Good alternatives to Roll20?

[SangoProduction]

It's kinda mind boggling that a company that went from truly nothing to where it is now off of the direct support of users would ever just tell their users to f- off. Let alone turning down big name D&D channels, stating "we don't need more white guys".

Then after several hundred thousand dislikes (and more impactfully, the people unsubbing from their payment), they apologized.... but it's pretty clear that I need to be looking to other alternatives... who won't blow themselves up and sabotage their own business in the middle of me running a game on their platform.

So, does anyone know any alternatives? Preferably ones that are free, or maybe freemium in the same vein as Roll20?

[martixy]

I've missed something.

Elaborate on this latest drama, please.

[Peelee]

I've missed something.

Elaborate on this latest drama, please.

It was on reddit. A longtime customer listed some constructive criticism about Roll20. The mod, who was also the co-founder, banned the poster for having a similar name to someone who was banned over a year before (the official reason was they claimed he was the same poster using an alt account). The poster appealed and asked for an IP check, ultimately sending two emails over roughly a two day period. The poster was then told, "you're right, you are clearly not the banned person. However, you're annoying us, so we're standing by you being banned." When the poster went public with this, the co-founder responded by saying the poster had made threats against them. The poster had meticulously posted all communication, which was verified by the co-founder as being accurate.

tl;dr - "You're banned for criticizing us being an alt account of a banned user. Whoops, you're not him, but you're still banned for criticizing us talking to us. Also, we're going claim you harassed us and threatened us, despite clear evidence to the contrary." - Guy who runs the company.

ETA: I like Fantasy Grounds, but it's a high learning curve and isn't free.

[SangoProduction]

I've missed something.

Elaborate on this latest drama, please.

Essentially some reddit drama. A roll20 reddit moderator banned someone for giving rather in depth feedback, stating that they were a duplicate/troll account. Then in the next reddit thread, the drama happens, basically where the redditor would receive no help from Roll20 Customer Support, despite being a paying backer for 5 years. And the cofounder of Roll20 responds directly, calling the redditor's comments and requests as threatening and whatnot.

Oh, some stuff about also not partnering with youtubers on the basis of skin color. But meh.

I'm more concerned with having a stable platform that won't suicide itself on the pyre of social justice than I do about them actually doing social justice. I mean, the two are one and the same, at the end of the day, but when cannibalized, you have some good warning to stop using the platform before they finally burn themselves out.

[Palanan]

I’m actually looking at the Roll20 site right now, trying to make the slightest sense of it. I’ve been meaning to look into online gaming platforms, and one of my players was suggesting Roll20, but it’s not exactly intuitive.

So, like the OP, but for different reasons, I’m very interested in finding alternatives.

[martixy]

Essentially some reddit drama. A roll20 reddit moderator banned someone for giving rather in depth feedback, stating that they were a duplicate/troll account. Then in the next reddit thread, the drama happens, basically where the redditor would receive no help from Roll20 Customer Support, despite being a paying backer for 5 years. And the cofounder of Roll20 responds directly, calling the redditor's comments and requests as threatening and whatnot.

Oh, some stuff about also not partnering with youtubers on the basis of skin color. But meh.

I'm more concerned with having a stable platform that won't suicide itself on the pyre of social justice than I do about them actually doing social justice. I mean, the two are one and the same, at the end of the day, but when cannibalized, you have some good warning to stop using the platform before they finally burn themselves out.

Ah, yes. If it isn't twitter, it's reddit.

I went and looked through all the drama. From the outside it just looks like all sides blowing everything out of proportion.

The internet being the internet, e.g. SNAFU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAFU).

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by SangoProduction
So, does anyone know any alternatives? Preferably ones that are free, or maybe freemium in the same vein as Roll20?

+1 to this. Now that we’re past the internet drama, can anyone offer some alternatives?

[Blu]

When it comes to interface, i believe there is nothing as smoth as Roll20, that being said, an insteresting option is the game Tabletop Simulator, available on steam.
It can be weird and finicky but there is a lot of options there with the steam workshop and if you or someone on your table knows progaming and 3d modeling you can even make custom miniatures, maps and such for it.
Also a plus that if one of your players doesn't show up you can just load another game and play with your friends.

[DarkSoul]

Essentially some reddit drama. A roll20 reddit moderator banned someone for giving rather in depth feedback, stating that they were a duplicate/troll account. Then in the next reddit thread, the drama happens, basically where the redditor would receive no help from Roll20 Customer Support, despite being a paying backer for 5 years. And the cofounder of Roll20 responds directly, calling the redditor's comments and requests as threatening and whatnot.The co-founder WAS the moderator that did the banning. That's what everyone is so worked up about.

That being said, Fantasy Grounds. I paid over twice the cost of an ultimate license in sub fees to Roll20. Now I don't pay anything beyond the initial purchase price, which can be 40 bucks if everyone in the group is willing to spend the money.

