Roll20: A new virtual tabletop focused on storytelling

[rileydutton]

Hello everyone! Myself and a friend of mine have been working in our spare time to create Roll20, a new virtual tabletop that's focused less on gameplay mechanics and more on storytelling and camaraderie. We're currently entering a closed beta phase and also fundraising to help development on Kickstarter.

I also want to point out that while we are raising money on Kickstarter, the end product when it launches is going to free (as in beer) for everyone. We just need a little help so we can finish it!

Just wanted to stop by and let you all know about it since it's right up your alley. I'll be around here to answer any questions should you have them!

Roll20 -- Virtual tabletop that tells a story. For all roleplaying games and systems.

Thanks,

Riley

 

[Dannager]

I'm not sure what you mean here by "focused on storytelling." The only novel feature that I can see is built-in video chat, and maybe background music. In addition, I'm a little concerned by the line, "Other virtual tabletop software tries to turn pen and paper into a video game." That's a pretty adversarial stance - one that I think probably every other VTT developer would disagree with. The whole point of a virtual tabletop ought to be to provide everything possible to mitigate the stumbling blocks of playing a tabletop roleplaying game online, and then to additionally take advantage of the things that only the computer-based, online medium make possible. It looks like what you're trying to do is present a VTT focused on the human element, but I think that ignoring or marginalizing the mechanical improvements that can be made to the game experience is a mistake.

That said, your project is one that I may end up supporting, if only because integrated video chat is a feature that needs to happen.

EDIT: By the way, I'm not a fan of seeing the 93%-of-communication-is-non-verbal line trotted out all over again. It's almost never properly applied, and here is no different. Video chat is important, but you're not looking at a 1300% increase in communication quality by adding it.

 

[moon_wizard]

I never understood why people are constantly asking about adding video and voice directly into the VTTs, when there are so many good video and voice chat applications out there. What they should be asking is for the video chat developers to make overlays, so you can video chat in any application. Or maybe the VTT developers could leverage their APIs.

JPG

 

[rileydutton]

I'm not sure what you mean here by "focused on storytelling." The only novel feature that I can see is built-in video chat, and maybe background music. In addition, I'm a little concerned by the line, "Other virtual tabletop software tries to turn pen and paper into a video game." That's a pretty adversarial stance - one that I think probably every other VTT developer would disagree with. The whole point of a virtual tabletop ought to be to provide everything possible to mitigate the stumbling blocks of playing a tabletop roleplaying game online, and then to additionally take advantage of the things that only the computer-based, online medium make possible. It looks like what you're trying to do is present a VTT focused on the human element, but I think that ignoring or marginalizing the mechanical improvements that can be made to the game experience is a mistake.

That said, your project is one that I may end up supporting, if only because integrated video chat is a feature that needs to happen.

EDIT: By the way, I'm not a fan of seeing the 93%-of-communication-is-non-verbal line trotted out all over again. It's almost never properly applied, and here is no different. Video chat is important, but you're not looking at a 1300% increase in communication quality by adding it.

Sorry, we're not trying to be adversarial. We're just trying to take a clear stance on what differentiates us from the many other options out there. I think that MapTools is a great program, for example, if you do want to make use of mechanical improvements, such as the advanced scripting capabilities, and do a lot of stats tracking in-program.

When we say "focused on storytelling and camaraderie", we just mean that this program will be less concerned with things like having fully fleshed-out character sheets and a library of attack rolls from major systems, and instead provide features that let the DM continue to manage that part of the game.

I think you're selling us a little short by saying the only improvements are video chat and background music. This is a whole new approach that it's focused primarily first and foremost on ease of use. For example, look at the art library. Automatically searching the web for tokens is a huge time saver and lets you create your maps on the fly when you need to improvise, because you've already got access to tens of thousands of possible assets without needing to go and search on your own, then download, then get it into the program and send it to the players however that works in your VTT. It's just drag and drop. We're also the only VTT that is truly browser-based (not a Java object or a Flash or Silverlight application). As long as your OS runs Chrome or Firefox, you can use the program. Another example is inviting players to your game. You send them one link, they open the link, and they're in the game. It's that easy.

