Comments on: The Digital Divide

By: Lance

Lance — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:51:12 +0000

d20Pro is actually really great, but it is set up for 3.5, not 4e. You can do some workarounds, but they aren’t perfect and increase the learning curve and the “fudge factor.” What I like about d20Pro, and therefore all online D&D solutions, is the ability to use an entire battlemat at one time, that’s prepped in advance, with the encounters all set up and everything. Then I just use FOW to keep the encounters concealed from my players until they are supposed to see them. I also really appreciate how d20Pro handles initiative (all auto and all placed in proper order, but you can manually modify if you desire) and combat: right click the target, choose your attack and it will roll both hit and damage, submit to the DM to make the final call — so you can still ‘cheat’ if you need to, and it not only subtracts it from the target, but has a creeping red line to show percent of damage on the icon and a death icon/noise when they are at 0HP. If you are running a ton of mobs — and in 4e with minions, who isn’t? — and worse, if you are running one or more NPCs or DMCs with the party, it makes all that admin work so much simpler and the turns/pace go so much faster. We can still roleplay using the chat windows, and I actually find people respond more in character with less stray table talk. So, if the table talk is what you love, you won’t like the experience, but if you’re more hardcore about people staying in character, the online game is better, imho. Lastly, the one thing I do miss with d20Pro is rolling real dice. What can I say, I’m a real d20 geek and I like my dice, man! Like most of you, I have hundreds, I can’t turn down a good looking set, and some of them cost a lot of money. So, I love the other aspects of online D&D, but I still sit around and fidget with dice like Captain Queeg in the Caine Mutiny.

By: MadMAxJr

MadMAxJr — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:04:49 +0000

I’ve always used GameTable. It’s a little old, but it does the job just fine. Be sure to use the build from souceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gametable/

There’s an RC2 on the old website that is majorly outdated.

By: Steven

Steven — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:29:28 +0000

I love maptools and have been using it since 4e came out. Initially, I didn’t think I could give up the tactile feel of rolling a d20. But when a macro spits out your die roll with damage, flavor text and everything to look just like the power description in the book… well, there was no looking back at that point!
Vision blocking layers, lighting and such is a huge plus of maptools. It makes it very easy to determine who has cover and what not when you can ‘see’ it.
Maptools also tracks initiative as well, so that aspect is easier too.

But after playing with Maptools and seeing the hyped up Wizards virtual table top I have to ask; Wouldn’t a 3-D VTT be confusing and more difficult? It would also raise the bar significantly for building your own dungeons, characters and npc’s…

By: MageMirin

MageMirin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:26:07 +0000

Fantasy Grounds… sounds like a really awesome name for a internet cafe/game store… Mind if I use it? :)

By: OregonPinkRose

OregonPinkRose — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:58:17 +0000

Without digital, I wouldn’t be playing with my brother and sister, who live 3 hours away.
They used to travel WEEKLY 70 miles each way, but when I moved even farther, it just wasn’t practical. (As if 70 miles was practical).
We started with MapTool when 4e was just a mention. when they released the Keep on the Shadowfell, before the Player’s Handbook. March of ’08. Since then the product and the experience have grown exponentially and we’ve added and Skype and 3 other players, who are now what I would consider good friends even though I haven’t met them in Real Life.
Without the RPTool VTT, I couldn’t kill my siblings on a regular basis. Now, who wouldn’t want that?