[Ashtagon]

There;s a number of issues at work here.

The banning on reddit was badly mishandled. They really should have gotten a social media manager - preferably a good one - to do that moderation job, rather than have a senior manager do it.

The "another five white guys" angle is certainly problematic if that's what was really said. Whether or not it was true, there are certainly better reasons to decline them. For example...

The guy's videos get on average 1500 hits after 3 months. Roll20's stats show they have had 90,000 active players in the most recent set of quarterly stats I could find. The guy may well be a "big youtube star", but he's still chickenfeed and has essentially no reach relative to the size of the company he was trying to get a free subscription upgrade out of.
He honestly reminds me of this article (https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/hotel-bans-influencers-instagram-social-media-stars-elle-darby-the-white-moose-cafe-a8166926.html) with regard to his potential reach.

Overall, it's a case of "mishandled, and blown out of proportion because the internet is nothing if not dramatic".

[Castilonium]

Maptool. Its lighting features are much better than roll20, you can measure and draw area templates very easily, it has no lag when moving stuff around, you can make more robust macros than roll20's with HTML code, and the GM can give the players much more permission to move and edit things.

The downside? It uses java, and you have to convince your players to install it. It might have compatibility or connectivity errors unexpectedly right before game time. Those are the only reasons why I've been using roll20 instead of maptools recently.

If someone could describe the features of Fantasy Grounds and how they compare to Maptool or Roll20, I'd appreciate it.

[Elkad]

Maptool is excellent.

The learning curve is steep, both on the GM side (configuring libraries and such), and in basic stuff like getting non-techie friends to even manage to connect.

If you make the investment in learning it, it's well worth it though.


Their own phrase is "The Millenium Falcon of tabletop software. Doesn't look like much, but she's got it where it counts kid."

[StreamOfTheSky]

Never liked Roll20 that much. The people in charge just rubbed me the wrong way, and the product itself was mostly inferior to maptools. It had some advantages, like the ability for players to connect anytime w/o the DM setting up a server, but the lighting, area templates for spells, measuring tool (it annoyed me so much how in roll20, the distance's numerical text shrank as you zoomed out), map importing, and macros are just so much better in maptools.

Maptools is daunting to start with and I'm not sure i'd have been able to do it if I hadn't had more coding/network-savvy players each time I used it as DM. And getting the port forwarding, dealing w/ firewalls, etc... can be irritating to set up a server that players can connect to. But if you can get through that, and have a 2ndary program to serve as the meet-up / "lobby" (I used AIM, then Trillian once Verizon killed AIM; Skype or Discord can work, too), it's the best!

EDIT: I think it was Fantasy Grounds that a prior DM used, but it was like 7-8 years ago, so I barely remember. But it was a program he had to pay for but was free for us players, and it worked very well.
I've also used OpenRPG, which is a very bare-bones program, and uses Python code. Plus, you seem to be at the mercy of hoping some guy set up a server for others to use. But it uses very little resources and does have a lobby to meet up before/between game, and while you can't automate functions w/ macros, you can write your own "nodes" -- basically items listed under your character you can click on to open a window and retrieve info. I had one that provided different polymorph form stat blocks for my character, for example.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Castilonium
If someone could describe the features of Fantasy Grounds and how they compare to Maptool or Roll20, I'd appreciate it.

Very much this. I’m completely new to all tabletop programs, so a detailed comparison between the options would be really helpful for me.


Originally Posted by Elkad
Their own phrase is "The Millenium Falcon of tabletop software. Doesn't look like much, but she's got it where it counts kid."

Points for style.

:smalltongue:

[Peelee]

If someone could describe the features of Fantasy Grounds and how they compare to Maptool or Roll20, I'd appreciate it.

If I'd ever used Maptool or Roll20, I would. My DM's wife got him the ultimate package for his birthday some years back so we've only ever used that, since nobody else ever had to pay anything.

Actually, scratch that, I think we all kicked in for some of the books on it. Still, that was optional.

[Galacktic]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cNlFbHk511xRCxziPmcncilEzPd3J7AyzrVhWzSZY28/edit#

Here ya go, someone already made a big ol' comparison doc for the primary ones.

[Doctor Awkward]

A friend of mine mentioned a while back that Discord has some option for a chat plug-in that will roll dice. Along with the advantage of easy voice and video communication. And it's all free.

I have no idea about how mapping would work though.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Galacktic
Here ya go, someone already made a big ol' comparison doc for the primary ones.

This is outstanding, thanks for posting this. Detailed, thorough, and extremely helpful.

[digiman619]

A friend of mine mentioned a while back that Discord has some option for a chat plug-in that will roll dice. Along with the advantage of easy voice and video communication. And it's all free.

I have no idea about how mapping would work though.

Well, there's Google Drawings or whatever it's called. I know a few who use Discord + that to play.