Why do all virtual tabletops suck?
They all seem to focus on useless nonsense that's completely secondary to actual tabletop gameplay, like animated maps or real-time line of sight or fricking Z-levels. Typically this comes at the expense of usability, either directly (a lot of effort to do anything because you need to import fancy assets and shit) or indirectly through lack of development effort on other features.
I don't want or need the system to automate every single mechanic for me, nor to codify every single rule and auto-solve every situational bonus. Just give me dice rolls that add whatever modifiers are always added and an easy way to modify the result myself after the roll to account for situational bonuses/penalties.
I don't want or need hyper detailed animated battle maps or god forbid 3D scenes. Instead give me good drawing tools so I can emulate a flipmat.
I don't want or need a Turing-complete scriptable roll syntax. I want to be able to take one of the dice I rolled /after/ I rolled it and reroll only that die, keeping the rest of the result. It is unbelievable how almost none of these systems support something this simple.
This shouldn't be difficult. In fact, it should be easier than making moronic patreongay features like walls with dynamic LoS. Stop trying to reinvent video games.
What VTT is the least worst?
>What VTT is the least worst?
The way you typed this out makes me think you don't want actual suggestions and just want to argue with whoever does give you a suggestion because you have nothing better to do
I know this is Ganker but that is some extreme levels of projection, dude.
Alright.
I like Foundry, I think it is very good at what it does, except it is also a lot of upfront work. I still prefer it to other VTTs on the market.
Let's see what happens.
I would love actual suggestions but I genuinely don't think there's anything like what I want on the market.
Foundry is what I'm using right now, and it's what motivated this rant in the first place. It really annoys me how it's chock full of features I never use and would never even want to use, while the very basic features like the drawing tools are in such a sorry state. Why does it take 5 clicks on 2 different modal dialogs to change the brush color?
In full agreement there, ideally a VTT should help simulate a tabletop and the ease by which ordinary people navigate it. Good drawing tools, drag and drop features, and helping fill in blanks quickly. Foundry has the issues while it gets close to the first part it is obtuse as frick on the latter part. I can quickly create a map but it takes twice as many button clicks as I'd like.
An Ideal VTT would probably be somewhere between Tabletop Simulator and Foundry, where you have the tools needed to run a table but simplistic controls. What I want is that VTTs first simulate the table then bring in features that can be tedious to manage in real life. Like verticality. Again, Foundry does the job when I use it but I can't deny that it took a lot of investment of time and effort to get it where I like, and it is a lot of effort to get anything done in it in general.
>An Ideal VTT would probably be somewhere between Tabletop Simulator and Foundry
Between Tabletop Simulator and Foundry is exactly what I've been thinking of too.
For most tabletop games the 3D environment of Tabletop Simulator is unnecessary, but the "physicality" of everything is really good. Having that physicality with the simplicity of a 2D virtual tabletop would be great. Want to reroll one die? Just pick it up and roll it again and the auto-calculated result will be adjusted. Want to keep the result of a dice roll for later? Just pick the dice up and set them aside.
Having this without all the finickiness of Tabletop Simulator's physics-based 3D environment (which I feel was originally added mostly to generate viral marketing videos for reddit anyway) would be great.
Like everything Foundry, your complaint is solved by modules. Enjoy
https://foundryvtt.com/packages/boneyard-drawing-tools
>Does this justify it sucking in base foundry
no
Switched from roll20 to foundry a year ago and the difference is astounding. Having everything on your machine and not needing to upload everything beforehand is quite relaxing. Campaign logging and npc sheet tracking are a gift once you have everything in order.
The options to building dungeons is neat but I'm usually not using that much battlemaps due to the system (FFG Starwars) When I do I enjoy it a lot since it breaks up the usual session structure.
But I can see where criticism comes from. Using simple grid with the paint and pen options is kinda finicky for what little it offers. Having to click through menus to change the pen color "quickly" is really terrible from a UI perspective and the fact that I have to use a module like for what should be a core feature is bad. But as the anon pointed out ... Foundry does offer a lot of solutions when you spend time with it so I can only recommend it.
Usually 1 hour prep for a 3 hour session with grabbing material from bing. When I build a full dungeon beforehand it's one hour longer. Give or take.
>Usually 1 hour prep for a 3 hour session with grabbing material from bing. When I build a full dungeon beforehand it's one hour longer. Give or take.
How big of a dungeon are we talking here in room number and hours of game play?
>How big of a dungeon are we talking here in room number and hours of game play?
