D&D General Your Thoughts on LoS, Dynamic Lighting on VTTs

I've been using a vtt for in person meatspace gaming since before covid was a thing. Arkenforge running locally & being designed to output onto a second screen is a big part of why I originally chose it. Here's a very pre-covid pic one of my players took way back during a mid game pot luck break using a 42(48?)inch tv in a tvbox :D

And the fact that The Social Network(TM) is up on the laptop screen is a big reason I like to run my in-person games sans devices. I know, I know, you were on a break from the actual game, but still...
 

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Yeah, I've gone exclusively VTT for 7 almost 8 years now. I live in a large city where travel time to and from the game is prohibitive. When I switched to VTT - I increased the amount of gaming I could do a month by a factor of 8.

I would never go back. Now, that's just me of course. Most people WILL go back to face to face gaming.

Some, perhaps many won't though. How "many" that "many" proves to be is anybody's guess, but it won't be 100% of those who played face-to-face before Covid, that's for sure. Once you get past the differences, there is a lot to recommend about gaming via VTT.

Oh, I'll definitely be doing a mix of online and in-person when able. As I suspect "many" will do. So there's a bit more nuance to it than the binary "going back" or "never going back".
 

tetrasodium

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Epic
And the fact that The Social Network(TM) is up on the laptop screen is a big reason I like to run my in-person games sans devices. I know, I know, you were on a break from the actual game, but still...
I've had players using a laptop since we were still playing 3.5/PF years back & to be honest never had much of an issue with laptop equipped players. Don't think I ever saw someone seriously attempt it before dndbeyond but tablet and phone users are the bane of my existence since dndbeyond. Not only are those tablet/phone users slow to do anything, they make the game grind to a screeching halt as soon as they need to start digging through their character sheet or god forbid add a custom item to it. I'm sick & tired of "It's like x item but different like so" magically turning into exactly x item.... oh yea I ban the use of phones & limit players to paper or pdf if it's not obvious ;)
 

Retreater

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Oh, I'll definitely be doing a mix of online and in-person when able. As I suspect "many" will do. So there's a bit more nuance to it than the binary "going back" or "never going back".
Yeah, I have to wonder what an in-person game would even be now. I think that, for me, I'm not going to be able to schedule regular f2f games again. Online is just more convenient, open to more players that I click with, etc. I think that gaming has been changed forever.
 

Nebulous

Legend
Yeah, I've gone exclusively VTT for 7 almost 8 years now. I live in a large city where travel time to and from the game is prohibitive. When I switched to VTT - I increased the amount of gaming I could do a month by a factor of 8.

I would never go back. Now, that's just me of course. Most people WILL go back to face to face gaming.

Some, perhaps many won't though. How "many" that "many" proves to be is anybody's guess, but it won't be 100% of those who played face-to-face before Covid, that's for sure. Once you get past the differences, there is a lot to recommend about gaming via VTT.
As much as I love face to face gaming, the past year I've been forced by covid to VTT, and it has so many attributes i enjoy. Incredibly detailed maps and high res minis and I can edit any of these on the fly. I often import my own monster tokens edited in Photoshop first.
 

Nebulous

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My friends who have done VTT are surprised by what I've shown them the past year. They never delved into the deeper aspects of Roll20 and only used the free front. They've used Roll20 7 or 8 years now and I have shown them many things they have never used.
 

Steel_Wind

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My friends who have done VTT are surprised by what I've shown them the past year. They never delved into the deeper aspects of Roll20 and only used the free front. They've used Roll20 7 or 8 years now and I have shown them many things they have never used.
Now add to that spiffy animated spell effects, animated tokens, and the amazing Multilevel Token system in Foundry combined with Paralaxxia in Foundry VTT? And you think there's not a group of players who are going to look at some figs, a Chessex battlemat and an overhead pen and say "nope: I'm out". Yes there is.

The Multilevel token stuff in Foundry is amazing. Its technical, but essentially how it works is that the software takes whatever map images you designate and automatically teleports you to another map on an "event" - whether just clicking a region of space, or just entering a region of space. It can also project a region of space from another map as well as the tokens within it -- into another map regions and make that be something that can be both seen on another map and targeted from another map, too. And it's not that hard to do. Anybody posting here can figure out how to make their maps do this within their game sessions.

Most of you who are still reading are in the "yeah, get to it" point. So I will. You put 4 or 5 different maps on a sailing ship together and this thing allows people to move seamlessly from a main deck into the Captain's cabin, down a ladder - through the galley hall, up another ladder to emerge on the main deck, looking down into the hold, where there are a bunch of other crew (on the hold level of the ship, not the same map you are on!) and you can see and target them in the hold below with a spell, arrow, or pistol originating at them from the main deck, too.

And it is ALL seamless. The player never ever notices that something spiffy has happened. It's that slick. And this is all while the sound effects of wind are playing, fog and clouds are moving, seagulls are whirling in the air above it and the sea is frothing by the sides of the hull' all to provide the illusion of movement to players. Check it out: The Movie Magic is demonstrated at the 7:47 mark.


To a small group of players in any game genre, graphics and eye candy do not move them. They would rather play a text based MUD, an 8 bit platformer over Fallout 4, Cyberpunk or World of Warcraft. They just don't care about eye candy. That is true in the TTRPG world as well. Some of them have posted in this thread already. They are real. They exist. Their opinions really don't get moved by these things. All true.

But they are a minority viewpoint in any gaming genre, be it computer, console, boardgame, or TTRPG. To the majority of players, eye candy counts & sizzle matters.
 
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TheSword

Legend
As much as I love face to face gaming, the past year I've been forced by covid to VTT, and it has so many attributes i enjoy. Incredibly detailed maps and high res minis and I can edit any of these on the fly. I often import my own monster tokens edited in Photoshop first.
I’m in total agreement with you.

When lockdown lifted in England I briefly experimented with Roll 20 on the TV screen. It means we can spread out in comfortable sofas in the living room. Don’t need to keep getting up to move minis. It means we can actually see the map. I can track HP/Status/Initiative far easier. Plus I don’t have to waste money and time printing off and laminating hundreds of battle maps.

I look forward to testing it at my next face to face session.
 


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