Traveller on VTTs

[First Age]

I'm fairly new to Foundry VTT and, having taken the plunge, would like to play the current version of Traveller on there. At present there is a really excellent system for TwodSix SF roleplaying, using information based from Cepheus. It would be great to get official support for the VTT, alongside Fantasy Grounds.

I've also created a Traveller sheet for playing on the Role VTT.

Great to be getting back into some Traveller. How are you all finding play on VTTs? Which one do you use? (I'm expecting a lot of Fantasy Ground!).

 

[AndrewW]

Not currently using any for Traveller but have used IRC and MapTool.

 

[adzling]

We use FGU, very happy with the experience the developer who is very responsive and putting out nearly weekly updates.

 

[kronovan]

We use FGU, very happy with the experience the developer who is very responsive and putting out nearly weekly updates.

I'll ditto this. I've only had the FGU Traveller ruleset for 3 months, but I've been impressed with the quality of what's there and the ongoing effort made by the Developer. The ruleset hasn't implemented all of the core features to the extent I want, as I've been mostly homebrewing a vehicle-heavy campaign. That said, I've seen enough progress in the short time I've owned it to feel comfortable those features will be there by the time I'm ready to roll.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

How are you all finding play on VTTs? Which one do you use? (I'm expecting a lot of Fantasy Ground!).

No VTT. Just StreamYard.

 

[Ursus Maior]

We use FGU, very happy with the experience the developer who is very responsive and putting out nearly weekly updates.

This looks like a very powerful tool, adzling. Could you talk a bit about the features available for GM and players? How would one categorize, file or structure handouts, worlds, tables etc. to be made available to players? Can a information be distributed to different users in different ways? I. e., are permissions given per character or user?

 

[adzling]

We use FGU, very happy with the experience the developer who is very responsive and putting out nearly weekly updates.

This looks like a very powerful tool, adzling. Could you talk a bit about the features available for GM and players? How would one categorize, file or structure handouts, worlds, tables etc. to be made available to players? Can a information be distributed to different users in different ways? I. e., are permissions given per character or user?

hey Ursus, will try to.

The GM has control over what is shared but cannot share it within individual players.
Chat can be whispered to individual players however and between players.
Files are simply added by dropping the correct picture into the correct folder in FGU's repository (you can create different campaigns and import images into just one campaign or into your global FGU folders where all campaigns will be able to access them).
You can then open them within FGU to add grids, fog of war etc.
Any image can accept tokens representing people, ships etc.
Battles can be setup in advance, ready to go with the press of a button.
Targeting is as simple as dragging a line from your pc to your target and the system will calc all the mods and let you roll 3d dice to determine the outcome.
All the normal mg2e rules are in there (boon/bane, modifiers, etc).
Any attack that hits automatically adds the effect to the follow-on damage roll etc.
Manual text entry is very easy if you want to create your own notes or even copy and past text from a pdf adventure into FGU for your own use (I did this for bt-sht 365 in my campaign).

PCs can be entered manually or created in FGU.

There are records/ databases for all the major moving parts of traveller (equipment, starships, systems, etc) so you can access, track and use them in-game without having to manually enter all the info.

This does mean you will need to buy the traveller books for use in FGU even if you own the PDF or hardcopies already.
I'd focus on the core ones (core rules, high guard, csc).
PoD is due out soon which I am very excited for as my table is about to start it and buying it will save me tons of time when refereeing it.

The developer just added space combat but there's a few more elements to get working (such as crew assignments) before it's fully operational.

let me know if you have any other questions

 

[Illion]

Foundry for me - so flexible and a much more modern look that the others I have seen, which goes well with Sci Fi and Traveller.

I also like the model of pay once and then its yours..

Ill.

 

[ruhalla]

I have been running vtt games on Fantasy Grounds since 2006 the application has grown and developed over time into something pretty awesome.
i have tested out other vtts roll20 foundry etc but always return back to FG.

Here are some highlights of what i like

Combat.
Automatic rolling of Initiative for all npc's or npcs and players.
Single point for information on players and Npcs through the combat tracker.
Token targeting. A player or npc clicks the target he wants to attack clicks his attack and it autocalcs hit or miss you roll damage and
again FG autocalcs damage taken depending on armor worn and type of weapon even type of ammo being used.

Maps.
in Fantasy Grounds Unity maps allow you to create fields of vision you draw walls doors and things that might cause LoS to be broken
the map reveals the area as the Token moves around the map and reveals it only to the player who owns that token.

Stats and skills
are interconnected a skill that is connected to a specific stat automatically calculates the total sum.

On the Gm's side keeping track of maps pictures and handouts. You can simply have a folder of images that you then show the players
by setting the sharing the image or map or what ever then pops up on their screen.
Npcs
you create fully formed Npcs with stats skills equipment and anything else you need you can then access that npcs character sheet and
roll or do what ever you need to do from that npc.

So Tldr A whole lot of automation for common tasks and dice rolls which speed up combat and calculations very simple and easy way to
share material with the players and everything you need is In the Ruleset so you don't need to keep track of things externally.

 

[shammond42]

We played on Fantasy Grounds for many years, but recently switched off to Foundry. We find Foundry to be just as functional and way easier to use. The biggest advantage is that players just use their browsers, so we waste a lot less time sorting out connection and installation issues. Foundry is also quite a bit cheaper.

 

[First Age]

It's great to see the enthusiasm across a number of VTTs, united in our love of this great game. Happy to see more thoughts and observations!

A good video conference and some online dice rollers are enough to get a game in (I recently dicovered that Chrome has a dice roller extension for Google Meet - all free). Rolling physical dice in trust also fine if you are not sharing the triumphs and despair of our lucky 2d6 with online rollers.

