D&D 5E Most User-Friendly VTT? (Dice Games In The Time of Covid)

[Eric V]

I have also started using Zoom for my players. We started a new campaign with 7 players plus myself and the video conferencing of Zoom allows all eight of us to be onscreen together at the same time. Zoom goes fast enough that we do not find ourselves talking over one another due to lag, which is a godsend.

Since one of my players already has it for work we have the $15 per month subscription available to us, which means more than 40 minutes of playtime, as also has the shareable whiteboard to use.

Do the players need to have a subscription? I just got a license myself, and I was thinking I could just schedule a meeting 1/week, and they would download the software for the meeting each time...

 

[Nebulous]

I have a laptop with a camera, I have a separate camera (my wife normally works from home) so we can get a camera on a tripod. But then we don't have a camera for us unless I can get both external camera and laptop camera working at the same time which is probably a little dicey. Then we're using a phone's camera ... blech.

Technology is amazing compared to what we had 10 years ago but still not as easy as I'd like it. Where's my VR room where I can just plug into the matrix?

Yeah, where's my goshdarn holodeck!? It's 2020!!!

 

[Oofta]

Do the players need to have a subscription? I just got a license myself, and I was thinking I could just schedule a meeting 1/week, and they would download the software for the meeting each time...

Only 1 person needs a subscription.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, where's my goshdarn holodeck!? It's 2020!!!

Not to mention my Mr Fusion and flying car!

There was a kickstarter a while back where people would put on headsets and all see a virtual table. But call me a skeptic when I think it's vaporware. Maybe someday.

 

[Eric V]

I tried it in the early 2000s and it didn't leave a good impression. Never looked back.

May I ask what happened that left the bad impression?

I figure we use about 50% of the features it offers; individual line of sight, active lighting, fog of war, macros, etc. I now have a HUGE library of tokens for my 13th Age game (and 5e game, and 4e game...); there's a ton of beautiful free art maps out there...it's been an overall positive experience, so I am curious re: peoples' bad experiences.

 

[Azzy]

Not to mention my Mr Fusion and flying car!

There was a kickstarter a while back where people would put on headsets and all see a virtual table. But call me a skeptic when I think it's vaporware. Maybe someday.

You can do that with Tabletop Simulator—it is VR ready (I don't have a VR headset, so I've never experienced it firsthand). There's an actual tabletop (sorry, your table has no legs), and you can use either flat battlemats or 3d terrain.

 

[Azzy]

So, since yesterday I have been playing around with Astral—creating a character, a simple map with basic dynamic lighting, etc. It's exponentially easier to grok and use than Roll20.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Do the players need to have a subscription? I just got a license myself, and I was thinking I could just schedule a meeting 1/week, and they would download the software for the meeting each time...

As @Oofta said above, only 1 needs a subscription. And in fact, I don't believe anyone has to download anything to their computers, I believe everything is web-based. The person with the subscription creates a "room" in Zoom and sends an invite to people, and they go to the web address invite link and get into the meeting room that way. Zoom then asks for permission to use your mic and camera, and then bing, you are in the video conference with everyone else. It was all very easy, all things considered.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No, you've misunderstood. It was the requirement for proof of my claim while stating that DDB had millions of subs, a dubious claim. The rpg market is estimated around a $35 million and tou're saying that at least 2 million people are paying $72 a year in subs? I think your ideas of scale and spending in this hobby are off.

Master tier sub costs 55$ a year. The heroic tier sub is something like half that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Master tier sub costs 55$ a year. The heroic tier sub is something like half that.

Sure, if you pay up front for the whole year. Otherwise it's $6 for 12 months or $72.

But, let's go with everyone having the low tier and paying at the best discount rate. You've claimed there are millions of subscribers, which makes the DDB segment of the RPG market $50 million dollars at a minumum. Given that the RPG market is actually valued ar only $35 million, and if we assume that's only printed rules products (to be as fair as possible), your claim is that DDB is almost 2/3's again the size of that.

So, my point that it seemed unlikely to advance the discussion on FLGS closures when you were speculating wildly on DDB sub rates seems to be holding well. I wonder what nitpick in reply it will be this time.