D&D 5E Which Virtual Table Top are you using right now and what do you like best about it?

[TheOneGargoyle]

DDB is not owned by WOTC, so it’s not up to WOTC to get the encounter and combat tracker finished. I agree, though, that it will be great when DDB can get those tools closer to a finished state.

Oh! I didn't realise that! Thanks

But yes, would be nice I think.

 

[udos]

It is pretty solid so far. Undoubtedly a good bit of sweat has gone into getting this far, webapp development is no cake walk, that's for sure. One thing I would definitely see as useful, from my standpoint, is support for opening more than one window and using them independently, or together. While a lot of people are 'mobile' now, I find that most of my own VTT use is at a workstation with 2 or more screens. It sure does HUGELY improve the GMing experience in particular to be able to spread stuff out over a couple of screens!

Thank you so much for your feedback. About the "more than one window" aspect: you can have arbitrarily many windows with Rolz open, so I'm not sure what to make of that. It sounds like I want to support this, being a multi-monitor user myself. Could you elaborate a little more on that?

Obviously you're nowhere near where a Roll20 is, but you can see that as a good thing. Pay attention to what doesn't work well on the popular VTT sites. Personally I think Roll20's UX is pretty terrible. I think there's a lot of room to go in a different direction!

I'm a bit hesitant to check out the other sites, since I don't want to be accused of ripping them off and I also don't want their preconceptions of how a site like that should work to leak into my brain I'd rather listen to people who tell me they need something, or that something specific should be improved...

 

[merwins]

As a GM, when I shifted to online play, I started with Roll20. I still use it for multiple games (as a player).
So many failures and crashes when we tried to use it for voice + play, so we gave up and shifted to Discord for voice and Roll20 for the visuals.

Roll20 still feels klunky and horrible, even after nearly a year of weekly use. Safe to say I dislike it.

I hunted for a replacement for a LONG time. So far, Tableplop: Easy to use virtual tabletop has won my vote.
My other go-to map tools for actually creating visuals are Mipui and Dungeon Scrawl | Home

My basic requirements were:
FREE. At least to try, but preferably freemium.
LIGHTWEIGHT. Less baseline bloat, less onscreen clutter. I play more than 5E, so a internal 5E content library wasn't critical to me.
USABLE. Low learning curve with potential for pick up and play. I didn't want to have read a detailed manual to use it.
OPTIONS STAY OPTIONAL. Automation doesn't help if your players don't know the rules to begin with. Fancy onscreen features like lighting effects, condition markers and hit point trackers don't add much if you're having trouble just drawing or moving stuff on screen or data doesn't update properly.

I do admire more elaborate gamers... the mini painters, the set builders, etc. I don't have the skills myself--I just throw a few tokens on a grid IRL and maybe scratch out some rough images with a wet-erase marker. So I didn't need much more when I moved to online play. It just amazed me how much stuff most of these VTTs included as "essential" for play.

It feels to me like many of these VTTs are trying to get you closer to a video game just because you're on a computer. But I don't need all that complexity to roleplay.

 

[Don Durito]

As a GM, when I shifted to online play, I started with Roll20. I still use it for multiple games (as a player).
So many failures and crashes when we tried to use it for voice + play, so we gave up and shifted to Discord for voice and Roll20 for the visuals.

Roll20 still feels klunky and horrible, even after nearly a year of weekly use. Safe to say I dislike it.

I hunted for a replacement for a LONG time. So far, Tableplop: Easy to use virtual tabletop has won my vote.
My other go-to map tools for actually creating visuals are Mipui and Dungeon Scrawl | Home

My basic requirements were:
FREE. At least to try, but preferably freemium.
LIGHTWEIGHT. Less baseline bloat, less onscreen clutter. I play more than 5E, so a internal 5E content library wasn't critical to me.
USABLE. Low learning curve with potential for pick up and play. I didn't want to have read a detailed manual to use it.
OPTIONS STAY OPTIONAL. Automation doesn't help if your players don't know the rules to begin with. Fancy onscreen features like lighting effects, condition markers and hit point trackers don't add much if you're having trouble just drawing or moving stuff on screen or data doesn't update properly.

I do admire more elaborate gamers... the mini painters, the set builders, etc. I don't have the skills myself--I just throw a few tokens on a grid IRL and maybe scratch out some rough images with a wet-erase marker. So I didn't need much more when I moved to online play. It just amazed me how much stuff most of these VTTs included as "essential" for play.

