If you play in a regular Tabletop RPG group these days, you're probably playing online. For many, including myself, that means getting used to a virtual tabletop. These platforms do exactly what the name says – GMs can place map🅰s, enemy tokens, and puzzle clues for players to see on a shared screen. However, they rarely provide much in the way of graphics or statistics needed to run a TTRPG. That puts the onus on the GM to prepare everything they need well in advance of a session. More importantly, it's making me prepare for whatever bonehead moves my partyꩲ decides to throw at me.
I recently discovered the wonder of Eberron, a Dungeons & Dragons setting in which magic is studied as technology. The result is a world which mashes together the elves, magic, and adventure of typical fantasy with noir intrigu🐭e. I loved the sound of all of that, and set a date with friends to meet up at th꧋e local game store and begin an Eberron adventure. Characters were rolled, maps were drawn, and I had a whole notebook full of ideas ready to go. Then COVID-19 happened.
It wasn't even that the store was closed. The owner actually tried to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:pull a GameStop and d🐼eem it essential enough to stay open. Our group, however, decided it was best to follow stay-at-home orders. That meant I had 💃to shift Eberron, and my entire Dungeon Master style, over to a digital format.
is perhaps the most well-known virtual tabletop given that it's free, often sponsors events, and also supports major TTRPGS besides Dungeons & Dragons. They also gave TheGamer an account in order to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:preview the D&D Wildemount book. For those reasons, it seemed like the perfect place to host our new Eberrꦚon game.
Setting up was the easy part. For the players, it just meant creating an account and filling out a digital character sheet. Or they could use an extension to link Roll20 to their 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:D&D Beyond sheet. For me, the beginning was also fairly painless. I'm running Eberron's campaign, which is a pre-written series of adventures. Detailed maps are given and monster stats mostly come from official D&D products. Due to this, I was able to pull data directly from Roll20's compeꦐndium and have the monsters added to my library with a few clicks. For the few monsters that did have tweaked stats, I just did what my players did and created my own sheets.
Things started to take a turn when the players did what D&D players do – they went off-book. Roll20's default screen is a white square separated into a grid. It's meant to be the digital equivalent of the dry-erasꦦe battle maps many DMs carry to their physical games. That said, it isn't quite as flexible as having a dry-erase board in front of you. And that's where Roll20 clashes with my typical Dungeon Master preferences.
I'm big into the roleplay part of D&D. One of my favorite things about the game is seeing non-actors become actors. I don't expect my players, or even myself, to have the improvisation skills of the Critical Role cast. I just like seeing them earnestly try to act as their characters in the moment. That's not to say I don't prepare for combat or exploration. I do my best to earn my players' time by coming prepared with pre-drawn ba⛦ttle maps, several adventure hooks, and some skill-based challenges. But we all know players have a habit of kicking the DM's carefully-constructed sandcastle. I t♍hrive on that spontaneity, and am usually ready to quickly draw up a map for when they decide to start a bar fight or jump into sahuagin-infested waters.
This is what happened in our Eberron game. The party entered the Mournland, a magical hellscape full of mutated creatures. The party is meant to constantly feel the danger of this place, and the Oracle of War guide gives tips on how to establish this dread. I chose to have mutated creatures constantly on the periphery of the road♐. They gathered in great numbers and stared with glowing eyes, but never got closer. My intent was to warn the players not to leave the relative safety of the road. Sꦆo what did they do? They left the road.
Cue a random combat encounter. I rolled up some mutated monsters and ended up with tigers with scorpion tails. Only... the Roll20 compendium only has stats for normal tigers. Also, I didn't have a battlefield. I had to spin my narrative wheels by describing these mutated tigers in detail and I hastily created a brown grid and threw some grey squares on to make rocks. Only after the combat was over did I realize I never had the tigers use their mutant scorpion tails. It was just average combat with normal tigers. It wasn't the worst mistake in the world, and the players still seemed to have fun. But being caught up like that made me realiz♈e Roll20 is not the place for improv DMing. At least not without some prep.
For the next session, I took fellow TheGamer writer 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Scott's advice. I drew up a selection of "generic" battle maps ahead of time. There was a Mournland road ambush, a tavern, and a town square among others. I also took the time to import several flexible baddies from the Roll20 compendium – things like zealot warriors, casters, and bears. It added an hour or two to my prep time, but I soon found it actually bolstered my improv. When the party picked a fight wi⛦th a secretive cult, I had the tools to send cultist assassins after them. Which I did laterꦦ, by using the road ambush map to surprise them on the way back from their Mournland mission.
I'm still getting used to digital DMing. Players still talk over each other, mics cut out mid-sentence, and I miss rolling actual dice. Yet I have to admit that, by forcing me to do more prep work, Roll20 ✅is improving my flex༒ibility as a Dungeon Master.