Roll20 Tricks: Rollable Tables

I like to prepare in a way that at the table things are easy. That way I can concentrate on the moment. I had ChatGPT create a boss for my party to fight. This was a Holy Prophet of Valkur. One nice thing Chat does is adds a few bullets at the end about tactics. 

Tactics

• Opens with call lightning if outdoors

• Uses control water to dominate terrain

• Preaches even while fighting

The last bullet is where I'm going with this. I think that's brilliant fun, but not something I could ever manage at the table while managing a combat encounter. So I thought maybe if I had a list of quotes I could just go down the list and wouldn't have to come up with stuff on the spot. So I asked Chat for a list. Then I decided I would like the sub-bosses to do this as well, but they would not be Holy so I asked for a second list of losing faith comments. This was great but I'd now compounded the problem of being able to handle this during combat. Then I thought about Roll20 Rollable tables and asked ChatGPT how to use Rollable Tables and got an answer. (I won't repeat it here since it's so easy to ask ChatGPT yourself). Chat provided a
fairly easy to follow one. I worked a bit so that I had two rollable tables (one for Preaching, one for doubting) that would appear as an ability button for every token I selected (something I'll disable once they are done with these cultists) so that even minions might spit out a comment once in awhile. I set it up so that the comments would appear in the chat, under the name of the token. I don't know what I did to add the highlight but its there and I like it.

Takes minimal effort and i'm happy with the results. Hopefully the players will notice and appreciate it. 

The examples of rollable tables from the different modules I've bought were all uninspiring so I ignored rollable tables until now but my eyes are open to possibilities. I can imagine:

• a barroom brawl with a rollable table I click once inwhile that might produce a flying chair (or hobbit) or someone lit on fire in the back. The kind of crazy things that happen in a barroom brawl that don't really happen in a RPG fight. 
• Comments orcs or other foes make during combat, doesn't have to be religious zealots.
• A big pitched battle I imagine I could come up with some fun things as well. 
• Comments folks in a tavern or the streets say, I could have ChatGPT make a list and spit them out into the comments. Could feed out rumors this way.

Lots of possibilities. Curious how it works out in play.

Roll20 Tips & Tricks (& things I just discovered)

This is the first in what may be an ongoing series if I continue to learn things that I think improve my game. Also things that bug me. My players are in different time zones so we use Roll20. There might be better platforms out there, I don't know, but I'm sort of invested in Roll20 now after a year or more so I'm staying unless they piss me off (and the POD wing of DriveThru which is part of Roll20 is working hard on that).

• Not much of a trick but pay whatever small amount they demand for Dynamic Lighting. It's not hard to set up and really worth it to prevent players from just moving their tokens wherever they damn feel while you are taking a restroom break (yeah my crew would never do that unless they got bored or thought it might give them an advantage of some kind). I believe the same cost allows you to slide assets between campaigns which is helpful when they get tired of fighting giants and want to do some urban adventure and you don't want all the maps of the forgotten realms clogging up the work where you plan to put a ton of building interior maps.
• In the My Settings (on the right) select "Hover to show nameplate and bar overlay". This removes the clutter that gets unmanageable when tokens are next to each other.  Instead in the token use the Name field to give them a name and select nameplate to have that name displayed when you mouse-over. Or use the name field to have their actual name (as opposed to the name given for the statblock which is the default name in the field) so that you don't have to make one up on the spot. You can plug this in earlier and its ready to go. Doing things ahead of time is big with me as I don't want to have a ton of notes to dig up during the session. 

The image shows the always on name on the left, and a mouse-over name on the right.

