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What Do I Know?Tales of the Valiant, Roll20, and Shard TabletopYou may or may not have heard that Roll20 had determined that they aren’t going to develop a character sheet for Tales of the Valiant. This may not seem like a big deal, but that means they aren’t going to support Tales of the Valiant in their character builder, and they aren’t going to create the new stat blocks to show up in a character sheet for the new monster stat blocks.Effectively, nothing fully Tales of the Valiant will be coming to the platform. Yes, this would be disappointing if you want to use Roll20, but can’t you just adapt? First, if you’re like me, you’ve got seven products you backed on Kickstarter with Roll20 add-ons.Now, that may sound back, but one of those Kickstarters is still in the process of being produced, so that’s only five products behind. All of that is pretty aggravating. But there are a few mitigating factors, which don’t have anything to do with Roll20.Mitigating Factor Number 1Shard Tabletop and KoboldPress offer a subscription service for access to Kobold Press’ library on the VTT. For someone like me, who is extremely invested in the Roll20 version of these products, this is a major thing, as we’ll get to in a moment. <ul><li><a href="https://play.shardtabletop.com/marketplace#product?p=subscription&id=kgo3vmdpzcx26oot" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kobold Press: Player’s Subscription</a></li><li><a href="https://play.shardtabletop.com/marketplace#product?p=subscription&id=da8k2pgn06ifvemi" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kobold Press” Game Master Subscription</a></li></ul>Mitigating Factor Number 2Kobold Press is allowing people to reassign their VTT options, translate their VTT add-ons to store credit or request a refund. None of this is Kobold Press’s fault, so please don’t take any of this frustration as being directed at them.Roll20 and ImplementationsIt feels to me like Roll20 announced this quietly on their Discord, and then left it to Kobold Press to break the news to everyone, which sucks since Kobold Press wasn’t the entity that dropped the ball.Roll20 has been slowly dropping the ball on many “near 5e” conversions over the last few years. They’ve failed to set up a separate compendium and specialized character sheet for Esper Genesis. They’ve failed to implement a sheet for multiple Essence20 games (G.I. Joe, Transformers) properly.They also wholly fumbled the rollout of the Everyday Heroes line of products. Yes, I know; in the meantime, the owner of that particular product line has set fire to as much goodwill as they could . . . however . . . that has nothing to do with the fact that Roll20 couldn’t deliver.Roll20 recently announced their plans for <a href="https://blog.roll20.net/posts/demiplane-roll20-integration-1/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Demiplane integration</a>, which includes sharing content for some companies across what you own on Demiplane and what you own on Roll20, as well as creating a “crosswalk” that will allow users to use the character sheet from Demiplane on Roll20.Demiplane’s character builder was designed to be more modular and agile when dealing with implementing various game elements. One of the games they’ve mentioned trying to work this crosswalk with is Marvel Multiverse RPG.That’s good because the Demiplane version of the character sheet for Marvel Multiverse RPG is much better than the Roll20 version. The character builder is miles ahead, because it’s hard to understand why you have to make decisions on the Roll20 sheet, and it’s harder to modify existing sheets.I say all of this not because I’m not highly annoyed at Roll20, but because I want to be fair and point out that they have a lot of irons in the fire. All that said, anything 5e adjacent would be sacrificed on the altar of getting the 2024 character sheet to work.Personal Axes to GrindIt’s not the first time I’ve had something I backed get either nuked or delayed for multiple years because it was more important to chase big money than to fulfill a promise by an RPG-related company, and I guess that’s “normal” in capitalism, but its never fun to know you aren’t the priority.Especially when you did spend a not insignificant amount of money on a project that may not make the company as much money as another project, but still cost you the same amount regardless of their return on investment. But I’m letting a wee