Accessibility running D&D 5e campaigns?

[Cruel Justice]

Was wondering how accessible trying to run a campaign is using Tabletop Sim? It would be a 4 person campaign among family and friends (4 including me, the DM)

For comparison: I have been involved with Roll20, and its great. However, it cant hold a candle to how this game uses 3D objects (compared to a flat 2D map)

~ Can Tabletop Sim simulate Darkvision? With Roll20 I can set each creature and players vision, and swiftly change it depending on environment (or use of a torch etc)

~ Is it possible to make items hidden? Example would be a trap, or hidden door. Also, a "fog of war" system? I dont want them seeing the layouts of my dungeons.

~ Can hit points and status effects be shown on player/monster figures?

~ Is it possible for in-game character sheets?

~ Can you make monsters use multiple tiles? A Huge monster taking up 4 squares, for example.


Not sure what else to add, but any revealing info is more than welcome!

[Zake]

No fog of war.

You can make hidden zones with a tool, where you basically make a square and any object inside cannot be seen by players who didn't make the zone.

If your dungeon isn't made up of tiles that can be hidden in this manner, then they can see it. Something like an image that's part of the table can't be hidden.

Hidden zone squares aren't really ideal for D&D, and are more for hidden information boardgames.

Hit points can likely be tracked either in the name of the figure object (i.e. 20/20), with a calculator object, or with scripting (where you have a nice plus and minus icon to make it go up and down, like in Gloomhaven).

Status would probably be tracked with tokens (again, like Gloomhaven), or you could write them down somewhere? Gloomhaven had a neat script that sorta attached the status tokens to the figures when dropped on them, so that they move together.

In-game character sheets are possible, but will probably be annoying considering the amount of stuff on them. Maybe check the workshop to see if someone already made some, since that ought to make it easier.

Monsters can use multiple tiles. The object just needs to be big enough (or you pretend it's big enough). You can have a grid set up or just drop stuff on squares if the board/image you're using has them already.

The in game grid just acts like snapping points either in the square/hex or on it's corners (or both), and objects dropped with the appropriate toggles (i.e. grid is on) will snap to the nearest point.

[Cruel Justice]

Originally posted by Zake:

*snip*

Thank you so much for the information, it really helps. I'm still undecided, I'm going to look for alternatives. However, with the information you relayed I believe this could do the job if I do not find a good alternative.

Thanks again.

[WILD CRUX]

discord, dnd beyond, and table top simulator makes the whole process pretty fun. you as the Dm get as much control over the immersion that you want to apply, over in the workshop there is a TON of tools and options available for your disposal

[Cruel Justice]

Originally posted by WILD CRUX:

*snip*

Thank you. Im going to have to go and take a deep look into the workshop. The other two were already a given for me.

[SaltyO]

If you don't rely too much on Roll20 style accounting, TTS might be a good choice. It's not too good at keeping persistent written data within the game (character sheets, in-game lore, etc.), unfortunately, and not too great at asset management either. Where it shines is providing an immersive setting and table-feel, more like real life, and that is fun enough for many people. If I were to start over again choosing an RPG VT, I'd probably go with Foundry VTT, but I'm married to TTS.

[Baryonyx]

1.Have I missed something again? There is fog of war in the game, if they didn't randomly take it out. You can set how large the field of view is too. If you wanted, you could even take one of the light mods, set the table completely dark and give every figure a torch.

2. There are multiple ways to hide things, depending on how trustworthy your players are. You could simply sink things into the table and make them resurface when you need to. That however would require none of your players trying to look unter the table or highlight them. There are also mods that enable objects to be hidden for certain colors (i.e. players).

3. Yes, there are workshop mods for health and stat bars. Several ones actually. Either floating above the model or in a circle around it.

4. Yes, char sheets do exist. You would need it to be scripted though to be efficient. That being said, for DND 5e there should already be some avaiable in the workshop.