• Continuing from the bullet above, sort of, is the best tip. Give them a name in the name field but don't select the button unless the PCs know the person by reputation or they truly know them. If the person is a stranger the button goes unchecked and check the Tooltips button to have that show on a mouse-over instead. So the name is there if you need it, but now you can use the tool tip field to describe the NPC. I like to do this in a voice as if the characters are judging the person. "Nervous little coward" "Wet his pants in fear" "Clearly hiding something behind his back". "Looks like he knows how to fight" "Noble in fine clothes with snotty attitude" You get the hint. This way I don't have to describe every NPC when they encounter a group that have similar tokens, and the players don't have to point at who they want to attack, they can say I'm gonna hit "Wet his pants in fear".
• Every NPC should be set up to autoroll damage. This is stupid default to have that off. Edit an NPC sheet and it's below the normal stuff, just a checkbox near the always roll at Advantage. Check it so you don't have to roll separately. I guess having it off is useful if you go with the average damage each time but average damage only speeds things up at the table, when the system autorolls the damage on a hit there is no speed advantage.
• Set up Abilities for each token (do this before duplicating the tokens). These are little buttons that appear on the top of the screen when you select the token. They are set up on the character sheet. One tab of the sheet is what you see but one tab is Attributes & Abilities and that's where you set it up. I set them up for the PCs to save time. Put a button for initiative, each weapon they use, if they have spells. I do this for the NPCs as well to ensure I don't have to have 3 or 4 different NPC sheets up at once (assuming a mixed group of enemies).
• Lean on ChatGPT. You may hate AI but if you want to know how to do something in Roll20 ask ChatGPT and it'll spit out how to do it in seconds. If you want a list of 20 British sounding fantasy names it'll make the list for you. If you want a list of descriptions dockyard scum, or orcs, it'll provide that too so you can plug stuff in ahead of time and leave your brain for the real creative work. 
• Duplicate a token and then rename and edit it. Give it more HP or different weapons. its not difficult and once you've duplicated the token you aren't screwing up the original. ChatGPT can pump out a variety of statblocks to make your dockyard scum have variety. 
• Use an AI art program to create new token images. Give your game some style instead of using the mismatched tokens of different products. The prompt I generally use is "color circular token for VTT, of a dockyard thug, in the style of " then pick an artist or style you like. Play around because sometimes it 'gets it' and most of the time it doesn't. That or you can buy tokens. https://thefatefulforce.com sells tokens and they also have a token maker that works nicely to drop those AI created tokens and have them spit out as png with invisible backgrounds outside the circle (cuts off any weapons going out of the circle but nothing is perfect, and this is free).
• Remember what size maps work well. Failing that when you add a map to Roll20 there are two options: Try them both because sometimes things look blurry or the wrong scale. I know if you pay attention to the art dimensions this shouldn't be a problem but I don't. I just download cool battlemaps and load them up and find they are the wrong scale or too blurry. So load them up twice, pick the two choices and see what you like best. Eventually you'll get used to the sizes and not have to bother. 

Most sites that make battlemaps already have your back on this but I've been dragging maps out of PDFs (including an old Waterdeep Boxed set) and the sizes, never meant for a VTT can be all over the place.

If I Owned D&D what would I do? Part 2

I'd revive Oriental Adventures and expand it to include not just Japanese tropes but also Chinese, Indian and Arabian Knights. The Orient as a compliment to the Occident as represented in the main game. I'm not sure what the name would be but Oriental doesn't have to be offensive if the term is used correctly, it just means East. Also we're not creating accurate stuff here, this isn't RuneQuest or GURPS trying to play in the real-world setting, this is D&D which melded a thousand years of European and Near East history and myth with fantasy stories in a big pot. That's what we're going for, the feel, not the reality. Such a book would be a stand-alone (but very compatible) game like the original 1E Oriental Adventures except this time with its own Monster Manual & DM's Guide and a setting that blends Kara Tur with the Al-Qadim (Zakhara) and a new India setting.

This would mean moving some of the Near East and Eastern beasts out of the D&D Monster Manual (bye Mantacores and Efreeti, I do love you) and putting them in the Oriental Adventures Monster Manual.

I'd do the same thing with Gamma World. 

Whale Roads Zine

I haven't read the Zine yet, but I love the concept. Play reports bundled together into an illustrated Zine (released for free). In this case it was a west marches campaign with three DMs. Link here. Imagine if Gary Gygax and others did this sort of thing back ub the day and we had play reports of their different campaigns. Imagine if TSR/WotC had a library of such things for people to read looking for ideas or just entertainment. I think that would be pretty cool.

I re-read the few surviving notes from my old campaigns in the 80s and wish I'd kept better records and that I'd preserved such records. Especially if the reports weren't just dry in game reports but included asides of player interactions (then they went into a 10 minute discussion of Dar from Beastmaster versus Talon from Sword and the Sorcerer...) I think the nostalgia jolt would be a lot of fun.

Cults of Shadow for sale on Drivethru

Cults of Shadow. 

The book provides a lot of background detail to bring cults to life. It's written for the 7 deities of Shadowdark but beyond that there are no mechanics and no reason it couldn't be used, adapted, torn apart to fit any OSR cults. For each of the 7 I've written up:

• Overview
• Scripture
• Penitence & Funeral Practices
• Rituals & Festivals
• Cult Ranks
• Sects & Orders
• Saints & Heroes
• Common temple layouts/features.

I've also spattered fun bits Lore in the ugly little empty spaces that appear when you try to have 2-page spreads. Currently only the pdf is available, I'm still waiting on proofs from the softcover.

Village - All 7 Villages and 21 NPCs Bundled together into a PDF

 This is probably not the final format, I expect I'll bundle them with the city-states and campaign setting,  but anyone that wants 7villages and 21 NPCs for Free here is the Link.

Village - Ginswallop

The last of the recycled villages. I might create more at some point as It's kind of fun, but I've noticed these old ones are a bit repetitive so it might be a while before I have something more creative to say. I'd like to add a bunch of interior maps but my own interior maps (at least of buildings) need a lot of practice and AI attempts at interiors suck so far. I might punt and just rename the different locations to match maps Dyson Logos has drawn, he does very  nice work.