Depends heavily on the occasion but I recently refurbished this battlemap into a descend into a dead sithlords lair. Roughly slapped some walls and doors onto everything added 3 types of enemies into several rooms and then one different last room with a boss type enemy. Made some traps where the drawn battlemap indicated them and that was it.
Actual prep time without the little time wasting stuff 1 1/2 hours, gameplay time 3 1/2
I keep my fights and play speed rather quick though. Different system and GM might yield a lot more gameplay but might need more prep time too.
That map is like 30 or so rooms total. Did all the rooms have to be keyed up in the VTT with features or did you skip some as empty?
1.5 hours prep for almost 4 hours of gameplay isn't bad. I thought these VTTs were bigger time vampires.
I could key up that dungeon much faster than you with pen and paper but extra time is spent at the table because I need to describe, draw, place minis, etc vs a VTT that has that information available to everyone on the screen.
Yeah quite a few of these rooms have been emtpy.
The thing is, with a VTT like foundry and a flavorful map like that you can generate a semi-game like experience due to lighting, and ambiance. The character tokens have limited vision and cant see what is behind walls and doors or the range of their torch. So emtpy rooms don't necessarily feel like wasted time like they do when you play in actual pen and paper. The act of slowly walking through them (with movement keys) feels actually threatening because something could be lurking at the end. It is a different experience than paper.
>I thought these VTTs were bigger time vampires.
It can very well be. I'd say 70% of the in depth map mechanics in foundry are for either "professional" DM who get payed for running a super well made dungeon (and preferably multiple times with other groups) or people who sell their shit on patreon.
As OP stated: "fricking Z-axis" No GM has time for that shit.
Complex VTT like founrdy is usuable to the average GM when:
>You run a system that has a good support from fans
I'm running Starwars which has a big library of all talents, weapons, enemies etc. So setting something up is easy and fast. I also tried a genesys homebrew but that made me want to kill myself pretty quick.
This is probably the most important point.
>you have access or the ability to download good battlemap material and art
Finding a good map to use solves 50% of the work. Where could traps be, what kind of enemies wait. If you want full control on layout and style then you are better off with drawing something yourself. Arranging different tiles and adding objects on top of walls and shit is simply not an option for a GM that actually wants to run games.
>my players have an actually modern PC
One of my players has a Mac that always started to melt when I activated some particle effects like rain ambiance or whatever.
It works for us but I can totally see people not wanting to bother with most of it.
>One of my players has a Mac
Should have specified...
>had
It went up in smoke and he couldn't join us for 2 weeks. lmao
>It went up in smoke
What can I say except iToddlers BTFO
Damn, thanks anon. I've actually looked several times for better drawing tools for Foundry and somehow never found this one.
Owlbear rodeo is for you. No bullshit just a map.
They did do a revamp recently, but they left a github for their legacy version:
https://github.com/owlbear-rodeo/owlbear-rodeo-legacy
Yeah owlbear was the one I hated the least. No matter how nice and fancy some other thing may be, it's always such a pain in the ass. Roll20's dynamic lighting is great on paper but it lags like absolute frick like it's riddled with memory leaks. Haven't tried Foundry but AFAIK it's a pain in the ass of its own. Owlbear was the straightest simplest shit to just get a game up and running.
Have you tried Maptool?
They are made for the brainless masses that play that videogame called d&d. That's why you they are full of visual shit but lack fundamental stuff.
The hoops I had to jump through the make a set up on roll 20 so my played can roll a red die and a black die.
Honestly I really love real time line of sight in a dungeon crawl, I think it adds a lot.
My big problem with Foundry, or at least the approach taken by most people who develop systems modules for Foundry, is that it automates wayy too much of the ruleset and new players never learn the rules, just the interface. I've seen groups miss major errors in the VTT's implementation of the rules because they don't actually know how it's supposed to work.
This in turn drives over-complicated design where the actual game designers add all kinds of bullshit mechanics that need you to roll 64d4 and dropped the highest and lowest 12 or some bullshit because they can assume the VTT engine will automate all that away.
It's completely contrary to the spirit of the hobby. RPGs are games that ask their players to take on the role of an author or designer moment to moment, within the framework set by the rule system. Just playing a roleplaying game should invite you to rework it to suit your needs as soon as you rub up against its limitations. You're completely right that we're getting a generation of players used to treating it like a video game, and it's troublesome.
tbh me and my group just use the bare minimum parts of Foundry, so we just use it for maps and rolling while we handle the rules parts as usual. Has been working fine for us, and I like it better than that piece of shit of roll20 since I self-host.