5. Yes. You can resize objects freely, and if you want to make it clear how much space a monster occupies, you can just slap a base under it.

[SaltyO]

All the above is very true, of course, but I wouldn't rely on the sandbox to track your precious RPG data.

[Cruel Justice]

@Baryonyx Thank you, you nailed the answers to quite a few of my concerns.

@Elder_Salt I looked at Foundry VTT, its an upgrade in every single way to Roll20 (unless looking for free option). For $50 its a steal. Im going to be pulling the trigger on TTS but if im ever going 2D, Foundry is the go to.

~Thanks to everyone for helping me make my decision. I am unsubscribing from the thread, but Im going to leave the post so anyone with the same concerns can see the answers in the thread.~

[geekincarnate]

I've been DMing for about 3 months on TTS and so far I love it. I've spent well over a year Dming on Roll20 and have DMed since 3rd Ed. There's tons of minis, tools, and addons. The Kraken table is amazing and there's some pre setup tables that are amazing looking. And on days where we can't play bc someone can't show up, we play a card game or board game. We also stream it to Twitch on Thursdays and so far everything going smooth, even on my shoddy old laptop. It would be amazing in VR if it works bc you are actually sitting at a table playing virtually.

You can go as fancy or basic as you want. There's nothing stopping you from grabbing a few dice, generic minis and drawing your map on the table. Or you can find tons of 3d assets, minis, dice, tools, round counters, hp counters, stat blocks, everything and get very intricate.

However the more you want to do, the more practice and research you'll need to do. It takes time to get use to the systems and tools and learn all the ends and out.

Some important things to get started: turn on and off the grid in options and right click objects to turn on and off snapping, Press L to lock things down so players can't move it. and the hidden items thing takes some tweaking to get right, but it's totally doable.

So far I love it. It feels like your actually at a table with friends, something that's missing from Roll20. I would love to try it in VR if it was possible b/c actually sitting at the table would be extremely immersive. You don't get all the technical integration like you do with Roll20, but it feels more true to life.

[Snowdog]

Mr.Stump has a generic character sheet on the Workshop, with some simple lines you can convert this sheet into any character sheet for any system basically. Plus there are tons of Workshop made character sheets representing those systems already. Mr.Stump has also provided instructions on how to do this also. I think he has vids up on youtube...like his OneWorld Mod is crazy sick good.

[EvlOvrlrd4Hire]

Actually you can use fog of war, Like anything else with TTS it takes practice to perfect. I think one of the Hero Quest mods utilizes it. There are several Dnd 5e tables, or if you want to go old school there's Ravenloft for 2e box set. For quick and easy albeit simplified dungeon building you can grab the snappable pieces from Warhammer Quest, tons of miniatures, even a Dnd weapons armory, currency etc, potions, etc. If you want to do different RPgs, all the WW games are up, Exalted, Vampire etc.

[SaltyO]

I haven't been able to get much use out of FoW. I found getting it to work to an acceptable degree would end up taking too much time, time I would rather be using to design my RPG campaign or develop characters with my players. Nothing is worse than spending all this time on a map, then basically turning your players into playtesters for your map, instead of actually playing the game and getting them immersed in the action.

[geekincarnate]

I've been running 5e for a couple months on Tabletop (I ran 3.5 for years irl) I love it. You can just bust out a game using some basic dice, pieces and draw a map on the table. Or you can find custom made tables, minis, dice and make intricate 3D maps if you want. It's super fun! And any games you own for playing on off sessions in real life you can probably find in tabletop.

It does take learning if you want to to do all the fancy stuff. Go through all the menus and learn what everything is, and how all the tools and options work. This stuff just takes time and practice. Learn how to make card hands work. Learn how to work grids and snapping, and most important change the color scheme so it's not all glaring white.

[Angry Baseball]

I have been working on making D&D 5e work on this for over a month now. lets say there are ways to make it work.