Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Ghostse]

What game is that? Google just brings up Windows Media Player.

World's Most Popular Role Playing Game (AKA D&D but you are passive-aggressively saying 'fuck you' to Woketards of the Coast by not using any of their IP)

It also means you can double up on classes or play the same class in multiple games without it being the same thing over and over.

I get it, but I guess the thing I mainly dislike is there is no trade offs on subclass, so the only choice (other than being bored, and I don't play enough for that issue) is the mathematically superior one.
This is something that could have been accomplished with feats/class features if there aren't trade-offs.

As a GM, given WotC's degrading quality control, It also ups the shit I have read-and-comprehend to see shit needs to be banned or houseruled before it breaks the game.

 

[East_Clintwood]

They also censored the most recent version of Deadlands because any mention of the Confederacy as anything other than proto Nazis is bad and letting players play as Confederates is a mega nono

That's seriously underselling it. They didn't just censor it, they retconned the entire setting to remove the idea of it surviving, even though half the remaining shit no longer makes sense without it. Incidentally that's why I'm kinda surprised at the current Shadowrun main plot that has the UCAS on it's arse and potentially about to collapse, while the CAS is stronger than ever. Even though Shadowrun's CAS has fuck all to do with the original I figured the name alone would be enough to get the woketards angry enough to get it removed.

 

[The Littlest Shitlord]

What's the most popular virtual tabletop these days? I'm working on a homebrew game and want to have some kind of setup ready to download and go with something that gets used a lot.

 

[Ghostse]

Roll 20 seems to be the go-to for everyone, but they are weaselly shit-libs and I cannot recommend you use them.


I simp for Maptool, but I am not a re-re and don't play (online) with re-re's so the hurdle that is setup & config doesn't bother me none. Be men, don't conform.

 

[Shidoen]

Any of you niggers rolling dice at DC this year?

 

[Tactical Wizard]

Any of you niggers rolling dice at DC this year?

No, and if I was I sure as fuck wouldn't post about it here.

 

[Shidoen]

No, and if I was I sure as fuck wouldn't post about it here.

Oh well, not the worst thing that could happen to me.

 

[Judge Dredd]

What's the most popular virtual tabletop these days? I'm working on a homebrew game and want to have some kind of setup ready to download and go with something that gets used a lot.

I and people I know seem to favour Foundry. Only the host needs it.

The big problem with Foundry is that requires a bit of technical knowledge. Not much, but some. If you can create files and folders and know the difference between JPG and PNG, you should be fine. Some people on older routers need to know port forwarding, but modern routers just work most of the time.

Rule systems also vary in support. 5e and PF2 are top tier. Whereas more obscure systems will have spotty support.

What you get in return is a lot of flexibility and modibility.

As for being shit-libs. Hard to say. The discord was fine until the most recent pride month where the mods went full rainbows and pronouns. This hasn't appeared in software yet, but the discord does handle customer support.

 

[Ghostse]

I and people I know seem to favour Foundry. Only the host needs it.

The big problem with Foundry is that requires a bit of technical knowledge. Not much, but some. If you can create files and folders and know the difference between JPG and PNG, you should be fine. Some people on older routers need to know port forwarding, but modern routers just work most of the time.

Rule systems also vary in support. 5e and PF2 are top tier. Whereas more obscure systems will have spotty support.

What you get in return is a lot of flexibility and modibility.

As for being shit-libs. Hard to say. The discord was fine until the most recent pride month where the mods went full rainbows and pronouns. This hasn't appeared in software yet, but the discord does handle customer support.

Foundry is a nice middle-ground. It has more polish than MapTool even if you lose some of the advanced features (that you probably weren't using anyway) but is still self-hosted.

I always get it confused with Fantasy Grounds... which while it does NOT ooze shitlib libshit,they are weaselly fucks but not as bad Roll 20. (In short: they used to sell a "Life Time" license. A few years ago they 'retired' Fantasy Grounds (Now Fantasy Grounds Classic) and made Fantasy Grounds Unity - lifetime licenses were for Fantasy Grounds Classic only, Unity was a separate product so you had to buy a new perpetual license. OTOH they still support Classic, just won't sell new licenses. So while being slimy about it, they were slimy within acceptable parameters. My biggest issue is that installs require phoning home, and I believe it checks in with its license regularly... or in short "Fuck DRM")

Forgot you also can also use Table Top Simulator.

 

[Mango Cobra]

Foundry is a nice middle-ground. It has more polish than MapTool even if you lose some of the advanced features (that you probably weren't using anyway) but is still self-hosted.

