I was talking with my wife about roll20. I like that platform but I recognize that it is not very intuitive, specially for new players.
So I was wondering what other virtual tabletop websites can you suggest to play online?
Need suggestions of online ttrpg digital tools
https://rollforyour.party (Full disclosure: I built it.)
It is designed to be lightweight. It has anonymous safety tools built in too.
I specifically designed it to intuitively be able to Plat games like @lumpley’s Dogs in the Vineyard and In A Wicked age online. (Since there is a lot of moving of dice around on the table for them.)
AFAIK it is used pretty heavily by Gauntlet Hangouts players. It isn’t meant to be a competitor to Roll20 by any means. So no character sheets, maps, etc.
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It depends a lot on what you need. If you do not need battlemaps support an online dice roller would be enough. If you want to go fancy Fantasy Grounds is fantastic. Though not easier then Roll20. I have not encountered any easier VTT then Roll20, they all take some getting used to. It also vastly depends on what you want to do. If you play with a premade character sheet for an already supported system Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are great and easy. If you want to create your own stuff it will always require some technical expertise.
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For character sheets most people running Gauntlet Hangouts use Google Sheets (Character Keepers). We’ve built up a pretty huge library of them:
https://tinyurl.com/GauntletPlayAids
(@gerrit is the person to talk to about adding more)
I will also note that there currently is a series of posts on the blog about Character Keepers:
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Do you mind speaking up about what wasn’t intuitive? What were some of the things you wanted to do, and either couldn’t, or couldn’t do easily?
That might help us either provide more informed alternatives or help with those things in Roll20.
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Thanks! I’ll check out!
Just to be clear, I like roll20. I’ve been playing in lots of campaigns in there since 2014.
However, I think that it takes too long to understand basic functionalities of the platform.
It feels like i’m using autocad or Photoshop.
I’ve been playing for almost 5 years in that platform and still don’t know how everything works.
I didn’t have any issues about what I couldn’t do in roll20, I just think that it takes an unnecessary amount of time to learn how to do the basic and that’s a problem when you’re trying to introduce players who never had any experience playing online.
I appreciate your reply, I hope I answered your question.
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For games where people need to draw stuff (like The Quiet Year or Companions’ Tale) I really prefer Google Drawings (I’ll provide a link later, I’m on my phone right now) - it’s a lot easier to handle and quicker to react to multiple people doing things than Roll20.
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Thank you! Do you use it yourself? What are your experiences?
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I have only used it at work as a shared whiteboard with mixed results. Mostly because of what we were trying to do. We had better luck with https://realtimeboard.com/ but it is a different kind of tool
I have used roll20 for The Quiet Year before, though I am not sure if I would recommend it either.
I think online drawing tools are difficult by default but it’s not the tool that gets in the way. It’s just frustrating drawing with a mouse or track pad!
I’m sure it would be better if you use a drawing tablet like a watcom but that’s not a thing most people are going to have.
In the end, whatever works for you will be good enough, quiet year doesn’t need great fidelity.
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There is a template for playing The Quiet Year online with Google Drawings in our Play Aid folder!
The recommendation I have for this: use the built-in search function for online pictures. But add “transparent” to your search phrase. That often provides great results since pictures in square shape and backgrounds look really ugly on a shared drawing.
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When it comes to putting up things on a map, https://game-icons.net/ provides some icons so you don’t have to attempt to draw things yourself if you (like me) are not very good at painting.
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Oh yes, I use this a whole lot. I have a bunch uploaded to Roll20 to use as map tokens or NPCs when I need a map. Or to represent other ressources where needed.
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Thanks for the replies! It helped a lot.
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My group has been using a free Google Drive plugin called Conceptboard to share maps, art of NPCs and locations, etc. It suits our needs better than Roll20… although it does not have a built-in dice roller. (We just roll physical dice and trust each other.)
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