)Just go minimalist. If you're using video you really can do away pretty much entirely with maps and go as minimalist as you like once everyone gets used to it. If you're just using voice, then it helps to have something to look at. But you can run a whole game sessions with maybe a mood board of images, that you occassionally refer to. Be aware that images can actually be problematic, because a lot of players may not be looking at the VTT if it doesn't seem urgent - they could be looking at their character sheet, or checking a rule etc.
6) Overreliance on beautfiul maps and images can be a trap. You become stuck with what you can find maps for. Good luck with that if you want to try anything that's not generic - you'll end up spending a lot of time looking for maps and images - 99% of what's there is pure generica. You want an Arabic city, or an Asian temple or castle that is not Japanese? Or even a medieval merchants house? (Go type 'merchant's house' into pinterest and you'll find a whole load of Victorian homes). Good luck!
7) On the other hand, you can run a whole wilderness adventure with just a single map of the region as your background for pretty much the entire session. Players seem happy if they have something that basic to look at and orient themselve. If you do switch to combat you just switch to a terrain based combat map (and these are pretty easy to find). Maybe consider whether on the VTT it's worth spending more time on wilderness adventures and less on Dungeons? (Especially as it's easy to put a small dungeon like a ruined temple in the wilderness and these work much better on a VTT).
8) Like on the table top not everything needs to be done with maps and minis. Theatre of the mind is still viable. (And you can use the draw function to sketch things out quickly). How are you going to handle a combat that you didn't expect and didn't prepare for if you are too reliant on prepared maps?
The way I learnt was that you had an exploration map, drawn by a player, and you might get out minis and draw the room if necessary. You could do something similar with a VTT, have some of scaling map where a single token represents the party and then scale that down, but there seems to be no interest - it's all about the battlemaps. (And I've seen this approached used on the table top too, with the party moving through photocopied maps that get laid out as they move along)
There's a few ways I've found to approach this problem. These are not all meant to be used together. Some are combinatory, but some are alternative approaches.
1) Change the way dungeons work when interacting online. Think a bit more like a computer game designer in regards to locations (especially old school ones where scale was limited). Instead of having lots of rooms with one or two things each, have fewer locations with many things each - even if some of these things seem to verge on implausibly close. A room the party pass through in five minutes on the table top is fine, but if you're prepping a map then it's a wasted map. Instead of putting something in a room, stick it in a nook or alcove. Try and give the illusion of size and scale while actually cutting back.
2) Don't put some kind of art or token to represent every single thing on the map. This tells the party that what they can see on the map is all there is. Put numbers or question marks or something to tell them that there is something there, but they need the GM to tell them exactly what is there.
3) If you want the feel of a vast sprawling dungeon - rethink what exploring means in the context of the VTT. It's tiresome and tedious to have the whole party exploring a huge mapped out dungeon, if most of the space doesn't have much in it. So intead just present the map as a whole with a single "you are here token". At the beginning use fog of war to make most of the map blank - but simply put numbers on the map to the nearest major room location and let them choose, and then skip to that map (approached like 1 above), avoiding wasting time on maps of corridors and the like - just work with assumption there's little of interest in those places. If you want wandering monsters have a separate corridor battle map you can switch to for that.
4) Consider turning off the dynamic lighting. The dynamic lighting basically prompts people to move their token around all over the place to see what's there. If you just turn it off people can basically see what's there to see (unless you've hidden) it, and the pacing actually returns to something more natural. You can always hide monsters in the GM layer and move them forward when the party tells you "we go around the corner" - instead of having one player suddenly move their token around the corner and make the discovery of the monsters through their lighting, while you are busy trying to resolve an action another player is in the middle of.
5)Just go minimalist. If you're using video you really can do away pretty much entirely with maps and go as minimalist as you like once everyone gets used to it. If you're just using voice, then it helps to have something to look at. But you can run a whole game sessions with maybe a mood board of images, that you occassionally refer to. Be aware that images can actually be problematic, because a lot of players may not be looking at the VTT if it doesn't seem urgent - they could be looking at their character sheet, or checking a rule etc.
6) Overreliance on beautfiul maps and images can be a trap. You become stuck with what you can find maps for. Good luck with that if you want to try anything that's not generic - you'll end up spending a lot of time looking for maps and images - 99% of what's there is pure generica. You want an Arabic city, or an Asian temple or castle that is not Japanese? Or even a medieval merchants house? (Go type 'merchant's house' into pinterest and you'll find a whole load of Victorian homes). Good luck!