I always get it confused with Fantasy Grounds... which while it does NOT ooze shitlib libshit,they are weaselly fucks but not as bad Roll 20. (In short: they used to sell a "Life Time" license. A few years ago they 'retired' Fantasy Grounds (Now Fantasy Grounds Classic) and made Fantasy Grounds Unity - lifetime licenses were for Fantasy Grounds Classic only, Unity was a separate product so you had to buy a new perpetual license. OTOH they still support Classic, just won't sell new licenses. So while being slimy about it, they were slimy within acceptable parameters. My biggest issue is that installs require phoning home, and I believe it checks in with its license regularly... or in short "Fuck DRM")

Forgot you also can also use Table Top Simulator.

I've got a friend who swears by Talespire, since it has a feature that lets you import Heroforge character models. I'll be giving it a try in a campaign soon, and let you know how it plays.

 

[Ghostse]

I've got a friend who swears by Talespire, since it has a feature that lets you import Heroforge character models. I'll be giving it a try in a campaign soon, and let you know how it plays.

Do let me know. I've given it a look, it looks nice, the main reason I've avoided it is I can find or kludge up (or if all else fails, poorly draw) any assets I'm missing in a 2D table top. I'm completely fucked on 3-D.

 

[Mango Cobra]

Do let me know. I've given it a look, it looks nice, the main reason I've avoided it is I can find or kludge up (or if all else fails, poorly draw) any assets I'm missing in a 2D table top. I'm completely fucked on 3-D.

From what I know, some king-tier Autists recreated Waterdeep completely in the map, same with all of Curse of Strahd, ESPECIALLY Castle Strahd so you don't even have to fuck around and remake it.

That being said if you have a 3d printer there is someone who is working on recreating all the maps in STL form.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

What's the most popular virtual tabletop these days? I'm working on a homebrew game and want to have some kind of setup ready to download and go with something that gets used a lot.

Roll20 is free and as long as someone made a sheet for your system you can make things work. (also you can download those addons to get some paid features for free and not have to be limited by their 100MB storage limit). It also has okay macro functionality so you can make a ghetto version of a character sheet for less intensive systems.

Foundry costs money to start but depending on the initial support for the system you can go a lot farther with it simply thanks to dynamic lighting and automation (when available/needed).
also you can pirate it

The big problem with Foundry is that requires a bit of technical knowledge. Not much, but some. If you can create files and folders and know the difference between JPG and PNG, you should be fine. Some people on older routers need to know port forwarding, but modern routers just work most of the time.

My problem is that as a code disrespecter I started to make the game of my dreams and then hit a lot of walls as one thing or another required me to beg the codetroons for help, which means you either get lucky and guess how someone with the same problem phrased the question or have to repeatedly ask for help how to remake a single line roll20 macro in javascript.
Then the new version broke two of the most useful modules and I realized it far too late so now I either deal with not having them or spent a lot of time trying to downgrade to the previous version.
Though the real problem was when I get too autistic about dumping hours into perfecting some random detail none of the players care about.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

That's seriously underselling it. They didn't just censor it, they retconned the entire setting to remove the idea of it surviving, even though half the remaining shit no longer makes sense without it. Incidentally that's why I'm kinda surprised at the current Shadowrun main plot that has the UCAS on it's arse and potentially about to collapse, while the CAS is stronger than ever. Even though Shadowrun's CAS has fuck all to do with the original I figured the name alone would be enough to get the woketards angry enough to get it removed.

This finally fixes the one problem with old deadlands; without the south's loss and occupation there's no reason for the KKK to exist, now thanks to the new metaplot I can finally make my Ku Klux Ninja Klan Martial Artist character.

 

[Ghostse]

My problem is that as a code disrespecter I started to make the game of my dreams and then hit a lot of walls as one thing or another required me to beg the codetroons for help, which means you either get lucky and guess how someone with the same problem phrased the question or have to repeatedly ask for help how to remake a single line roll20 macro in javascript.
Then the new version broke two of the most useful modules and I realized it far too late so now I either deal with not having them or spent a lot of time trying to downgrade to the previous version.
Though the real problem was when I get too autistic about dumping hours into perfecting some random detail none of the players care about.

Try MapTool. They were stagnant for like most of a decade but in the last 3-4 years they've been doing massive updates.
If you are willing to get your hands dirty, you can do anything you want as their scripting language now supports HTML5.

even without coding, you can crazy shit now like put vision blocking lines on art assets themselves. This lets you do wild shit like have a door asset that blocks vision, but then rotates, so they can open and close the door. They also added support for "Pit" and "roof" elevations in Vision blocking. So a house will block vision, but not if a character is on an elevation.

