Which Online Virtual Tabletop Do You Use?

[Reynard]

I use Fantasy Grounds and I like it, but it's expensive. Even if you go with a subscription instead of straight purchase, you still have to opt for the most expensive version to host friends for free, and then you have either A LOT of work to do or have to spend a pretty penny to have access to all the material. That said, the automation is really nice and there's lots of support, both official and 3rd party.

 

[Tallifer]

We use roll20 for images. We used to use Twiddla, but it now has a time limit for any free session. Now we are all learning how to use roll20 more and more like a virtual tabletop, but most of us don't even use macros.
For sound, we have found that Google Hangouts works for a greater proportion of our players. Roll20 sound seems not to work so well, and discord also seems to cut out portions of sound.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

We use roll20 for images. We used to use Twiddla, but it now has a time limit for any free session. Now we are all learning how to use roll20 more and more like a virtual tabletop, but most of us don't even use macros.
For sound, we have found that Google Hangouts works for a greater proportion of our players. Roll20 sound seems not to work so well, and discord also seems to cut out portions of sound.

which platform is best if I have homebrewed stuff?

 

[Matchstick]

I will always take straight up paying over any kind of subscription service. Doesn't take much inattention and all of a sudden you realize you've way overpaid for what you've gotten.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

which platform is best if I have homebrewed stuff?

Not much of a difference really between Roll20 and FG for homebrew. I would prefer FG because of the map pin hyperlinks but that is my preference.

 

[MNblockhead]

What VTTs have you guys found to be best for larger maps? I was playing around with Roll20 some more last night and I uploaded a JPEG of a level from Rappan Athuk. I decreased the file size to under 1 MB but after using the align-to-grid feature, the map went outside the workspace. I probably have to do some more research and tutorials because if this is due to a grid size limitation I can't see hardly any but the most limited battlemaps being useful in Roll20.

I'm going to test the same thing in Fantasy Ground and MapTools, I like that Roll20 is online and I don't have to mess around with having two instances of a program open and connected by localhost to display a map to my players.

At this point, I couldn't care less about macros, character sheets, text descriptions, pins or other bells and whistles. I'm looking for something that I can:

1. Quickly load a map with fog of war
2. Quickly align the VTT grid to the map-image grid
3. Throw some tokens on the map and be able to move them around.

 

[Tallifer]

which platform is best if I have homebrewed stuff?

I have found roll20 very adaptable: one of our group always runs a new and different system which he always hacks and mixes from other systems: roll20 works well for him. You do not need to use any roll20 character sheets: I do not even use them for 4E or 5E. We just use Google docs to share and look at and edit our customized character sheets.

 

[Tallifer]

What VTTs have you guys found to be best for larger maps? I was playing around with Roll20 some more last night and I uploaded a JPEG of a level from Rappan Athuk.

You can use the tab for pages at the top of the roll20 map and edit the size of the page to accommodate the map. It can be as huge as you want. (The roll20 wiki explains it better.)

 

[Zaukrie]

I used FG for awhile. the learning curve is real, but it definitely automates a ton. If you have the money, I'd do it again.

 

[MNblockhead]

You can use the tab for pages at the top of the roll20 map and edit the size of the page to accommodate the map. It can be as huge as you want. (The roll20 wiki explains it better.)

Thank you. I finally figured it out a while after that post. I've also got dynamic lighting and advanced fog of war figured out.

I'm thinking of getting the $50/year subscription which gives me enough storage to upload all my Rappan Athuk maps. I do really like the the dynamic lighting used in conjunction with advance fog of war, but am finding that it gets very unresponsive with large maps.

I'm going to try prep some of the same maps in Fantasy Grounds and Map Tools to see if I have a better experience running software on my computer and just doing a screen share. The problem with that is that I would have to move all the player tokens during the game.

I'd be happy to spend the money, but my problem is that I'm worried about buyer's remorse. If I go all into Roll20 and then if FGG focuses on putting its content into Fantasy Grounds, it would feel like a waste.

As much as I love FGG and their Lost Worlds setting and related adventures, I would have had an easier time going with official WotC material or even Kobold Press's Midgard setting, both of which have good support in a number of VTTs. But I jumped into Lost Lands when I was still running in-person games.

I'm going to spend the weekend running simulations in a variety of tools this weekend to first see which solutions provides the best performance given my sub-part Internet connection. I'm going to hold off on buying any 5e rule-sets and bestiaries until I have a better idea on which system will better support the third-party content I want to use.