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[Iduno]

Well, the pandemic has precipitated the death of my weekly game night. One of my players has confirmed contact with a COVID-19 carrier and is in isolation. Another one recently traveled overseas. The others don't want to do face-games until the worst is over.

Ah well.

Consider using voicechat (Discord is currently the preeminent supplier) and coupling it with Roll20 if you want a setup more elaborate than theater of the mind. Although it can be a hassle to transition to it if you've got all your stuff in the realm of physical reality, it's very handy for this sort of situation.

Yeah, but if you're able to do it live, it's not really play by post anymore.

Edit: I read badly, but I'm leaving this here to remind me.

[itisnotlogical]

Roll20 has some issues, or at least the premade Pathfinder package my DM uses does. Besides that, I get the feeling that some in my group, despite being good players, aren't very computer-savvy and that sometimes slows down the pace of play. I'd still take it over not playing at all in a heartbeat.

[Persus13]

Yeah, but if you're able to do it live, it's not really play by post anymore.

Neither of the posts you quoted mentioned PbP, so they should be fine.

Roll20 has some issues, or at least the premade Pathfinder package my DM uses does. Besides that, I get the feeling that some in my group, despite being good players, aren't very computer-savvy and that sometimes slows down the pace of play. I'd still take it over not playing at all in a heartbeat.

VTT is great if there's a lot of map based combat, but Discord with a dice bot is pretty good otherwise.

[Iduno]

Roll20 has some issues, or at least the premade Pathfinder package my DM uses does. Besides that, I get the feeling that some in my group, despite being good players, aren't very computer-savvy and that sometimes slows down the pace of play. I'd still take it over not playing at all in a heartbeat.

It's a known issue that their RNG is very sticky (you get the same number coming up a lot in a short period of time).

Yeah, but if you're able to do it live, it's not really play by post anymore.

Neither of the posts you quoted mentioned PbP, so they should be fine.

I will leave that there as a testament to my illiteracy.

[Cruxador]

Well, the pandemic has precipitated the death of my weekly game night. One of my players has confirmed contact with a COVID-19 carrier and is in isolation. Another one recently traveled overseas. The others don't want to do face-games until the worst is over.

Ah well.

Consider using voicechat (Discord is currently the preeminent supplier) and coupling it with Roll20 if you want a setup more elaborate than theater of the mind. Although it can be a hassle to transition to it if you've got all your stuff in the realm of physical reality, it's very handy for this sort of situation.

Yeah, but if you're able to do it live, it's not really play by post anymore.

That's sort of the point.

Roll20 has some issues, or at least the premade Pathfinder package my DM uses does. Besides that, I get the feeling that some in my group, despite being good players, aren't very computer-savvy and that sometimes slows down the pace of play. I'd still take it over not playing at all in a heartbeat.

What issues? Maybe I know how to work around it. I and many other people have had trouble with that separate script for showing cones and stuff, but the native Pathfinder stuff has always worked fine for me, even if it only explicitly supports core content, and non-core you have to type in or figure out yourself.

[itisnotlogical]

The biggest issue was that for a long time, one of our party's character sheet was bugged and wouldn't do the automatic rolls; that player had to manually type in everything. We got around it by just recreating the character on a new sheet, but now the GM is starting to have that error sometimes.

[Mephisto]

Roll20 has the potential to massively simplify your game but everyone has to give a shit. I love being able to click a button to cast a spell and then click a different button to see if hit hits before clicking another button to do damage and include damage type modifiers. One of my fellow players is fine typing in /roll {3d6, 0d0}k1 all day every day.

Maybe we just don't know the system as well but it was even simpler when I was playing Fantasy Grounds - I could select a specific enemy and it would figure out ranges, resistances, and so on automatically.

[Digital Hellhound]

We're likely migrating over to Roll20 with my group too. Really recommend the Beyond20 browser add-on if you're also using DnD Beyond. It integrates your Beyond sheet really smoothly, most checks only take one click. We had a test game yesterday (some Critical Role adventure; I died in the first encounter and two others nearly did too) and I'm already quite fond of it. Been making tokens in Token Stamp for when I get around to GMing there.

[Cruxador]

The biggest issue was that for a long time, one of our party's character sheet was bugged and wouldn't do the automatic rolls; that player had to manually type in everything. We got around it by just recreating the character on a new sheet, but now the GM is starting to have that error sometimes.

Weird. All automatic rolls on that sheet? I and my group must have been through something like 30 characters without encountering this, and not in other games either.

Roll20 has the potential to massively simplify your game but everyone has to give a shit. I love being able to click a button to cast a spell and then click a different button to see if hit hits before clicking another button to do damage and include damage type modifiers. One of my fellow players is fine typing in /roll {3d6, 0d0}k1 all day every day.

Maybe we just don't know the system as well but it was even simpler when I was playing Fantasy Grounds - I could select a specific enemy and it would figure out ranges, resistances, and so on automatically.

I spent years not using any automatic rolling features and just reading my character sheet then rolling manually the same as you would for tabletop of IRC-with-bots, until we got a new (to the group, but not the system) player who was so annoyed by what apparently was grandfatherly technical ambivalence, and set the macros up for me. That was 4e though, the Pathfinder sheets are a lot easier.

I know Fantasy Grounds has some more features, but my understanding is it's only easy/convenient if you're using the paid content add-ons, and even the $20 for the program itself could be a bit of a tough sell to a group if you don't even necessarily know it'll turn out being good and convenient for your group/game.

