Random VTT rant

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I'm transferring my 5e Witcher campaign (using classes from Adventures in Middle Earth).

After that, the Alien RPG for sure. Or Tales from the Loop. Whichever I can convince my players of first...
I've heard the Alien ruleset in Foundry is really good, and there's a community made module that makes everything look like the old-school tech of the movies. I think it even does little radar pings. I haven't played Alien, but it looks like fun.

I'm currently working on turning the OSE ruleset into White Box: FMAG. That only took a few edits to the code, and otherwise just been compendium and tables setup in-game. Hoping to run Castle Xyntillan soon with it.
 
I've heard the Alien ruleset in Foundry is really good, and there's a community made module that makes everything look like the old-school tech of the movies. I think it even does little radar pings. I haven't played Alien, but it looks like fun.

I'm currently working on turning the OSE ruleset into White Box: FMAG. That only took a few edits to the code, and otherwise just been compendium and tables setup in-game. Hoping to run Castle Xyntillan soon with it.
Yeah the basic game module makes all of the character sheets solid black with bright green text (like old school CRT monitors). I really hope that I can finish selling my players on it. They were very intrigued when I described the Chariot of the Gods scenario from the Starter Set. Too bad that I can't play it in person (the components are real nice).
 
I'm considering renting a webserver to run Foundry. Anyone else done that? I have the technical skills to handle the webserver, I was just wondering if there were any in-software quirks to be aware of before I pull that trigger.
I ran it self-hosted on a Linode. Foundry seems like a decently-written Node app, though its password handling is a bit sloppy*. It hashes your admin password, but it doesn’t hash user passwords (“access keys”) and stores them plaintext in Data/worlds/<world>/data/user.db. It also runs an open WebRTS relay by default, but you can replace that with your own TURN server (I used coturn) or the Jitsi plugin. From what I understand, most people use the Jitsi plugin, but I wanted to self-host and limit the amount of stuff I had to manage.


* This was as of the 0.7.x series. I don’t know if things changed in 0.8.x because that series stabilized after we were back to meeting in-person, so I never bothered to upgrade my server.
 
Yep 0.8.6 IIRC changed the password stuff (and in doing so messed up a lot of folks) but 0.8.9 and the new Beta 0.9.2 look very god. The new Cards stuff in 0.9.x seems to have loads of potential for things like Pelgrane's QuickShock/One-to-One system.
 
I’m certain that it’s not mine.

I live fifty kilometres from the nearest D&D players, three hours drive from any city where there are players of any other RPGs. So I supported Roll20 from the beginning, at one of the higher levels, on the promise that it would be ideal for story-oriented RPGs. And I whined quite a bit on the supporters feedback board when all the development effort started going into a dice roller, line-of-sight blocking, dynamic lighting, and an invisible GM prep layer. My style of GMing involves the character players having a lot of freedom about where they go and what they do, so in my games fights almost always break out in places they I did not expect against opponents I did not expect, so all that stuff takes too long to set up for me to be able to use it. I need lightning-fast set-up. I don’t have time to choose where all the light fixtures are.

For the table top I only wanted a way of sharing quickly-sketched maps on a hex grid, snap-to-grid and facing on markers, control of markers etc. by the right person, and a way to handle cards and poker chips for giving player Fate points and so on. But I wanted better in the group communication channel: better video, user (GM) control of players’ virtual position around the virtual table supported by mock stereo sound…. But the majority of supporters drove the developers to put all their development effort into making it a miniatures gaming environment with computer-game gloss.

I’m better off with a videoconferencing solution designed for business meetings than with any available facility with actual games support.
A lot of development goes into what people think they want, but can't use. Like Nitro injection in a car. I very quickly realized that I don't have the time to create that gorgeous edited for YouTube VTT game experience.

I have experimented with about 25 to 30 VTTs. One that may work for you is shmeppy.com It is intentionally low fi, and does not try and do everything. It worked really well beside video conferencing. Onboarding is fast and the rabbit hole of supergraphicsfragulosis can't happen.

The online gang is using owlbear rodeo at the moment. It is also fast and simple to use. None of us have the resources (time or money) to dress up roll20, foundry or the like.
 
3D is like having Dwarven Forge at the table. Looks cool but your limited to what in the box. Having refereed session within Bioware's Neverwinter Night it is not worth it compared to a 2D top down presentation.
I had never heard of Neverwinter. Completely blown away by the effort BioWare undertook to make that VTT CRPG. Amazing.
 
None of us have the resources (time or money) to dress up roll20, foundry or the like.

I felt that way initially about Roll20 (see the OP) but what I found over the last few months is that you start to enjoy trying to go one better with each game. The investment becomes part of the fun. You add new features, some tokens and maps here and there that might cost 5 bucks. And you just start to have fun with the "dressing up" part. And I think doing that makes you appreciate the low key adventures even more, where you just put up a picture and some basic tokens and have at it: no movement around a map, no Fog of War, etc.

I enjoy going back and forth in this way and creating different experiences each time. And since we're a text-only campaign, Roll20 video and audio glitches don't matter to us.
 
I'm currently on the descending side of the VTT-homebrew-excitement graph. I got a map building program (Dungeondraft), I wrote macros, I got out GIMP to modify some images etc.

Mostly because the existing state was quite high-end. Foundry did a decent job of handling even the ridiculously inconsistent and plentiful Pathfinder 1E rules. But not everything. So you had to fix that.
There are some great maps you can get out there, for free or for a minute Patreon stipend. But that meant that all maps had to be full color.

Not that this is new. You got those awesome orc pewter miniatures. But now you need something of the same verisimilitude for the goblins, too. And then you need to paint them. And isn't it bad if they're just atop the flipchart paper you stole from work? Now you're building or buying walls, hills and weird constructions to simulate flying enemies...

I'm currently heading for a more "Dyson-esque" map aesthetic, and seriously consider just using something like Owlbear for my next rodeo.
 
I'm currently on the descending side of the VTT-homebrew-excitement graph. I got a map building program (Dungeondraft), I wrote macros, I got out GIMP to modify some images etc.
GIMP FTW!
I'm currently heading for a more "Dyson-esque" map aesthetic, and seriously consider just using something like Owlbear for my next rodeo.
Owl Bear is beloved by so many. Such a great gift to the TTRPG community. If you really want to avoid the superfragagraphiclicious rabbit hole (which is very fun) check out shmeppy. It is totally unique in the VTT world.

SmartSelect_20210920-171131.jpgSmartSelect_20210920-171131.jpg
 
If you really want to avoid the superfragagraphiclicious rabbit hole (which is very fun) check out shmeppy. It is totally unique in the VTT world.
Yeah, I was playing around with shmeppy for a while, and the idea of drawing the map (simple as it may be) while we're playing is pretty fantastic. I got pretty fast with erasing, drawing surroundings etc.
But the rest of the system and the development pace/choices didn't really grab me. In addition, as I were saying, we decided to start a Pathfinder 1 campaign and I need pretty much all the support possible for running that mess, so the character sheet/spell collection/dice rolling part is actually more important to me than maps. I wouldn't mind that being a totally separate web app, preferably one with a good mobile view...
 
I had never heard of Neverwinter. Completely blown away by the effort BioWare undertook to make that VTT CRPG. Amazing.
Once you had something setup and your friends logged on to play, it was pretty nice to referee. What I liked best was the ability to "possess" a character and interact with the PCs while controlling that character. I got to the point where I could hop between two to four NPCs to keep a conversation going with the party. And if you don't possess a NPC, it does whatever it programmed to do whether it is a monster or character so the frozen statue issue is largely avoided.
 
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