bit of my annoyance at another situation to bleed in.The last thing I wanted to touch on is my current investment. A few years back, I looked at Shard Tabletop, and even though I didn’t do a deep dive until recently, even back then, I was convinced a dedicated 5e SRD site was much better for running the game than an “everything” site.Decision PointsFrom the time I looked at it then, to now, Shard has only gotten better at implementing how 5e games should run. I don’t expect that they will work for everyone, but for how my brain works and for how I play and run games, I’m much happier with how Shard works.However, when I was ramping up to move my games online, one of the considerations I had to make was how all the material I wanted to use would interact. Despite liking the interface on Shard better, I opted for Roll20, because I couldn’t get official WotC material on Shard.I could get more of my 5e 3rd party material to work natively with WotC D&D material, so I felt like, ultimately, I wanted to go with the less ideal interface for greater flexibility. So, even though I was tempted to go with Shard for my Kobold Press purchases, I didn’t.My current campaign is a 2014 5e game set in Kobold Press’s Midgard setting, where most of the players have options from extended 3e WotC products, so it’s not like I haven’t benefited from having all of that working together on one site.But, if Tales of the Valiant, despite being similar and compatible, is going to be a system that is only fully supported on another site, I want access to everything I can currently use with 5e. Thankfully, the Shard Tabletop Kobold Press subscription allows this.On Digital “Ownership”I would much rather “own” everything I “own” on the site where I use the material. I can’t count on Kobold Press or Shard infinitely offering the subscription model, and once it’s gone, that’s a lot of material that I don’t have access to anymore.Insert [the risk of any particular digital platform closing and you loosing access to things you’ve purchased], I know, I know. But a subscription being discontinued feels like a more immediate concern than an entire site disappearing. The thing that crystallized my frustration at this situation was putting everything from Kobold Press that I own in Roll20 into a spreadsheet and seeing what it would cost me actually to own all of that material on Shard. That comes to almost $900. Ouch.I know it’s a risk you take in the modern era, with so much content that exists “virtually” or as a service. I’m happy that Shard Tabletop and Kobold Press do offer the subscriptions they offer, so I can run games on the site with all of the things I’m used to using.But wow, do I wish I could go back to me a few years ago, starting to ramp up my online game materials and tell past me, “no, you can’t keep everything on one platform, so you may as well go with the platform you enjoy using rather than the one with more options.”<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/5e-srd/" target="_blank">#5eSRD</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/black-flag-reference-document/" target="_blank">#BlackFlagReferenceDocument</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/demiplane/" target="_blank">#Demiplane</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/dnd/" target="_blank">#dnd</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/dungeons-dragons/" target="_blank">#DungeonsDragons</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/dungeons-dragons-2024/" target="_blank">#DungeonsDragons2024</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/gaming/" target="_blank">#gaming</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/kobold-press/" target="_blank">#KoboldPress</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/roll20/" target="_blank">#Roll20</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/rpg/" target="_blank">#rpg</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/rpgs/" target="_blank">#rpgs</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/shard-tabletop/" target="_blank">#ShardTabletop</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/tales-of-the-valiant/" target="_blank">#TalesOfTheValiant</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/ttrpg/" target="_blank">#ttrpg</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/ttrpgs/" target="_blank">#ttrpgs</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://whatdoiknowjr.com/tag/vtts/" target="_blank">#VTTs</a>