It feels to me like many of these VTTs are trying to get you closer to a video game just because you're on a computer. But I don't need all that complexity to roleplay.

It does feel like VTTs are trying to sell you dependency on the features of a VTT.

(And it does feel like VTTs are all focused on wow factor superfical features rather then developing features which would lead to better gaming).

There's a danger this creates a feedback loop in which VTTs benefit from companies selling fixed adventure paths (with all the VTT prep work done) and the companies benefit from VTT making adventure paths feel essential, but the hobby as a whole does not benefit.

 

[tetrasodium]

It does feel like VTTs are trying to sell you dependency on the features of a VTT.

(And it does feel like VTTs are all focused on wow factor superfical features rather then developing features which would lead to better gaming).

There's a danger this creates a feedback loop in which VTTs benefit from companies selling fixed adventure paths (with all the VTT prep work done) and the companies benefit from VTT making adventure paths feel essential, but the hobby as a whole does not benefit.

One of the nice features I like about using arkenforge is that I can replace 3 cases of minis & a tube with a chhessex mat carried along with my laptop when gm'ing with a tvbox hooked to my laptop & I have the ability to loadup any premade map I have on my hdd with a couple clicks

and them covid put a crimp on in person gaming

 

[Stormonu]

I’d bought FG some time back, but I was in a group that used Roll20, and with the Beyond20 plugin(for Firefox), I’ve become Roll20 junkie.

Likewise, I’d bought Campaign/Dungeon Cartographer for making maps (had it since the 90’s), but it was clunky enough I haven’t used it for a while. Just found Dungeonfog, and while it requires a subscription to export, the ease to use and the quality of the maps you can make are unbelievable!

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I use all of the big three, but Foundry is VASTLY better than the other two. Fantasy Grounds is constantly sidegrading and inventing new bugs while failing to get a proper user excperience. Roll20 works, but is just... there. Nothing interesting happening. Foundry, though, is constantly developing. There are always new rulesets and modules coming out, and creating scenes with it is a blast. Highly recommended.

 

[ronaldsf]

I use all of the big three, but Foundry is VASTLY better than the other two. Fantasy Grounds is constantly sidegrading and inventing new bugs while failing to get a proper user excperience. Roll20 works, but is just... there. Nothing interesting happening. Foundry, though, is constantly developing. There are always new rulesets and modules coming out, and creating scenes with it is a blast. Highly recommended.

Agreed. At the start of the pandemic I tried Roll20, then bounced to Fantasy Grounds. (Disclaimer: I mostly run PF2E, but also run 5E games.)

Stuck with FG for 7 months and loved the automation, but the interface felt dated. Held off on Foundry because it seemed to have a barrier to entry.

Jumped to Foundry and not looking back. It was pretty easy to find and use modules to make it exactly as I wanted it, and it does basic functions just plain more easily than the other two. Very pretty, too.

UPDATE: It's also open sourced so no need to wait on the developer to develop something (and charge it as DLC). The Foundry community is awesome. You can import D&D Beyond characters and content wholesale into Foundry. And the playtest for PF 2e's 2 new classes and firearms equipment was just released yesterday 11AM PST. The community made a module for Foundry in nine hours.

 

[Don Durito]

One of the nice features I like about using arkenforge is that I can replace 3 cases of minis & a tube with a chhessex mat carried along with my laptop when gm'ing with a tvbox hooked to my laptop & I have the ability to loadup any premade map I have on my hdd with a couple clicks

and them covid put a crimp on in person gaming

This is related to my issue with them. It feels like they are actually best as a supplement to in-person gaming, because all they reall support is fancy combat encounters.

Where's the support for exploration on a large scale? For hex maps? For scaling up and down from exploration to combat? For easy player mapping? For houserules?

 

[tetrasodium]

This is related to my issue with them. It feels like they are actually best as a supplement to in-person gaming, because all they reall support is fancy combat encounters.

Where's the support for exploration on a large scale? For hex maps? For scaling up and down from exploration to combat? For easy player mapping? For houserules?

They are pretty much just a digital battle mst and tokens with some including extra stuff like character sheets or note keeping but the big difference for arkenforge is that it runs locally on unity rather than a browser window like so many other vtt things. There is a development roadmap that would get into some of that, but I think you might also be overlooking how much overhead some of what you mention would add to the GM's workload.