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Deaxsa
2013-05-09, 03:26 PM
has anyone used this (http://roll20.net/)? how well does it work? just curious if anyone has any info, i could find very little.

Temotei
2013-05-09, 03:30 PM
has anyone used this (http://roll20.net/)? how well does it work? just curious if anyone has any info, i could find very little.

In my group's experience, it works decently well. The main problem our DM has right now is he's having trouble with the fit-to-grid system, apparently. There's a jukebox that lets you play music to everyone in the session, so that's cool. There's a short tutorial video when you sign in and a longer Help section inside the program if you sign up and make a campaign.

Delvin Darkwood
2013-05-09, 03:31 PM
I used it in a pathfinder game once. We couldn't get the video chat to really cooperate, but whether that was the fault of roll20 or our individual computers/internet connections, we couldn't tell. It works fine enough as for a virtual table top, but it seems to require a bit of set up and a bit more work on the DM's end.

Deaxsa
2013-05-09, 04:00 PM
I used it in a pathfinder game once. We couldn't get the video chat to really cooperate, but whether that was the fault of roll20 or our individual computers/internet connections, we couldn't tell. It works fine enough as for a virtual table top, but it seems to require a bit of set up and a bit more work on the DM's end.

yea, i don't have a webcam, but you can do fine without it, right? also, has anyone tried just drawing with the free draw tool? how well does that work, from the player's perspective? map making is such a pain, and it's reallyy really slow (besides the fact the map sets are really hard to find)

LimeSkeleton
2013-05-09, 04:56 PM
Personally, I love Roll20 and I've used it quite successfully for some 4e games. :smallsmile:

For map making, I'd recommend doing a google search for "dungeon tiles" and poking around to find some you can digitally download and use as floors. Then just use plain black squares as walls/borders, it's worked out well for me in the past. The dungeon sets can seem annoying at first, but honestly there's some pretty good stuff in there if you narrow your search and find images from other sources to supplement it.

The free drawing tool is good for pointing things out or marking locations on a map, not particularly good for actively creating maps. I typically use it most for showing where the party is on a world map so they can get a good idea of distances.

cyblazegk
2013-05-09, 09:07 PM
I use Roll20 whenever I need a map, and I have to say it is the best free virtual tabletop I've seen (the only things I really have to compare it to are Maptools and attempts at making maps for PBPs in Google Docs). I have quite a bit to say about the pros and cons!

1. Fit to grid is a pain at the best of times.

2. Streaming music is something that you can do with the jukebox, but just about everything I'd want to play is copyrighted content, which is apparently illegal to play to my virtual group of 5 tops even though I could blast it in my basement for like 20 people with little to no consequences.

3. The built-in voice and video chat is made redundant by Skype, which is what was used to share the join link to begin with. Also, the players tend to have their audio set well for Skype already, making them reluctant to switch voice chat clients. It's easy to turn off, though!

4. I have actually no complaints about the drawing tools. Once you figure out the shortcuts, it's really easy to make maps on the fly. My players have yet to complain about them. Ok I lied, I wish there was a fill tool.

5. Implementing decent creature tokens for both PCs and monsters has led me to extensive use of Google Image Search, and MS Paint.

6. It calculates distance across diagonals the 4e way, instead of the real life way.

7. I wish there were more keyboard shortcuts for the various tools.

8. There are no existing templates to use for card creation in the deck editor.

9. The Turn display is much more of a pain for me than just writing initiatives down, but I do use a quadrille notebook for all of my nonmap campaign planning anyway.

10. There's a huge amount of free cloud storage available for free.

11. The dice roller and page system do their jobs well, but I'd like to be able to expand the map.

Joe the Rat
2013-05-09, 10:47 PM
I've only been on the player side, and the GM picked up a membership (no ads on map switches). It works decently well - for our group, it's been more stable than Maptool (we have some tech issues with one of the players), and the included voice/video chat makes it one-stop shopping (we have some tech know-how issues with one of the players). The die roller is nice - it does the slow 20 wobble quite (frustratingly) well.

Better to load maps and set fog-o-war, but if you're good enough (or have a drawing tablet hooked up), you could play dry-erase battle mat. Range finder is handy as well, particularly when you aren't set to grid.

There's a D&D style character sheet as well - you can track stats, bonuses, hit points, etc. in game.

You get odd lags at times (waiting to see your results), and it has dumped folks once in a blue moon. You'll find it faster to build macros for your most common rolls, but you can set multiple rolls in the same macro (I have my melee set to roll attack and damage simultaneously to speed things up).

Zaggab
2013-05-10, 04:42 AM
The biggest problem with roll20 is how difficult it is to find games, at least in European time zones.

I've tried joining 4 games. Only 1 of them actually started, and that one I had to quit due to school worlkoad and vastly different preferences compared to the GM.

It's a common opinion among users that the built-in VOIP program is buggy and unstable, so most people use skype for communication.

Slipperychicken
2013-05-10, 02:49 PM
yea, i don't have a webcam, but you can do fine without it, right? also, has anyone tried just drawing with the free draw tool? how well does that work, from the player's perspective? map making is such a pain, and it's reallyy really slow (besides the fact the map sets are really hard to find)

Free draw is nice for making quick symbols (line, circle, etc) during play, circling something important, filling in an area of effect to see what's included in it (like a cone or line, so you can just drag the shape wherever you need it), and also giving directions for how a character will move when maneuvering is important. Actually drawing anything more complicated than basic shapes would probably work about as well as with MS paint.