The only "online tool" I use routinely is the Crawler Companion app.

Mainly research is the only thing online does for me, though I do write/prepare mostly in electronic documents (not online).

I've recently investigated most or all of the online options, for what seems like the 10th time.  It makes me even more interested in not using anything electronic at all during play.  When Table Top Simulator goes on sale again, I might try that for some board or card games, and go from there.  But if I open up an RPG campaign that way, it will be to supplement what I'm already doing, not a replacement for it.

Quote from: Greentongue;1126513With Google to find what's out there already and virtual tabletop apps, has how you game changed?

I started running online D&D games a few years ago. The main difference for me is that I'll do the dungeon mapping. I would never do this with a normal home group, but online, I have found that, at least for me, the referee/mapper back-and-forth is more confusing, cumbersome and ponderous and also loses other players' attention way more easily. I'd rather just draw what they see as they progress than waste time clarifying again and again and again and then catching people up again and again. In real life, I've never found it to be an issue, but online requires some compromises and this is where I make mine.

I've been running my weekly game on my new Discord server I set up.

I don't like it. Sure it has a lot of features, but ultimately it gets in the way of the intimacy of face-to-face. I feel like I'm roleplaying through a curtain.

But on the plus-side, my video-gaming friends (who don't do tabletop) play Vermintide and Deathwing and other stuff, on Discord. So it's becoming kind of a social hub for me and a few disparate groups of friends to cross-pollinate.

Quote from: tenbones;1126809I feel like I'm roleplaying through a curtain.

Some people might actually prefer that aspect when playing characters that do not resemble themselves.

Quote from: Greentongue;1126824Some people might actually prefer that aspect when playing characters that do not resemble themselves.

I can't recall in the decades I've been running games... for literally hundreds of players... where anyone resembled their character (unless they were playing themselves). I will fully admit that if someone had those kinds of issues where they couldn't sit across from me and feel comfortable about playing a character they created because they didn't resemble them... fearing what I might think of them - after so many years of doing this... I wouldn't *want* that person in my group.

They have issues I prefer not to deal with. And if they can't feel good about themselves simply to play a game of makebelieve with me, then I certainly don't want to invite the ensuing other issues into my game and spoil it for everyone else.

But I do understand your point... to a point. I tend to lean towards the idea that if as a player you're wanting to play something so... "odd" in direct relation to your personal image... there is a degree of trust you have to have in your GM. This is precisely why I don't want such people in my group. You don't jump into a game wanting to play some snowflakey PC, with a new GM until you do the sniff-test. ESPECIALLY if you got "issues". The virtual screen is a two-way street. It's harder to do the sniff-test, and it also makes it harder to "connect" with players interpersonally. Body language, and a multitude of things that I prefer in real-life interactions are lost.

Again, this is what we got for now. On the plus side... it does open me up to being able to play with a lot of people from "everywhere" else... so it's something I'm not discarding.

I've been playing on Roll20 for the past few weeks. Personally, I can't stand it. I only play on it because its my friends and its a campaign we've been playing for almost a decade. The Fog of War feature is fucking awful; to roll for attacks or saves or whatever you have to clumsily switch between the character sheet and then the chat to see your result. With games with exploding dice, its a goddamn chore.

I don't know about other online aids. I tried play by post years ago and didn't like that either.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1126803Mainly research is the only thing online does for me, though I do write/prepare mostly in electronic documents (not online).

Well yes, if we're counting that, I do a lot of that too.

Quote from: everloss;1127101I've been playing on Roll20 for the past few weeks. Personally, I can't stand it. I only play on it because its my friends and its a campaign we've been playing for almost a decade. The Fog of War feature is fucking awful; to roll for attacks or saves or whatever you have to clumsily switch between the character sheet and then the chat to see your result. With games with exploding dice, its a goddamn chore.

I don't know about other online aids. I tried play by post years ago and didn't like that either.

Character sheets don't obscure the chat unless it some custom sheet with an insane width like the hack that was done to the Pendragon sheets.  Otherwise you would have to drag the sheet over the chat area for it be obscured.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4304[/ATTACH]

How is exploding dice a chore? Are you rolling a  die and then rolling another when a 6 or 10 comes or something.  Either the sheet should be doing that or use the dice engine in chat.

QuoteExploding Dice
Roll20 supports exploding dice -- you may also know it as "rule of 6", "rule of 10s", or "acing" depending on your game system. With exploding dice, if you roll the maximum number on the dice (a 6 with a d6, a 10 with a d10, etc.) you get to re-roll again and add the additional roll to your total for that roll. If the additional roll is also a maximum number, you get to keep rolling!

To perform a roll with exploding dice, just add an exclamation point after the number of sides in the formula. For example, /roll 3d6! would roll 3 d6 dice with exploding re-rolls. You can also define the exploding point for the dice using the greater-than and less-than symbols. For example, /roll 3d6!>4 would explode on any dice greater-than or equal-to 4. /roll 3d6!3 would explode only if a 3 is rolled

.

We've now had two sessions of my DCC campaign virtually, with the players using Roll20 as the interface. It does seem to work well, though we only use it very basically, to record their character sheets, roll dice, and for Boyboy's player to make really shitty maps.

I've never really used any online tools, unless you count material I've borrowed from various blog posts or forums. The most I've done is used a searchable pdf on my Kindle for convenience sake.