Roll20 with GURPS

[Vynticator]

I'm new to Roll20 and trying to use it with GURPS 4e. I've seen one very old thread on this but it might be a good global time to investigate remote gaming.

Using the default GURPS character sheet in Roll20, is there a good way to add Advantages and Disadvantages and Skills from a drop-down list (like in GCS)?

Or do you have to type it all in from scratch? Same with Equipment - are there drop down inventory lists?

If so, I can't see them despite poking around for ages. Finding the interface a bit challenging to be honest! Any help appreciated.

[mook]

Hiya Vynticator, unfortunately SJG does not (yet?) officially support any online gaming options, which (afaik) is what would be required for adding every Basic Set Ad/Disad/Skill etc.

For now, best practice seems to be just biting the bullet and typing all that stuff in for every character but, and here's the important part, don't ever delete that character! Lol -- make a sort of 'uber PC' that has every trait you define and use that as a base for new characters.

Tedious and frustrating, but it's what we've got.

Fwiw, the Roll20 unofficial GURPS character sheet has made tremendous leaps in the past year or so and makes life a lot easier.

Good luck!

Hopefully others with more experience can chime in.

[Stormcrow]

If you think of Roll20 as a tabletop simulator instead of rules automation, you'll have a much better experience. Use it to do what you would do at a real table. That means using your rule books (physical or PDF) for the rules instead of relying on Roll20 to do it for you. It means managing your characters and rolls yourself, just as you would do at a real table. Don't expect the GURPSiness to fade into the background.

It's got lots of tools to do this. Tokens are miniature figures. The Turn Tracker is the little whiteboard you write the turn sequence on. Handouts are the pieces of paper you give to players. Characters are sheets of paper with preprinted stat fields on them. (Character Sheets are a subset of these.) The dice are the dice.

Keep it basic, and only build automation when you decide the interface is inconvenient without it.

[Vynticator]

Great, thanks, that's good to know and really helpful to see what can easily be automated as well. Turn sequence will be super useful. Rules I'll keep offline as you suggest.

Can't see a way to thank you for the tweets - used to be a button for that? Anyway, verbal thanks to you both!

[seycyrus]

Originally Posted by Vynticator

...but it might be a good global time to investigate remote gaming.

Did you only want to talk about Roll20 in this thread?

[laserdog]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

Did you only want to talk about Roll20 in this thread?

I'm not the OP, but I'd love to hear about alternatives.

Especially ones with good hex map support.

[seycyrus]

Originally Posted by laserdog

I'm not the OP, but I'd love to hear about alternatives.

Especially ones with good hex map support.

Well, to minimize the derailment of this thread, I'll just point you to this lengthy thread, http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...antasy+grounds

I am a user and advocate of Fantasy Grounds. Here is a thread that is a few years old, that discussed FG and Gurps, http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...antasy+grounds

FG does have hex map support.

There is a Gurps subforum over at Fantasy Grounds. Come over and say hi. Also worth noting is that FG will getting a huge upgrade in the next couple of months.

[Polkageist]

I'm running a roll20 game right now, and one of the big advantages it has is that it's free to use while being nominally fully functional as both a player and GM, especially if you're willing to freehand some stuff. And you can buy assets a la carte.

However, I haven't dug into the FG threads or the app either, so I may yet discover big upsides there. Right now the low barrier to entry is a nice aspect of roll20.

As far as game support on roll20, the hex map is quite good and I haven't found any issues with it. The GURPS character sheet that someone put out is pretty functional and has a good number of click-to-roll buttons in it. It's finicky to get the macros to read off the sheet, which is a bummer because the power behind that is immense. However, you can easily get all of the numbers into the sheet, which means that they're readily accessible for use in the app as well as on the individual's sheets.

Overall we had a really successful game the other night, everyone was able get their rolls without having to hunt for stuff, we had plenty of reference materials scattered around in PDFs. Discord for voice chat and sideline chats. Roll20 is very viable as a virtual table top for GURPS.