Source
r/VTT•
aretumer

In search for a simpe VTT (yes, i checked the pinned, sry)

Hey everybody. I am sure there are lots of similar questions here all the time, so i am sorry.

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I spend a good part of yesterday on trying to find a VTT. I tried Roll20, Astral Table, Tableplop and some others and my problems are always the same - too much complexity. I dont get them to work how i need them.

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What i need is

- Simplicity

- Import Maps (.jpg etc)

- Moving Tokens around by hand

- An easy way to hide and reveal parts of the map

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I will stream my screen over discord, the players dont even have to join anything. All i want is a better alternative to using Gimp/Photoshop or something similar tbh. And it always failed because of one of those four points.

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Thanks in advance.

Posted Feb 8, 2021, 12:35 PM UTC

821
the1ine•

You're asking for more complexity but without too much complexity?

If you don't want to put the time into learning how to do these basic functions of VTT -- then you might want to consider PowerPoint.

9
aretumerOP•

You are correct. I probably shouldnt try to DM if setting up a battlemap is too difficult. Thank you.

3
DigitalGM•

There's https://new.tableplop.com/ & https://www.owlbear.rodeo/

Most VTT's assume multiple players, so lighting often works different for GM account than for the player, so that might be creating some difficulty if you are screen sharing.

I know foundry has a 'hot seat' mod that might help, or you could use a two accounts, and share the player screen view.

7
aretumerOP•

Thank you. I tried boths of those, didnt get it to work. I dont understand why map revealing is so complicated. I just want to make the map black and have an eraser tool to reveal it.

5
DigitalGM•

You might be better off looking for computer tools for DMing irl, rather than virtual table tops. Something that's more designed for a group sitting around a common table rather than the expectation of multiple players and a GM account all connecting to the table.

Otherwise I think Roll20 has the sort of tools you want (unblock an area at once rather than using character tokens for sight), but you'll need a player account to login, and screen share the player browser window.

1
mhd•

Hmm, I would've seconded Owlbear, as it has a pretty simple way of just uploading apps and the ability to toggle areas in the fog-of-war mode is about the easiest and most convenient method of doing that that I've seen. It got even better in the last update.

That would mean that you have two windows open, with one being the player view. As you don't have to register for Owlbear and it's pretty light, that shouldn't be a big problem. Use one window to hide/reveal and move tokens, the other is just there for the players.

There's a way to only do that with one window if you're screen-sharing, and that would be chroma-keying. So you'd see a transparent green overlay over your map that you can than erase/paint, but for the players that would result in solid black areas. Ethan Schoonover explains his setup on youtube. Right now, that even got simpler, as the popular streaming tool OBS includes a virtual camera in recent versions, so you don't need any third party tools or plugins. Just create a "scene" in OBS that's a screen grab of your Gimp/Photoshop/etc. video, add chroma key, and maybe a smaller version of your real camera output and you're good to go.

Owlbear would have the benefit that players had the option of actually loading a map. Again, no user required, just send them the link.

5
aretumerOP•

I tried Owlbear and i dont get the fog of war to work. Thank you for taking so much time with your answer

1
mhd•

The new features that allow you to cut a single fog-of-war selection into pieces might make this more complex than it was in the beginning. Once you're in the fog-of-war mode (solid "cloud" icon on the right), make sure that the "fog cutting"/"edge snapping" and "player's preview" modes are all off (i.e. the scissors/magnet/eye icons have a slash through them). Then you can draw fog shapes with the three left icons. Try the rectangle for starters. Then click the cloud icon that's half black, half white and click on one of the rectangles you just made. It makes the shape zebra-stripped for you if it's not visible, so that you can still select it again. For the players, it will be completely transparent (you can check what the players see with the "eye" icon).

Cutting existing fog of war pieces into smaller ones is done with the scissors icon, otherwise you'd just draw on top of other ones.

It's a lot of icons, sure, but it's still one of the more intuitive ones. I especially love the toggling, as that let's you prepare areas (like e.g. dungeon rooms) that you can then show and hide instantly.