I've heard Owlbeard Rodeo is also pretty simple in terms of features
>This in turn drives over-complicated design where the actual game designers add all kinds of bullshit mechanics that need you to roll 64d4 and dropped the highest and lowest 12 or some bullshit because they can assume the VTT engine will automate all that away.
I have never seen this happen. I've seen bad game design, but never in the name of "A VTT will do it". And even IF this were an issue, it'd be no different from a game like Dread where you need something specific (jenga tower vs VTT) to play
>I don't want or need the system to automate every single mechanic for me, nor to codify every single rule and auto-solve every situational bonus.
I do.
I'd like the option to automate everything but also give me granular control over every part of it. When the system automates by cutting the user out of the process is when it gets ugly.
We can dream. One day in the future if we have haptic feedback for VR all this is going to be great, for the moment there's this awkward amount of jank to everything you want to do in a VTT. But right now, gun to my head, if I had to choose between ease of use and smooth 3D-environments I'd pick the latter. Foundry with a 3D, or even rotating isometric, would be up my alley.
Grug friend all move far away, can not afford opportunity cost of come to Grug to play funny rattlebones game. Grug must use great oracle in box to play rattlebones with Grog, Grumpka, and Grokko. Grug now can play with friend from far-tribe too. Not as many berry when play rattlebones but still good tale for fire. Grug not need verify word.
>Foundry with a 3D, or even rotating isometric, would be up my alley.
How do you actually get 3D terrains though? Sounds like a nightmare to prep unless you have pre-made ones, in which case you're stuck to what's in the catalogue.
I figure if Minecraft can let you build complex structures with relative ease, then a piece of software solely dedicated to the purpose should be able to create simple geomtric shapes very easily. The technology has been there for at least 20 years, what remains to be done is someone putting it in a format that is easy to use.
>Why do all virtual tabletops suck?
To torment terminally online losers who are too antisocial to have IRL friends to play games with.
Google Jamboard is free, literally just a shared space where you can drag around tokens, and will be shut down in october so use it while you can
Maptools has more robust drawing tools than foundry and any automation must be created by the user so it fits your requirements. Also its free so you can just try it
I'm agonizing between Foundry and Fantasy Grounds. Cost is not a factor. I don't care about flashy effects as I mostly play without (showing) maps. I don't care about automation much. Don't care aout dnd and other big brand names. Which one is the easiest to make custom content with? I mean completely made up character sheets and all for my own games? I know how to code.
>I don't want or need the system to automate every single mechanic for me, nor to codify every single rule and auto-solve every situational bonus. Just give me dice rolls that add whatever modifiers are always added and an easy way to modify the result myself after the roll to account for situational bonuses/penalties.
This thing frustrates me so much with the official warhammer fantasy roleplay 4th edition sheet on roll20. What I actually want is a button for each skill, which takes the attribute chosen for that skill and adds whatever points you have in it. Then I want the option of adding +/-. Right now I can't give +10 to a roll. It's impossible. It only comes in intervals of 20. Also, the NPC sheets are just broken. They dont have skill roll buttons. Modifiers dont work on their rolls. It is just awful.
How much time do you all spend building shit in these VTTs vs the time spent actually playing the game?
1 hour to 3 hours seems about right in my case too, but what annoys me is how much friction there is to doing anything on the fly.
Say the PCs do something unexpected and now I want to throw an enemy at them that I hadn't prepared beforehand. That enemy will have the default token art, and changing it to anything else will take a lot longer than fishing a somewhat matching pog from a token box at the table would. Unless that enemy happens to be available in the SRD of whatever system we're playing (or I went out of my way to somehow import every premade statblock ever devised, copyright be damned), it's not going to have any stats, and because /everything/ is automated this will be immediately obvious to the players as soon as the virtual dice hit the virtual table -- whereas at physical a table I could just wing the stats, coming up with its AC or saves or what have you only when they're actually needed.
No, instead I have to tell the players that there's now going to be a 2 minute break while I frantically wrangle the system before the monster can suddenly appear. This type of friction is what I hate the most about VTTs.
I'm not efficient with Maptools and still learning it but only about 1-3 hours of prep for a game.
Initial setup took alot longer (5-6 hours in a single sitting) though but that's because I had to create a bunch of custom things in the program to streamline stuff.
I like maptools. I use it for my IRL games where I cast the player map to a big screen.
The only thing our group uses roll20 for is to have a grid where the DM can plop a map.
We use gsheets for our character sheets and discord to register campaign information, dice rolling, art, etc.
It works quite well.