Also keep in mind that these are just the features that we've had time to do in our spare time. There are a lot more that we'd love to do given the time and resources to accomplish them (which is what this Kickstarter is about). So I think more than anything it's a core philosophy difference, and while a lot of features are similar right now (they are all VTTs, after all), going forward you'll see us focus in a lot of different areas than most VTTs are.

I hope that answers your questions, and we'd appreciate your support!

 

[Dannager]

Sorry, we're not trying to be adversarial. We're just trying to take a clear stance on what differentiates us from the many other options out there. I think that MapTools is a great program, for example, if you do want to make use of mechanical improvements, such as the advanced scripting capabilities, and do a lot of stats tracking in-program.

When we say "focused on storytelling and camaraderie", we just mean that this program will be less concerned with things like having fully fleshed-out character sheets and a library of attack rolls from major systems, and instead provide features that let the DM continue to manage that part of the game.

I think you're selling us a little short by saying the only improvements are video chat and background music. This is a whole new approach that it's focused primarily first and foremost on ease of use. For example, look at the art library. Automatically searching the web for tokens is a huge time saver and lets you create your maps on the fly when you need to improvise, because you've already got access to tens of thousands of possible assets without needing to go and search on your own, then download, then get it into the program and send it to the players however that works in your VTT. It's just drag and drop. We're also the only VTT that is truly browser-based (not a Java object or a Flash or Silverlight application). As long as your OS runs Chrome or Firefox, you can use the program. Another example is inviting players to your game. You send them one link, they open the link, and they're in the game. It's that easy.

Also keep in mind that these are just the features that we've had time to do in our spare time. There are a lot more that we'd love to do given the time and resources to accomplish them (which is what this Kickstarter is about). So I think more than anything it's a core philosophy difference, and while a lot of features are similar right now (they are all VTTs, after all), going forward you'll see us focus in a lot of different areas than most VTTs are.

I hope that answers your questions, and we'd appreciate your support!

Ease of use is definitely a noble goal, and very few VTTs have made significant headway in that department (the DDI VTT being one of the few).

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't see any reason not to include things like character sheet handling systems, or stat block integration, etc. Obviously development time is a factor in introducing those features, but I would like to see them on the "Eventually" list. For instance, public character sheet viewing is something that I, as the DM, consider pretty important to running an online game, especially for mechanically-involved games like D&D. I'd prefer to see a stance from you more along the lines of, "We're focused on getting this VTT up and running with features that all games will find useful, and later will be able to focus on support for specific systems."

If development of further support is an issue, I can suggest putting together additional Kickstarter projects, one at a time, for individual system support. Some will obviously be easier to support than others (Spirit of the Century versus D&D 4e Compendium calls).

Either way, I like the core of your project and I like that you are pushing the field ahead with novel features. I've gone ahead and contributed to the project. Please keep us updated!

 

[Dannager]

I never understood why people are constantly asking about adding video and voice directly into the VTTs, when there are so many good video and voice chat applications out there. What they should be asking is for the video chat developers to make overlays, so you can video chat in any application. Or maybe the VTT developers could leverage their APIs.

JPG

It's not a matter of figuring out a system that I can use. It's a matter of figuring out how to make this easiest for people who don't have time to figure out standalone voice/video apps.

 

[rileydutton]

Ease of use is definitely a noble goal, and very few VTTs have made significant headway in that department (the DDI VTT being one of the few).

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't see any reason not to include things like character sheet handling systems, or stat block integration, etc. Obviously development time is a factor in introducing those features, but I would like to see them on the "Eventually" list. For instance, public character sheet viewing is something that I, as the DM, consider pretty important to running an online game, especially for mechanically-involved games like D&D. I'd prefer to see a stance from you more along the lines of, "We're focused on getting this VTT up and running with features that all games will find useful, and later will be able to focus on support for specific systems."

If development of further support is an issue, I can suggest putting together additional Kickstarter projects, one at a time, for individual system support. Some will obviously be easier to support than others (Spirit of the Century versus D&D 4e Compendium calls).

Either way, I like the core of your project and I like that you are pushing the field ahead with novel features. I've gone ahead and contributed to the project. Please keep us updated!

Thanks for your support!