The chroma keying method is a bit faster if you're well versed with Gimp/Photoshops selections, but you can't really prepare there, it all has to be done on the fly. For less rectangular rooms it's a pain. I do this all the time in Roll20, and I'm sooo tired of this (no, dynamic lighting is even worse to me. Already way too much detail on VTTs)

2
john_finns_wife•

My gods, I've never seen Owlbear & just loaded it up & my gods that's good!

Thank you so much for the head's up!

1
Atreides2001•

If your players can see your screen it will be hard to hide many things from them.

However you could connect as a "player" with you "gm" connected on another monitor/PC and still make it easy for them but also not make things hard for yourself.

4
enrimbeauty•

You should definitely check out Shard Tabletop. the easiest vtt I have ever used, free, and allows you to do all of the things you mentioned: https://www.shardtabletop.com/

4
aretumerOP•

this looks really good. i will check it out further! thank you kind stranger

2
CatoDomine•

I use Maptool. It can do a bunch of stuff, most of which is safe to ignore.

check out this guide I wrote a while back on how to setup maptool to do the basics as you describe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/fnn53o/maptool_is_a_great_way_to_transition_an_inperson/

You can setup a DM session and connect to it with a player session on the same computer, and stream only the player screen.
I would suggest trying to get your players to connect with their own client though, I personally MUCH prefer letting the players move their own tokens. It takes a lot of the burden of running combat off the DM and keeps players engaged.

3
aretumerOP•

Thank you. I tried that, also no luck there.

1
john_finns_wife•

Two monitors & Microsoft OneNote.

Make two separate notebooks. In one of them, have all this set up beforehand: "Set background image" for your map to lock it in place, have the tokens ready to drop on the top so you can move them around. You can also have fake FOW by having black shapes (think: MS Paint solid rectangles/squares/whatever) cover the bits they haven't discovered—you can draw these in just before revealing the map using the drawing tools built-in or have a page in your notebook full of different size/shape ones ready to drop on the background map.

Then, make the players' notebook either accessible by URL or via screenshare, copy the "covered" map (i.e. with just what the players should be able to see visible) to the players' one.

Bosh, instant VTT. Advantage of OneNote is brilliant support for documents & handouts—been running "The Enemy Within" for WFRP for a year & it's invaluable in a long, detail-heavy campaign.

Is it ghetto-arse? Yes. Is it a bit of a fiddle? Yes.

Does it work & is it free?

Damn straight.

3
phixium•

Try this one?

https://slyflourish.com/owlbear_rodeo.html

2
AlphaState•

I have run games using Google Drawings for a map, and it worked fine. It has no game system stuff, but if you are using Discord you don't need that. It is easy to share to multiple users and you can drop in any images, tokens, draw shapes, etc.

The only downside is that it can be tricky to select the right layer, but it's a very short learning curve.

2
ImCorvec_I_Interject•

You can't import maps, but Battlemapp hits your other points. It's also 3D and animated by default. Check out r/BattleMapp or battlemapp.io

Personally, I often use Foundry to do basically what you've described. It's simple enough but does have a fair amount of complexity that you might not appreciate. I make my maps in DungeonDraft and can import them with things like doors intact. When the door gets opened, everything beyond it automatically becomes visible.

1
S-4-T-4-N•

If I remember correctly this was this online 3d map builder for free in the dnd main sub. It's basically a 3d map maker with photoshop-esque controls. Your players wouldn't be able to control their own tokens tho so you'll need to find a way to stream it. I personally use Foundry so I never tried it for myself but I assume it will work the same as irl 3d battlemaps like what Matt Mercer uses for Critical Role.

It's called BattleMapp if I remember correctly

1
Onaash27•

Try using Planar Ally. It is an indie VTT. Try it here

1
mikepk•

I'm working on a simple mapping tool -- GameScape (https://gamescape.app/). The goal is to be focused on speed, drawing, and clean UX. Fog-of-war and image uploads aren't implemented yet but image upload is coming within the week and fog of war is next on my feature list. Just released a version with a ruler/measurement tool and a "laser" pointer thing to indicate things on the map.

1