Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Napolean_Warlord Oct 10, 2014 17:47:13	Hi All   Is there a working virtual tabletop for 5e?   I would prize something that is easy to set up vs. feature rich.  I'm happy to theater of the mind with a few props.  I saw one that sold adventures which looked great   thanks!
#2 paulstrait Oct 10, 2014 20:49:49	Uh, there's maptool, I've got a 5e framework that works great.
#3 pauldanielj2 Oct 10, 2014 20:55:41	Roll20 is good. They have decent how-to videos, so you can get up and running pretty quickly.
#4 paulstrait Oct 10, 2014 22:10:59	maptool is free and open source.  If you are interested in trying it out, after you get it, here's my 5e framework and the entire starter set mapped out and ready to go, with every monster programmed in and all the vision settings in place so that players can see exactly what their characters can see:  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21497356/next/LostMineofPhandelver5.cmpgn
#5 Ansbach Oct 10, 2014 22:56:56	Roll20.net has pretty much made everything else obsolete - by a very wide margin.  It is free, very easy to use (especially compared to older options like Maptool and Fantasy Grounds), powerful and has a community of over 600,000 (!) players now according to their front page.   One minute trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivSCycDh9cg   Fantasy Grounds is the second best choice imho, but it is a premium ($$) product, starting to show it's age and has a small community. Roll20 has made Maptool completely obsolete - I'm honestly surprised anyone still uses it, although I'm sure it is still possible.  Maptool was good in it's day (and is free), but it was also notorious for being hard to use and having a steep learning curve.  I also heard they stopped working on it like two years ago.   The second most popular option to Roll20 is to not use a VT at all and just use Google Hangouts.   My online games moved from Maptool to Fantasy Grounds about 3 or 4 years ago, and then from Fantasy Grounds to Roll20 at the end of last year.
#6 paulstrait Oct 10, 2014 23:09:16	Does roll20 have all the dynamic lighting & vision features that maptool has yet?  Making it so that you can only see what your character can see, and differentiating between someone with darkvsion vs. someone without it, and knowing what various torches etc. make visible is key to the vtt experience.  The last time I looked into it, it seemed like they were just ages behind maptool (even despite the fact that no new features have been added to maptool in two years, as you say).  Fantasy Grounds has even less features (along with a bunch of features that would be useless to my group).
#7 Ansbach Oct 10, 2014 23:28:21	Yes, it does and it is a lot easier to use than Maptool.     The dynamic lighting is one area Fantasy Grounds is lagging behind in, that's for certain, although we felt Fantasy Grounds had several advantages over Maptool (and was a lot prettier and more user-friendly).  Maptool was more battle-mappy and probably better for D&D 4E, which we did not play.  I'm not bashing Maptool - I used it for about two years and it had a lot of good features once you got over the learning curve.  However, I would highly recommend taking a fresh look at Roll20 if you haven't in a while.  I'm not exaggerating that it has pretty much made all the older VTs relatively obsolete.   Here's a tutorial on dynamic lighting if you are curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vMzlaYcquA
#8 M_Aurelius Oct 11, 2014 13:40:45	I have tried all three and my favorite has been Fantasy Grounds.  I may be biased, since I have been using the service for years, but my group recently tried Roll20, which was good, but we all felt FG had more to offer.  Also, in terms of 5e support, even though the community is smaller, there are definitely go-to people for better help than you would get from the roll20 community (i.e.Moon Wizard and Zeus for example).  Also, I think if WOTC ever sanctioned quests to be sold through a virtual tabletop, it would be FG since it would be easier to control and distribute.
#9 paulstrait Oct 11, 2014 17:22:38	Ansbach wrote:
#10 ankiyavon Oct 11, 2014 17:51:24	paulstrait wrote:
#11 paulstrait Oct 11, 2014 17:57:01	Well, for example, I want my VTT to calculate the results of every die roll and, if possible execute those results depending on how the roll goes.  I want to be able to place a trap in that will be visible conditionally depending on one's passive perception.  I want it to track which spells have been cast, and to output the results appropriately.  I want it to tell me if an attack hits a given enemy.  When I was playing 4e, I would need my VTT to track who had what conditions, and to automatically factor their effects in when possible, and to automatically remove them when they were over (perhaps conditionally on a saving throw that would automatically be rolled if it were necessary). Are those kinds of things possible in roll20?
#12 ankiyavon Oct 11, 2014 18:14:02	Possible, yes.     Extremely complicated, as they are extremely complicated to do in Maptools.  From your point of view, though, Maptools is likely better for that sort of thing, because someone else can write the framework and then you only have to do minor work.  (The extremely complicated work is still done, but by someone else; roll20 doesn't have the same sort of infrastructure to let someone share their scripts.)
#13 paulstrait Oct 11, 2014 18:21:40	Ah, got it.  The open source nature of maptool and the community are really essential to it.  We use drop-in tools and code from countless different sources.  Only one person in our group is an engineer--so we'd have a tough go of it if we had to do every bit of coding from scratch...  Still, I suspect that most people using a VTT want far less from it than we do, and maptool is hardly for everybody (though I don't think it is quite as hard to use as it is often represented to be, and the community is super helpful with tutorials and direct help writing code for those who ask).  But it seems to me like it still serves an important niche of gamers who really want their VTT to work in a very precise, customized way, and to handle all of the aspects of the game that a computer can be programmed to handle.