EricMy long-standing frustrations with restrictions on digital goods collides with my new <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/ttrpg" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ttrpg</a> hobby with <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/dnd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#dnd</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/TalesOfTheValiant" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TalesOfTheValiant</a> and various <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/VTTs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#VTTs</a> as I try to expand my horizons in the hobby.My thoughts here: <a href="https://www.ericsbinaryworld.com/posts/frustrations-with-digital-ttrpg-sourcebooks/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.ericsbinaryworld.com/posts/frustrations-with-digital-ttrpg-sourcebooks/</a>On digital sourcebooks, VTTs, and the potential need to keep buying the same product over and over....

Gnome StewReview Gnome <a href="https://dice.camp/@WhatDoIKnowJR" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@WhatDoIKnowJR</a> takes a look at Shard Tabletop VTT, based on experiences building campaigns, running, and playing games on the site.<a href="https://dice.camp/tags/TTRPGs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TTRPGs</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/VTTs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#VTTs</a><a href="https://gnomestew.com/shard-tabletop-vtt-impressions/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://gnomestew.com/shard-tabletop-vtt-impressions/</a>

Rivetgeek (He/Him)What are some good places to get art packs for <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/VTTs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#VTTs</a>? I have a couple I downloaded from Roll20, the typical <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/TTRPG" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TTRPG</a> tabletop clutter often seen on landing pages but they're heavily fantasy oriented. I'm looking for some more modernish items but not coming up with much.

George PR<a href="https://dice.camp/@WhatDoIKnowJR" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@WhatDoIKnowJR</a> I loved the episode of THAC0 w/Advantage on <a href="https://chirp.enworld.org/tags/vtts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#vtts</a>. If you like Owlbear Rodeo than I recommend trying Maps via <a href="https://chirp.enworld.org/tags/DnDBeyond" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#DnDBeyond</a>. While the integration with the character builder is great it also has some great VTT features too. - easy map switching - pause map sharing so you can update the map live if needed. - easily controlled fog of war<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thac0-with-advantage/id1643440579?i=1000664655532" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thac0-with-advantage/id1643440579?i=1000664655532</a>

DnDFanaticsWizards of the Coast has been developing their new D&D Virtual Tabletop for several years now. We dig into everything we know about the upcoming VTT. <a href="https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/dnd-virtual-tabletop-vtt/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/dnd-virtual-tabletop-vtt/</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/dnd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#dnd</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/dnd5e" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#dnd5e</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/dungeonsanddragons" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#dungeonsanddragons</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/wizardsofthecoast" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#wizardsofthecoast</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/wotc" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#wotc</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/VTT" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#VTT</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/ttrpg" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ttrpg</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/VTTs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#VTTs</a>

Ken NewquistI am attempting to find a mapping tool that'd be good for creating <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/cyberpunk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#cyberpunk</a> themed maps for <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/Roll20" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Roll20</a> (or other online <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/VTTs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#VTTs</a>).So far, I'm coming up short. Using these sci-fi tiles might be my best bet: Sci-fi Map Tiles <a href="https://www.wargamevault.com/product/203529/Scifi-Map-Tiles" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.wargamevault.com/product/203529/Scifi-Map-Tiles</a>Heroic Maps - Modular Kit: Dark Starship Corridors <a href="https://www.wargamevault.com/product/203529/Scifi-Map-Tiles" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.wargamevault.com/product/203529/Scifi-Map-Tiles</a>

DnDFanaticsWe take a closer look at Maps, a new 2D virtual tabletop for Dungeons & Dragons that Wizards of the Coast recently opened up for testing to D&D Beyond subscribers. <a href="https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/dnd-beyond-maps-vtt/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/dnd-beyond-maps-vtt/</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/dnd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#dnd</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/dnd5e" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#dnd5e</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/dungeonsanddragons" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#dungeonsanddragons</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/wotc" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#wotc</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/VTTs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#VTTs</a> <a href="https://dice.camp/tags/TTRPGs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TTRPGs</a>

Spinner<a href="https://mindly.social/@Jedigirl" class="u-url mention">@Jedigirl</a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/LeGuin" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#LeGuin</a> is one of the few <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/fantasy" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#fantasy</a> or <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/scifi" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#scifi</a> authors who transcended, to be considered a great writer in general. Her prose (rough-hewn in 'The Lathe of Heaven') just got better and better, and by the time she got to <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/Tehanu" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Tehanu</a> her voice was mellifluous in my mind's ear.And I am really into <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/TTRPGs" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#TTRPGs</a> and <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/VTTs" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#VTTs</a> , though not <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/DnD" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#DnD</a> as much. I like designing games most of all.

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