[Kadzar]

I've also started using Roll20. Ran my first online session of Dungeon World on Saturday, and I have to say, the character sheets for it are kind of bad. All the moves are collapsed by default, and the text is in tiny text boxes that you have to scroll through if it's a complicated move. I wanted to use these form-fillable PDFs character sheets instead since they work so much better (more readable and you can just click to select moves), but some players didn't want to use it because you can't really add in custom moves with it.

After using it for a while, it's not quite as bad as it seemed originally. The moves on the character sheet are often completely unusable (I guess if you're a fighter or something, you'll have to cut out all the text that doesn't apply to your signature weapon), but the compendium made it easy to look up moves and such, so that really wasn't such an issue. Also, it was nice to be able to draw a map that the players could all look at during the session.

The session itself was good. It was a little touch-and-go at first because I run Dungeon World by improvising a world and a starting scenario by improvising using whatever players give me, but once I got an idea of the sort of world we were in and the things players were interested in, it really took off.


So we started out with the players entering a city, because the human wizard had heard that the key to reversing his parent's transformation (which he was responsible for) was in here. The halfling bard was a little uneasy about entering the city, since he's technically wanted here, though he doesn't know that because of memory problems, so it just manifests into a sense of unease. And the orc cleric was along because her god gave her a vision telling her to go here.

The wizard goes into a magic shop owned by some halfling dude, because his leads pointed him out as someone who likely knew some way of reversing transformation. He doesn't want to just give away information, so he asks the party to go get some money from a guy who owes him for a potion.

The party goes to the guy's house, and it's a dilapidated hut, and, after a bit of talking, they learn that the potion he owes him for is a luck potion that didn't work when he went to go gambling. The party doesn't feel great about shaking down some poor dude who was taken in by a scam, so they return to the halfling magic merchant empty-handed.

He doesn't like the fact that they didn't do as he asked and accused him of things, so he ejects them from his shop. They then go to the wizard's second lead, which is a weaponsmith's shop. She tells them that, though she doesn't have anything that would do the job, she has heard talk of a shrine in the woods to the south that is said to be able to reverse transformations.

So they head off out of town, and the bard manages to roll quite well to still stay hidden from anyone seeking him here, and they decide to traverse the mountain the way of their path, rather than going around it, and everyone does quite well in their jobs during the journey, except for the wizard, who was navigating, so it takes them quite a bit more time from all the backtracking and whatnot they have to do trying to cross this mountain. But eventually they make it into the woods.

When they get there, the wizard tries to cast Detect Magic to locate the shrine. But it doesn't work, because, as soon as he tries to cast the spell, it fizzles, and everyone hears chanting as hooded robed figures slowing emerge through the trees.

A fight breaks out, the wizard downs a couple with Magic Missile, the others party members get a little beat up standing near the front of the fray, and the bard tries to heal them but ends up also buffing the cultists at the same time, and also a few of the cultists gather up their power to shoot off an energy ball at the wizard. Then the bard tries to distract a few with a cartwheel so the cleric can get some easy hits in, but, instead, she takes a moment to reflect on what's going on here, and realizes both that the rituals these cultists are doing are stolen and twisted versions of those used by her faith, and that the cultists seem mostly like they're just trying to keep the party busy.

After at least another energy ball barrage by the cultist, and things looking kind of grim, suddenly, the cleric's friend, the dwarven artificer appears (another player who showed up late). He actives a device that makes a hole to escape down into, and drops down it. The cleric follows after, and the bard is about to drop down, but casts a musical spell (I think it was healing or something) on the wizard and is grabbed by one of the cultists, and is about to be taken away. Fortunately, the wizard is able to drop the cultist with a Magic Missile, and the bard makes it down the hole.

So it's just the wizard left up top at this point, and there's a couple of cultists between him and the hole. He then reveals to the audience what he's been keeping secret from the party: the accident that transformed his parents also made him part dragon. He has wings, and, though they can't really fly, they're enough to get a good jump over these cultists, and so he bounds over, and falls into the hole just before it collapses.

So now the whole party is down in the hole, which it turns out leads to the artificer's underground bunker. The cleric casts a spell to contact a local spirit, which is a great oak beast, and it tells her the way to the shrine will be marked by the moss of the trees. And the party realizes that, whatever the cultists were trying to keep them away from, they'll likely need to do something about it very soon.

And that's were we left off.

[delphonso]

Start up a shadowrun session if you want to see what's wrong with Roll20s character sheets. They include everything, amd it's the rare player who uses 40% of what's there.

Also, my laptop's screen resolution is shit and the sheets are married to that, meaning it's unusable for me.

[Iduno]

Start up a shadowrun session if you want to see what's wrong with Roll20s character sheets. They include everything, amd it's the rare player who uses 40% of what's there.

That's certainly a decision. The point is that there are supposed to be more skills than you can use, so you need a team to cover your bases.


It's also weird that people keep referring to using IRC with dice bots, because we don't have a new gold standard yet. Discord tries, but maximizing profit is a higher priority than "not bloated."

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Hey, anyone here taken a crack at one of the several fan-made Elder Scrolls pen and papers??? I've got both the TES and the D&D itch and have been looking at UESRPG, but i'd like to hear what others have to say!

[delphonso]

I'd love to, but probably won't be in a gaming position for another 6 months.

There was a homebrew equipment list and race list for Genesys some time ago. I believe it followed Oblivion's morphology.

[scriver]

*snip for length*

Nice! The soundtrack for the next session will be Alice In Chains's "Down in a Hole".

The wizard goes into a magic shop

Idea: A Magic shop that doesn't sell magic items but is magical. Everyone who enters it is compelled to buy 1d4 items. All the items available are cheap tourist/gift shop nonsense.