#14 Napolean_Warlord Oct 12, 2014 9:18:45	I really liked roll20.  It was easy to use and get started with.   I wish wizards would sell modules through something like this - that would be amazing and much more profitable for them
#15 paulstrait Oct 12, 2014 9:56:49	I know that some people have sold Pathfinder modules over maptool.  I agree, ignoring the VTT community isn't what I would do if I were Wizards and I didn't hate money.
#16 Ansbach Oct 12, 2014 12:02:24	paulstrait wrote:
#17 Rhenny Oct 12, 2014 17:05:31	I just decided to delve into Fantasy Grounds 2 so I subscribed to the monthly subscription.   I really like it, but it is a lot of work to create monsters and pcs.  I think it will be really great if and when WotC sells content through FG.  I'm hoping that they are negotiating, but I have no solid information.   I'm sure WotC would make money by selling Monster Data and Tokens and even adventures/campaigns that can be used as modules in FG ready to run.   I'd pay for the content.   As it is now, I'm working with a friend who has run FG for a long time.   He is helping me with monsters and PCs.   The FG map functions are great.  It is so easy to import maps to use and other pictures.   It also has the real feel dice that roll on the table, and the other functions work really well when they are set up by someone who knows what he or she is doing.     I'm going to swtich over to it.   They also just recently made the Ultimate License a subscription so that I can pay $9.99 a month instead of $159 or whatever it is for the all at once, ultimate license.
#18 paulstrait Oct 12, 2014 19:35:34	Ansbach wrote:
#19 Ansbach Oct 13, 2014 7:07:06	Rhenny - Fantasy Grounds is an excellent tool and I'm sure you will like it.  I have the Ultimate License, which makes it easier for the players.  I ultimately switched to Roll20 because of the larger community, ease of use and additional features (like dynamic lighting).  Fantasy Grounds missed a golden opportunity to become the premier VTT, and if they had a larger community I would probably still be using it.   Paulstrait - I totally get that it is tough to leave something that you have invested so much time and energy into becoming an expert at, and that is serving you just fine. I personally think the main consideration is your current games situation.  If you are already 'set' - meaning you are already in a good game or two with friends who are all comfortable with Maptool and you have no need to find or start up any new groups, then there is no reason to switch.  However, when you are ready to look for more - when you want to join a large community with thousands of players playing just about every ruleset ever published so that you can get some new and varied games going, then you should definitely make the move to Roll20 and become an expert at it.
#20 MightyThokk Oct 21, 2014 12:16:12	Older thread but since my group has a couple years on Maptool and have moved to Roll20 I figured I'd chime in.  To say maptools has a steep learing curve is a bit of an understatement.  Maptools will require a non-trivial time investment to get running on everyone's machine.  And pretty much every time Java rolls out an update someone will break.  As a DM the time investment to get an Adventure loaded in map tools was also a factor.  I found myself writting Macros more than adventure.     That said, if you're willing to put in the time Maptools is "better" but its a serious time investment.  Quite litterally we had one one person doing remote IT to keep everyone's machine going on Maptools and one person (me) converting pre-written adventures (Scales of War if you want to know) to a Map-tool format.   If all you want is a grid, some tokens and a marker Roll20 is it.  Roll20 also has very good intergrated chat, dice roller, and the ability to build up a library of Macros and scripts and such.  And if you go through the effort of building custom maps Roll20 is as pretty as maptools.  Maptools has better "on board" tracking of resources and status effects, but if you're willing to track with an analog solution (ie pen and paper) Maptools has little to recomend over roll20.
#21 paulstrait Oct 21, 2014 13:27:13	Ansbach wrote:
#22 VoltaicLime Oct 21, 2014 13:31:35	Actually Roll20 has a forum dedicated to the API and plenty of people share their scripts freely. It is expensive to run API servers however, which is why it is restricted to Mentors. However, only the GM of a campaign needs to have mentor status. If you have a GM and five players, each player donating $20 to the GM for a mentor subscription for a year would be a great way to reward the GM for running the game for you.
#23 sleypy Oct 21, 2014 14:22:22	OP. Having used maptools for a while and used Roll20 more recently. I think it is best to figure out what things are important to you. Roll20 is the better option if you just want to roll some dice with your friends and you just want the tools you would have sitting at a regular table.   Maptools offers you a complex fully feature tool that is highly customizable. The downside is the steep learning curve and open source is tremendously great and a huge hassle at the same time. The open source community does good things and produces a great product.   In my experience the "free" associated with open source isn't neccesarily accurate because you will be trading time for money as java version change can cause things to break, or a commuity developer could just get bored and stop developing.
#42 Coredump00 Oct 26, 2014 0:51:35	I have only barely looked into these. Is there any benefit to use a program like this in a face to face group, or is it really just for long distance gaming?
#43 paulstrait Oct 26, 2014 4:26:52	zgrose wrote:
#44 Rhenny Oct 26, 2014 8:32:32	Coredump00 wrote:
#45 sleypy Oct 26, 2014 19:31:29	Rhenny wrote: