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

[cmad1977]

If a DM wants to describe a room, then I would think the DM should ask the players to move into the room first to avoid the strangeness you describe. If there is a visual of the room, I would think that would enhance the verbal description (and vice-versa). Enemies can be hidden on the GM layer until the DM reaches them in the description (if, in fact, there are any non-hidden enemies there). I guess even after 10 months of being forced to play online (for those of us who hadn't before), some DMs (like me) are still figuring out how best to run things. Thankfully, we have this thread!

I’ve been using Roll20 since before the pandemic and I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.

Or at least that there have to better ways to do what I’m doing.

I have found that a lot of purchasable maps/adventures are overzealous in their use of dynamic lighting walls(like for bolder or pillars or gates) which I then remove AND all the tokens are often set to the token layer by default.

 

[iserith]

I have found that a lot of purchasable maps/adventures are overzealous in their use of dynamic lighting walls(like for bolder or pillars or gates) which I then remove AND all the tokens are often set to the token layer by default.

Yes, I often redo the dynamic lighting on purchased modules. It's usually quite sloppy.

 

[cmad1977]

Yes, I often redo the dynamic lighting on purchased modules. It's usually quite sloppy.

Yeah.

Ooh! The another “tip”:

Draw the dynamic lighting lines either very thinly along the walls or recess them a bit behind the walls so that the players can see the walls and the rooms don’t just abruptly end in stark blackness.

 

[Nebulous]

If a DM wants to describe a room, then I would think the DM should ask the players to move into the room first to avoid the strangeness you describe. If there is a visual of the room, I would think that would enhance the verbal description (and vice-versa). Enemies can be hidden on the GM layer until the DM reaches them in the description (if, in fact, there are any non-hidden enemies there). I guess even after 10 months of being forced to play online (for those of us who hadn't before), some DMs (like me) are still figuring out how best to run things. Thankfully, we have this thread!

After using Roll20 about twice a week for the past year, I can say that I like it almost as if not AS much as playing in person. I've always been a map and prop guy, and the ease of importing maps and props into the game is ridiculously easy.

 

[Nebulous]

Yes, I often redo the dynamic lighting on purchased modules. It's usually quite sloppy.

Yeah, it's often overdone. Every little pillar doesn't need it.

 

[schneeland]

While I can see its use, I don't use dynamic lighting. Or most other features of VTT platforms for that matter. For me (and the rest of the group I play with) it emphasizes the "board-/video-gamey" aspect too much, so we have settled on Owlbear Rodeo with just map sharing, tokens and color codes for conditions (we don't use virtual dice rollers either and just roll our physical dice at the respective desk).

 

[Don Durito]

I've mostly discarded dynamic lighting and found that fog of war and just revealing a room at a time works better - faster, and causes less confusion - and all players can see the same thing.

Nothing is really gained by different players seeing different thing other then uncertainty.

These days I tend to draw the dungeons in the draw tool as well - as I'm far less limited by the sheer generic dullness of the online maps that are actually available.

 

[Nebulous]

I’ve been using Roll20 since before the pandemic and I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.

Or at least that there have to better ways to do what I’m doing.

I have found that a lot of purchasable maps/adventures are overzealous in their use of dynamic lighting walls(like for bolder or pillars or gates) which I then remove AND all the tokens are often set to the token layer by default.

I remember my first three or four games of Roll20. Forge of Fury. I was SO MAD at the effing system. I didn't think I was smart enough to learn it, and certainly not smart enough to master it. It was clunky and the map layers confused the crap out of me, and dynamic lighting was a massive headache. But in between session 3 and 4 I spent at least twenty hours that week practicing. I taught myself how to do it about four hours a day, and when the next session rolled around my players noticed the difference. The game ran smooth for once and it wasn't me cussing at it for when crap didn't work right.

 

[Nebulous]

These days I tend to draw the dungeons in the draw tool as well - as I'm far less limited by the sheer generic dullness of the online maps that are actually available.

Generic maps? Which ones are you referring to? I'm on patreons where they spit out amazingly detailed maps every week.

 

[Don Durito]

Generic maps? Which ones are you referring to? I'm on patreons where they spit out amazingly detailed maps every week.

They're all Euro-fantasy for one. I'm running a silk road inspired campaign right now. Maps of buildings or cities or the like that are inspired by India or the Middle East or China are pretty much non-existent. (Hell just try to find a map of a merchant's house that looks like an actual medieval merchants house and not a 19th century Victorian home).

And what if I want to run a dungeon that is not a set of underground ruins with rectangular rooms but is the inside of a colossal tree, or the inside of a giant statue?

To rely on pre-made maps is always to vastly limit what you can do.