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Old 10-18-2013, 09:41 PM   #1
muranternet
 
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Default Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

So I've got the itch to run a network game again with some friends of mine. The last time, we used MapTool, which is super-flexible and has good automation capabilities, but I found that I spent much more time tinkering with the engine than writing/running the games. Specifically, madness like this and this. The advantage is that I could automate a lot of the fiddly bits of combat, like range/speed, grip shifting, weapon tracking, line of sight, etc. The disadvantage is that super-extensive fiddling makes me lose interest and get frustrated with tool limitations.

I've found some GURPS session recordings on Youtube, using Roll20. It looks way easier to set up and much easier for players to use, but it seems like it doesn't do too much aside from giving you a grid and counters. (On one set of playthroughs you can hear people rolling actual dice in the background.) As far as I can tell, there is a scriptable API to do some automation, but it's only available as a subscriber. You're also dependent on a third-party service, so if roll20 is down for maintenance, so are you.

Does anyone have experience with both of these systems? I would really like to know if the apparent ease of using roll20 makes up for the lack of customization, and if that lack of scripting makes combat slow up way too much. For reference, I estimated about 30 seconds per action in MapTool, while older posts on MapTool (this one and this one) makes it seem like an unautomated VTT would slow combat to a complete crawl.

Thank you.
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Old 10-19-2013, 06:57 AM   #2
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

I'd like to know too. Our group has been using MapTool extensively, and our GM automated attacking/DR/injury/hit location, which sped up combat a lot. However, it seems we always have issues connecting to the servers, matching up program versions, forwarding ports, downgrading Java because the new version doesn't work with MapTools - and we end up playing an hour less than we intended, almost uniformly. It's an amazing tool, but maybe too amazing.

But the last time we tried Roll20, it was very bare-bones. A grid (and not a hexagonal one at that), dice, importing tokens and music, and some nifty video-conferencing tools. But this was shortly after it came out, so it might have upgraded.
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Old 10-19-2013, 06:25 PM   #3
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

Roll20 is great for Gurps. There is even an API script that was specifically written to handle Gurps style rolling (roll under T# with modifiers and it outputs number of successes). If you have programming skills the API is a huge bonus to automating your game. Macros are powerful as well (but much simpler than the API). Updates to Roll20's capabilities are coming fast and furious on the development server. They now have Line Of Site added top of Fog Of War and Dynamic Lighting. They also just added movement path tracking and waypoints (this still needs some tweaking for Gurps though but they are working on it). They also just added a few animations (fireball, dragon breath, etc) which are really interesting and have a LOT of potential if they open that up similar to how they did with the API. Another major bonus is that Roll20 works pretty much seamlessly with Google Handouts. At $9.99 a month the mentor level is well worth the money (only the GM needs to be a mentor to make everything available to the players).

One of the things I currently did / do in my games was to create an infinite set of cards (Roll20 can do card decks as well) for all the conditions. When a player is injured or stunned or bleeding, etc. I put the appropriate card in their "hand" so that they can easily see their current modifiers. This greatly helps with combat. I also created handouts with all the combat maneuvers and options in the handouts area so the players can look at it anytime they want.

You can also look at the Roll20 Wiki which has a specific Gurps 4e section (which I contributed to).

I am personally hoping that at some point the API and macros will be able to manipulate cards. Then when the cards are put into a players hand they could automatically adjust the players stats for as long as they remain in their hand. I "think" this wouldn't violate SJG's policy as long as those macros or API script werem't made public or specifically made for Gurps using the modifiers and stats without you coding them yourself.

As for reliability, we have been playing on Roll20 every other week for about 6 months now and I haven't run into a single instance of down time. We play on the development server which I would imagine is not as "stable" as the live servers. Also, on top of game time I have spent hours entering stuff into my campaign on the sever. Besides one instance of not being able to login yesterday (at around noon) for about 2 hours (due to the rollout of a new feature), I haven't ever had an issue with the servers.

Last edited by bitbyter; 10-19-2013 at 06:37 PM.
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Old 10-19-2013, 06:33 PM   #4
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by bitbyter View Post
Roll20 is great for Gurps. . . .