It is Possible (but lord is it a lot of effort, I warn you) to have it so when a Player moves their character to a certain area, the door will automatically swing open and you can have a creaky door SFX play.

The tagline is "its the millennium falcon of VTT" and this is the most apt description. The UX, especially for coding/macros is not great, but you can do damn near anything.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

Try MapTool. They were stagnant for like most of a decade but in the last 3-4 years they've been doing massive updates.
If you are willing to get your hands dirty, you can do anything you want as their scripting language now supports HTML5.

even without coding, you can crazy shit now like put vision blocking lines on art assets themselves. This lets you do wild shit like have a door asset that blocks vision, but then rotates, so they can open and close the door. They also added support for "Pit" and "roof" elevations in Vision blocking. So a house will block vision, but not if a character is on an elevation.

It is Possible (but lord is it a lot of effort, I warn you) to have it so when a Player moves their character to a certain area, the door will automatically swing open and you can have a creaky door SFX play.

The tagline is "its the millennium falcon of VTT" and this is the most apt description. The UX, especially for coding/macros is not great, but you can do damn near anything.

Fuck you I already sunk enough time into Foundry, I'm not starting from scratch.
Especially since I already have modules for all the features you listed except rotating doors (it comes with openable doors by default, just not ones let you leave the door half open, or at least not in a way where the gm doesn't have to manually manipulate the door.)

 

[Ghostse]

Fuck you I already sunk enough time into Foundry, I'm not starting from scratch.
Especially since I already have modules for all the features you listed except rotating doors (it comes with openable doors by default, just not ones let you leave the door half open, or at least not in a way where the gm doesn't have to manually manipulate the door.)

I will say the 1/2 open door thing is slightly less useful in practice, as it still blocks sight so it can get in the way. You can manipulate the on-token vision-blocking as well. (As well as draw new vision blocking, but if you do that you literally just draw lines by connecting points and fill/don't fill - No UX there, you just call out pixel locations in your code. Like I said, Millennium Falcon)

They also don't have nearly enough layers to place objects in. If you're playing "ground scatter" it can sometimes fuck with your ability to get at the doors because its just "Background" "Object" and "Token" layers (plus a hidden GM only later). An extra layer for "Doors" and "Walls" would be pretty tits.
Also the Vision is straight vectors. It'd be nice to allow player vision to "hook" around corners a bit more.
It also has the option to let tokens be visible over hidden vision, so in theory you can have things like the goblin token that only is half-visible show up completely, but the detection logic doesn't work right, and sometimes it'll show invisible enemies.
But its also open source so I could just not being a lazy fucker and instead of complaining go code in the parts I want to change myself.


... so anyway something else that annoys me is -

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

I will say the 1/2 open door thing is slightly less useful in practice, as it still blocks sight so it can get in the way. You can manipulate the on-token vision-blocking as well. (As well as draw new vision blocking, but if you do that you literally just draw lines by connecting points and fill/don't fill - No UX there, you just call out pixel locations in your code. Like I said, Millennium Falcon)

They also don't have nearly enough layers to place objects in. If you're playing "ground scatter" it can sometimes fuck with your ability to get at the doors because its just "Background" "Object" and "Token" layers (plus a hidden GM only later). An extra layer for "Doors" and "Walls" would be pretty tits.
Also the Vision is straight vectors. It'd be nice to allow player vision to "hook" around corners a bit more.
It also has the option to let tokens be visible over hidden vision, so in theory you can have things like the goblin token that only is half-visible show up completely, but the detection logic doesn't work right, and sometimes it'll show invisible enemies.
But its also open source so I could just not being a lazy fucker and instead of complaining go code in the parts I want to change myself.


... so anyway something else that annoys me is -

The real annoyance is having to hold your tongue and not call the pronoun a faggot when he discusses the latest issue I'm having.
My only therapy is leaving rude discord notes on half the userbase, though I occasionally worry I'll fuckup and put the niggerword in the wrong field.
Wonder if AI chatbots can learn to code shit in Foundry...

Also foundy has a seperate layer for every object category (walls, lights, sounds, tokens,....)

 

[Ghostse]

Also foundy has a seperate layer for every object category (walls, lights, sounds, tokens,....)

Maptool you define your lights (bright light, dim light, size and even shape) and then attach the lights to objects.

It even has support for declaring how bright a light is in Lumins, so you can have dynamic magical darkness if you want to go full autist.

 

[Judge Dredd]

What are some games (systems or campaign ideas) that you want to run, but can't/won't for whatever reason?

I keep toying with a game set in The Matrix but finding interested parties has been difficult, which is the case for most games I try to run.