Using Roll20 for TOR?
Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:51 pm
I'm starting a game next week (the one announced by Hermes Serpent) where we will be using Google Hangouts and Roll20 for dice rolls. I hadn't seen Roll20 in action before, but it sounds very promising for online games, so I've signed up for an account and have been having a look at how it could work for a game like TOR. Has anyone got experience with this that they'd like to share?
Obviously one potential use is the voice, chat and video that Roll20 can provide, but I haven't tried that since we'll be using Google Hangouts for that, and I would guess Google will do a better job given their budget. To my eye, the virtual tabletop seems generally more suited to a more tactical game with miniatures and grid squares, like Pathfinder or later editions D&D. Still, there seems two big potential benefits:
1) shared dice rolls, preferably with the 'proper' TOR dice. (I'd like to see the Gandalf runes, not so fussed about the Eye of Sauron
)
2) help with tracking players' "state" in the subsystems for travel and combat - exactly the situations for which people like Voidstate have created additional game aids.
I've had a tinker around and come up with the following:
This shows:
* player tokens on the Voidstate combat stance map (it would be a better fit in landscape orientation, but still ok for a proof of concept).
* feat dice rolls with optional extra dice (e.g. for Battle dice). This is done using Roll20's macros and custom tables, so you can click on e.g. the '4feat' button on the left to roll the Feat die and 4d6. Alternatively you can just type the name of the macro (e.g. '#4feat') into the chat window, and optionally add extra dice - e.g. '#4feat +1d6' to add an additional d6 to the result.
* handling the 'weary' modifier, where rolls of 1-3 are discounted. This is done using Roll20's notion of attributes, where the red circle above the token for Trotter can be edited to read either 'normal' or 'weary'. This determines which dice are used.
Some questions then...
1) is this useful to anyone, and/or has someone else already done better? I'm no expert either in Roll20 but if there's interest, I'll write up notes for a System Specific Guide to share the information about macros, custom tables etc.
2) [for Jon - or other Cubicle Seven staff] if I do, is it acceptable to share the graphics for the TOR dice numbers? These came from the font that was marked "for personal use only", and I don't want to overstep the bounds here.
3) are there other dice combinations or other things that would be useful? I'm no expert in TOR either! (As I said, first game next week..) I could think of the "roll feat die twice, keep the highest" which is doable but currently doesn't seem to show the proper TOR numbers. Other things like adding TNs and Parry into the mix seem more trouble than they're worth.
Stuart
Obviously one potential use is the voice, chat and video that Roll20 can provide, but I haven't tried that since we'll be using Google Hangouts for that, and I would guess Google will do a better job given their budget. To my eye, the virtual tabletop seems generally more suited to a more tactical game with miniatures and grid squares, like Pathfinder or later editions D&D. Still, there seems two big potential benefits:
1) shared dice rolls, preferably with the 'proper' TOR dice. (I'd like to see the Gandalf runes, not so fussed about the Eye of Sauron
)2) help with tracking players' "state" in the subsystems for travel and combat - exactly the situations for which people like Voidstate have created additional game aids.
I've had a tinker around and come up with the following:
This shows:
* player tokens on the Voidstate combat stance map (it would be a better fit in landscape orientation, but still ok for a proof of concept).
* feat dice rolls with optional extra dice (e.g. for Battle dice). This is done using Roll20's macros and custom tables, so you can click on e.g. the '4feat' button on the left to roll the Feat die and 4d6. Alternatively you can just type the name of the macro (e.g. '#4feat') into the chat window, and optionally add extra dice - e.g. '#4feat +1d6' to add an additional d6 to the result.
* handling the 'weary' modifier, where rolls of 1-3 are discounted. This is done using Roll20's notion of attributes, where the red circle above the token for Trotter can be edited to read either 'normal' or 'weary'. This determines which dice are used.
Some questions then...
1) is this useful to anyone, and/or has someone else already done better? I'm no expert either in Roll20 but if there's interest, I'll write up notes for a System Specific Guide to share the information about macros, custom tables etc.
2) [for Jon - or other Cubicle Seven staff] if I do, is it acceptable to share the graphics for the TOR dice numbers? These came from the font that was marked "for personal use only", and I don't want to overstep the bounds here.
3) are there other dice combinations or other things that would be useful? I'm no expert in TOR either! (As I said, first game next week..) I could think of the "roll feat die twice, keep the highest" which is doable but currently doesn't seem to show the proper TOR numbers. Other things like adding TNs and Parry into the mix seem more trouble than they're worth.
Stuart