I am personally hoping that at some point the API and macros will be able to manipulate cards. Then when the cards are put into a players hand they could automatically adjust the players stats for as long as they remain in their hand.
" . . . impressive."

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Old 10-19-2013, 06:42 PM   #5
bitbyter
 
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

A soon as the API is able to manipulate cards (which IS coming) this will quickly become a reality. I personally cannot program but the community is really great about working on stuff for those of us who cannot.

To give you an idea of what the API can do, here is a current list of the public API scripts:

https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/21...ts#post-408001

Dynamic lighting and Line Of Sight reeeealy add to Gurps tactical style of combat. One of the players got back-stabbed the other night because with LOS on no one had any idea the goblin was sneaking up on him from behind (they were all either watching their own opponents or assisting others). I think people are going to start taking evaluate or all out defence maneuvers every so often now to check on what is going on during the combat as a whole. They can no long just automatically see the overall tactical situation.

Last edited by bitbyter; 10-19-2013 at 06:51 PM.
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Old 10-19-2013, 08:48 PM   #6
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by bitbyter View Post
Dynamic lighting and Line Of Sight reeeealy add to Gurps tactical style of combat. One of the players got back-stabbed the other night because with LOS on no one had any idea the goblin was sneaking up on him from behind (they were all either watching their own opponents or assisting others). I think people are going to start taking evaluate or all out defence maneuvers every so often now to check on what is going on during the combat as a whole. They can no long just automatically see the overall tactical situation.
So roll20 has token facing control? That's a big plus and I haven't seen that used in screen casts or on their fora.
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Old 10-20-2013, 07:45 AM   #7
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

Yes, you've always been able to control facing but you also were able to see the entire board. Now with LOS it limits it to whatever the GM sets the tokens field of vision to. They have also just added movement tracking and waypoints (as of this weekend), but it needs a few tweaks before it will really be useful for Gurps.

It needs to be able to:

a) show planned movement before the token actually commits and moves.

b) allow facing changes during the planning of movement and tracking of waypoints. From the discussions taking place on the mentors forum it SHOULD be able to do this but is bugged at the moment.

You can see the videos on this blog for some of the more recent updates (since the beginning of the month) that have come to the development server and should be coming to the live servers shortly (once all the bugs are worked out).

http://blog.roll20.net/post/63081970...oll-dev-blog-1

http://blog.roll20.net/post/63693959...atty-bang-bang

http://blog.roll20.net/post/64388016...oll-dev-blog-3

Frankly the rate of development on Roll20 since I joined as been astounding.
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Old 10-20-2013, 07:56 AM   #8
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

I'm a old hand with Maptools. I never heard of Roll20 before now. Is it free? Is it GURPS compatible? Where does it fall short? Where does it rise above the rest?
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Old 10-20-2013, 10:21 AM   #9
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

There is a free level and contributor level and a mentor level. The two paid levels are $4.99 and $9.99 a month and are well worth the money. If they GM is using a paid account then all the players can use a free account and still benefit from the paid accounts features. The tools you get with the paid versions are well worth the money. See the posts above for more information. They also have a wiki, videos and other information on their site. They recently won a Ennie Gold Award for best VTT software and just passed 300,000 users (no breakdown of free vs. paid accounts though).
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Old 10-20-2013, 10:25 AM   #10
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Default Re: Network Play: Need advice re: Roll20 (vs Maptool) for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by bitbyter View Post
There is a free level and contributor level and a mentor level. The two paid levels are $4.99 and $9.99 a month and are well worth the money. If they GM is using a paid account then all the players can use a free account and still benefit from the paid accounts features. The tools you get with the paid versions are well worth the money. See the posts above for more information. They also have a wiki, videos and other information on their site. They recently won a Ennie Gold Award for best VTT software and just passed 300,000 users (no breakdown of free vs. paid accounts though).
Thanks. I think I'll stick to MapTool for now. It's free and works. Adding a unknown could be disastrous during my games.
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