7) On the other hand, you can run a whole wilderness adventure with just a single map of the region as your background for pretty much the entire session. Players seem happy if they have something that basic to look at and orient themselve. If you do switch to combat you just switch to a terrain based combat map (and these are pretty easy to find). Maybe consider whether on the VTT it's worth spending more time on wilderness adventures and less on Dungeons? (Especially as it's easy to put a small dungeon like a ruined temple in the wilderness and these work much better on a VTT).
8) Like on the table top not everything needs to be done with maps and minis. Theatre of the mind is still viable. (And you can use the draw function to sketch things out quickly). How are you going to handle a combat that you didn't expect and didn't prepare for if you are too reliant on prepared maps?
Last edited:
Oofta
Legend
I don't ever have extensively mapped out dungeons, I only use maps when combat is about to start or positioning is important for some other reason. So there's never a worry about people getting into grid mode before combat, exploration is all theater of the mind.
I do use pictures a bit more to help describe scenery, locations and creatures, but I've been using pictures for a long time. When it comes to combat, I use DndBeyond and Roll20 so I can also use Beyond20 to link the two pretty seamlessly. I don't ever bother with macros, player or monster sheets in Roll20.
Other than that
I do use pictures a bit more to help describe scenery, locations and creatures, but I've been using pictures for a long time. When it comes to combat, I use DndBeyond and Roll20 so I can also use Beyond20 to link the two pretty seamlessly. I don't ever bother with macros, player or monster sheets in Roll20.
Other than that
- Have images of NPCs, special monsters or other scenery hidden on the DM layer. When I want to show players what they see, I can highlight the image and click SHIFT+Z. It will display the image to everyone.
- I always prep maps and put tokens on where I think they will start. Monsters frequently are placed either out of sight or on the DM layer.
- This lets me do things like changing the default vision settings, so if there's a heavy fog I can limit everyone's sight to 10 ft or whatever I want.
- When I want people to know where something is that they can't see, I "ping" the general location.
- If I have a map with multiple layers (typically a building) I put all layers of the building on the same map and just make sure to do a "wall" around each layer so if you are on the first floor you can't see the second. However, if they split the party and someone goes up to the second floor I can just drag their mini over, I don't have to switch between maps.
- I use TokenStamp to make icons, using different borders. PCs have a round border that's a light tan, NPCs have a green round border and enemies have a red hexagonal border. I just keep all the tokens in a local file folder and drag and drop onto the map as needed.
- For multiple tokens, I use the little color circle to distinguish them - especially if they're the same type of monster.
- I have a couple of "generic" maps prepped in case the game goes off the rails (which I actually kind of encourage).
Swarmkeeper
Hero
Using Roll20 over here for battle maps and visuals.
Discord or Zoom for audio.
These are Roll20 specific... but maybe apply to other VTTs...
One thing that has been helpful for me as DM is to have a "session starting screen". On that screen (assuming we didn't leave off in the middle of a scene last time) all the PC tokens are present and I encourage the players to make sure their HP totals are up to date as they arrive for the game. When we're ready to start the action, I can then easily select all of them, copy them, and plop them down on the map for the new scene.
Another tip someone shared with me recently: if you have a group of monsters that share the same initiative, use the Add Turn functionality on an extra monster token in an unseen part of the screen that is not on the map. That way, if you delete one of the monsters when it goes down in battle, you don't inadvertently end up losing the initiative in the initiative tracker.
Discord or Zoom for audio.
These are Roll20 specific... but maybe apply to other VTTs...
One thing that has been helpful for me as DM is to have a "session starting screen". On that screen (assuming we didn't leave off in the middle of a scene last time) all the PC tokens are present and I encourage the players to make sure their HP totals are up to date as they arrive for the game. When we're ready to start the action, I can then easily select all of them, copy them, and plop them down on the map for the new scene.
Another tip someone shared with me recently: if you have a group of monsters that share the same initiative, use the Add Turn functionality on an extra monster token in an unseen part of the screen that is not on the map. That way, if you delete one of the monsters when it goes down in battle, you don't inadvertently end up losing the initiative in the initiative tracker.
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