When you say "public character sheet viewing", what do you mean exactly? Are you using something like Obsidian Portal?

We're really just opposed to, for example, having a system-specific way to enter a bunch of stats on a character so that you can then have a bunch of pre-made "attacks" set up to check against stats that auto-roll...you see where this is going.

But if it's just a matter of you want to attach some info to a Character so your players or the public can see it, that's something we can probably put on the roadmap.

 

[Janx]

It's not a matter of figuring out a system that I can use. It's a matter of figuring out how to make this easiest for people who don't have time to figure out standalone voice/video apps.

yeah, it is a failure of these systems to require running seperate Video/voice applications to their main UI. From an end-users perspective, they want to join the game session, and have it all "just work". Not have to join the Map Tools session, then start up Google Hangouts and join that party, and so on.

the VTT's could easily smooth all that out, by integrating Google Hangouts or Skype or Ventrillo into their UI, but you'll notice, none of them have done it.

Contrast this to Xbox Parties and how easy it is to group up, then launch the game or join a Party in progresss. That's how easy a VTT needs to be.

 

[Janx]

Here's some general feedback on the VTT idea (bear in mind, I am a web app developer, so I know the challenges you face):

try to support IE-Latest if you can. I know IE ain't quite HTML5 compliant, but there's enough market share out there. Write your GUI code in modular libraries that are are aware of the browser version and will swap in the correct HTML/JS/CSS to do the job, rather than hard-coding a bunch of stuff (which would be the same mistake IE-only sites make when they use IE-only features).

Try to make your chat commands easy to use, as most users won't take the time to learn them if they are complex, thus missing most of the value of the commands.

Try to make DM prep-time minimal. One of the barriers to my group adopting a VTT is all the work the DM would have to do to put his notes into the system. In real life, he writes his stuff in a notebook. If we start a combat, he draws up the scene on the battle mat with a marker (and not using pre-loaded tokens and art). It should be THAT FAST to get the scene setup with no prior work for him. He'll subtract HP on his own in his notebook.

In the past, we ran a game using IRC and the mIRC client with macros. I had whipped up macros to remember my HP, do dice rolls and remember my attack modifiers for weapons. This let the GM address my PC:
"/Janx dam 5" and I would lose 5 HP
"/Janx heal 10" and I would gain 10 HP
"attack longsword" would look up the attack bonus and damage code for my "longsword" and tell the GM what I rolled and what damage would be if I hit
"/roll 1d8+1" would put 1d8+1=## on the screen, where ## was the result

Very simple stuff, we did not need our entire character sheet loaded into the PC. The HP and other consumables were handy to have (gold, etc). The attack numbers for our weapons was also a time saver, which could easily be solved by your macro language, rather than direct support in the system.

In fact, that's probably how you can avoid getting into the game specifics. Provide a solid macro language, and let people share/publish macros. Make sure the system includes "runtime" variable storage that stays with the user, that way the user can load up the macros once, use Macro_A to load up some variables, that Macro_B and Macro_C rely on (like definitions of weapons, gold, XP). That way, whenever the player logs in, their variables and macros are set and ready to resume play.

I had coded my macro library, so it's variable bank was keyed by screen name. I could then change my screen name to another PC, and have different variables set for each. A Dictionary or KeyValuePair structure would enable this.

We found, as we were purely text chat based, that we naturally gravitated to more roleplaying than combat. Having the right VTT to enable roleplaying (or not impede it) and still do combat when it comes up would probably fit within your mission.

Another free idea, is individual volume adjustment. Each person has differing microphone and audio quality issues. Some people are very quiet. I want to be able to turn the quiet people up (with some background noise filtering). without getting blasted out by Loud Mindy, who is naturally louder than everybody else.

Also include a "hand raising" signal. It's very easy to get drowned out by Loud Mindy. If the GM can see that you want to say something, he can interrupt/mute Loud Mindy and give you the floor.

If you're including initiative tracking, you might tie that into an auto-mute feature (GM choice to use it) where only the current player (and always the GM) can speak.

Your project sounds interesting. Good luck.

 

[rileydutton]

Thanks for all the great suggestions! I've read them all and while I don't have time to type out the thorough response that post deserves right now, I'll be keeping them in mind.