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Talar
2018-02-07, 08:38 PM
Hey guys, so I decided to start a campaign with some friends that will take almost entirely online in some fashion. We are starting to get far flung across the country so I thought that this would be a good way to keep in contact and have fun all in one nice package. So we are going to try to use roll20 for the game and I am currently a bit overwhelmed by all the options and features of the site, but I was looking for some general advice on running a game using roll20 and the internet in general.

Vitruviansquid
2018-02-07, 08:59 PM
Figure out what your players will need to use roll20 on a basic level. Make a cheat sheet of common processes for your tech unsavvy friends and strictly forbid your tech savvy friends from playing with its features during actual games.

Steel Mirror
2018-02-07, 09:30 PM
I would say to not get over-ambitious, and treat preparation for each game much like you would preparing for a game in-person. That is, don't get overwhelmed by all the things you CAN do with the digital tools, and think that you MUST do them.

I had a few sessions back when I was first trying TRPGs online where I'd spend a lot of effort finding a bunch of pictures for all the NPCs I had planned, finding some fantasy art to show the environments, digging around to find pictures of the monsters and screenshots from movies for traps and chase scenes and so on. I'd dig through the macro options to try and make character sheets for my players that let them press a single button to roll attacks with their various weapons, or spells, or tracked conditions and equipment and charges remaining in magical items. I'd grab music tracks for setting the mood and make a bunch of premade maps for the dungeon and tokens for all the enemies within it. I used a free wiki site to make campaign notes of important places and people, for my players to visit and edit themselves.

Needless to say, I burned out almost instantly. You absolutely can and probably should do SOME of those things (like, to start with 2 or 3), but stick to doing things that you have a good idea of how and where you will use them, and how to find them. Nobody NEEDS to have a macro for rapid-shotting with their flaming shortbow. You can manually roll dice for that. Nobody will mind that you use stock tokens of orcs to represent the enemy army of dragonmen. We can still use our imaginations. If you find a cool picture that matches a place in your game, great, playing online makes it easier than ever to share it to set the mood. But just like in any game, sometimes you'll just need to wing it, and as long as you are throwing dice confidently and giving fun descriptions, most players will never need to know the moment where you switch from carefully prepared session to complete seat-of-your-pants.

I will say though that roll20 makes it very easy to build quick NPC character blurbs to share with your players, and you should absolutely take advantage of that if you have the time. Just a few sentences of description paired with a character portrait can be incredibly valuable. Plus, you can keep secret notes for yourself, including game statistics, in those same descriptions which your players won't see. And if you need help digging up fantasy portraits to match your mental images, head over to the art archaeologists in the Dungeons & Dreamboats (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?525214-Dungeons-and-Dreamboats-VIII-Bulletproof-Nudity) thread on this very forum, those folks are amazing!

Wasteomana
2018-02-07, 09:35 PM
There are also tons of resources and people that can help walk you through stuff / hook you up with resources. I wouldn't mind sharing my DM resources with you if you are interested (which includes, for a start, about 1500 maps that are sized and labeled for use in Roll20). If you want the DM tools hit me up on skype at Gravymattingly.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-02-07, 09:38 PM
My biggest Roll20 suggestion? Start simple. Don't mess with online character sheets or macros or initiative trackers-- heck, upload some simple number-in-circles for enemies. All you need is a few tokens and the "free draw" tool on the map layer. Maybe "/roll __" if you don't want to use physical dice. Once you get used to things, then you can start looking at more complicated stuff.

Honest Tiefling
2018-02-07, 10:49 PM
Those fancy features of online games are nice, but they aren't going to be remembered nearly as much as the time the party did something epic. They can add to it, but cannot replace a good encounter, story or character.

So focus on what is important and try to sloooowly introduce features as you feel more comfortable with them. All you need is a grid, really, and some groups don't even need that.

Or be lazy and get the players to do it! Maybe give out experience for adding to a wiki or finding portraits and making tokens for their own darn characters.

Thinker
2018-02-08, 12:54 PM
I've played in or run exclusively online games for the last 8 years or so. We didn't always use Roll20, but in the end, it has suited our needs the best. If you're using a game that Roll20 has character sheets for, use them. It is a lot easier than getting people to email their character sheets after a session or trying to track everything yourself. Use the builtin dice roller. It's straightforward and the best-made character sheets are integrated with it (just click Str to roll Strength for example).

Expect people to miss sessions. When people aren't actually going to a place to see people in-person, it will sometimes be less important than doing things in real life. Plan on your friends flaking sometimes. My group has gravitated to just pretending the character went off to do something else during sessions that are missed (even if it was in the middle of a dramatic moment carried over from last time).

We also like to use Discord for voice comms, rather than what is builtin to Roll20. That lets us interact even when not playing and helps to keep in touch. We setup a channel just for the game and it works well to have a place where people can ask, "Are we still on this Saturday" or "I'm not going to make it this weekend" or "What happened last time?" or "Wouldn't it be cool if we stole the Captain's airship?"

Grod_The_Giant
2018-02-08, 01:14 PM
We also like to use Discord for voice comms, rather than what is builtin to Roll20. That lets us interact even when not playing and helps to keep in touch. We setup a channel just for the game and it works well to have a place where people can ask, "Are we still on this Saturday" or "I'm not going to make it this weekend" or "What happened last time?" or "Wouldn't it be cool if we stole the Captain's airship?"
This is also good. The roll20 chat is not that great, and the video chat in particular will slow your machine down like nobody's business.

Talar
2018-02-08, 01:31 PM
Thank you all for the wonderful replies. They've been really helpful in making me see that it shouldn't be any different from a normal in person game. I wasn't planning on using the video chat for the main reason that I do not trust my internet or my laptop for all that. I have not heard of discord I'll look into that. Again thank you.