I do think that the variety of VTTs are here to stay, so am keen to see official Mongoose support across as many as possible, so as to encourage more play of the current Mongoose version of Traveller. As a Foundry newbie I'm especially keen to see it extended there, and know that the team providing a Cepheus implementation are excited to offer more with offical 'Compendium' data. But any other places where we can extend availability is great for the game as a whole.

 

[Ursus Maior]

We use FGU, very happy with the experience the developer who is very responsive and putting out nearly weekly updates.

This looks like a very powerful tool, adzling. Could you talk a bit about the features available for GM and players? How would one categorize, file or structure handouts, worlds, tables etc. to be made available to players? Can a information be distributed to different users in different ways? I. e., are permissions given per character or user?

hey Ursus, will try to.

Thanks, that helped a lot to get a better picture. I like many of the services this seems to offer. However, buying any books twice seems prohibitive, as long as I cannot buy a bundle of hardcopy and electronic format for the VTT of my choice. R20 has no native support like FGU, and the GM has to do most of the implementations by hand, safe for scripting character sheets (someone already did that). But arranging handouts, NPCs and other material is pretty easy in R20.

I have a large gaming group for another system, so I bought a premium pass. That wasn't cheap, but during the pandemic, it was worth it. Not sure if I will renew it, though. Except for larger groups, the pass doesn't do a lot for me. So, I'm looking for alternative systems. I won't port an existing game, though, since that would mean I would have to manually transfer all handouts and NPCs. And I'm quite excessive with these things.

 

[Ursus Maior]

It's great to see the enthusiasm across a number of VTTs, united in our love of this great game. Happy to see more thoughts and observations!

What I really like is the option of playing a game online one week, then playing a classic tabletop session the next, where all players can still access information stored online via there own devices. Augmented reality or blended gaming offers so many options and allows me as a GM to do quick handouts on the fly electronically as well as prepare quality items for physical interaction. For example, I used to use my old e-book reader as a prop for finding incriminating documents during a Shadowrun campaign several years ago. These days, I might combine that with cloud stored data and maybe access to a website for some puzzles.

 

[JeffMindlin]

double post

 

[JeffMindlin]

Roll20. I had never played VTT until the pandemic closed our clubs. I have found that Roll20 has the biggest user base and so people know it. Also it was easy to pick up.
I found out later that Fantasy Grounds had traveller material available and so investigated it but found it very obscure, difficult to use and understand. It seems to require "techy skills" which I don't have. In combination with this is the large outlay required to obtain VTT itself and then the trav materials (not complaining about the value, just the raw numbers involved) when I already have paper books and PDFs which I can use on Roll20 relatively easily.
Most of the people I play with play other games too and Roll20 has the critical mass IMO. It would be difficult to persuade them to shift just for Trav.
Would love to see trav content released on Roll20.

 

[gilthy]

Like JeffMindlin, I'm playing on Roll20, for very similar reasons.

Long-running campaign (since 2014), with me as the GM since early 2019. We used to play in person, but then the pandemic and lockdown came (I'm in the Netherlands), and thus we switched to playing online. Most of the other players also use Roll20 for their Pathfinder campaign (which I'm not in). I find Roll20 relatively easy to use. I can drop in images or maps to share, the players roll their dice in Roll20, most players use the Roll20 Mongoose Traveller 2 sheets (which work well enough), though one is still (only) using his paper sheet. We chat on Roll20, but have switched to Discord for voice and video. Roll20 was occasionally glitchy on the video for some of our group. It's an advantage that Roll20 just works in the browser. I'm using a site I've set up on Obsidian Portal to disseminate background info to my players, and keep a log of their adventures. I started doing that in Roll20, but I had already set up that site. And we use Travellermap.com, a website to handle most of the trade interaction, and some Google Sheets.

As the GM, I'm still using my physical books + PDFs. I've looked into using Foundry, but the up-front investment in both the tool as well as (possibly) buying rules and modules and such again is quite a barrier. I rather spend my money on new books and supplements from Mongoose (or third party ones on DriveThru).

I also expect that once we're all vaccinated and the pandemic retreats enough, that we'll move back to playing in person again, and thus will stop using a VTT. I'll keep using Obsidian Portal (or something similar) for the adventure log and background info.

On the one hand, more Traveller stuff on Roll20 would be great. On the other hand, I don't see myself dropping money on the VTT version of a book I already own in physical and/or PDF format, especially if that amount is as high as most of the D&D or Pathfinder items I see on the Roll20 Marketplace. I get that translating a rulebook or supplement to a VTT takes time and effort, and I get there's a cost to that. The question is how much (and I don't have a good answer to that).

 

[heselbine]

Just bought a Foundry license and I am building out my own house rule Traveller system from scratch, which is a good excuse to brush up on my programming skills. One of the things I really want is to give each player a customised view of their ship depending on their role to make space combat a really interactive team event.

What I would really like is access to Traveller digital assets in a form I can use.

 

[Lurking Grue]

Good golly, that Foundry VTT looks good! Maybe I need to switch from Roll20, that I've been using. There's nothing wrong with Roll20, mind you, It's just a bit clumsy in some ways and the current character sheets for Traveller are not very visually pleasing nor as good as they could be, IMHO. Especially the Mongoose 1st edition one (which I was using when I was running a 1st ed game, now on hiatus). Unfortunately the sheet is clunky and in parts even broken. If I had any programming knowledge, I would make a new one immediately, but alas I do not - at least not in as much as to be able to craft something rivalling that Foundry charcarect sheet shown above.

Of course having a snazzy and smoothly functioning character sheet is not a requirement for a good VTT experience. The first games of Traveller I ran on Roll20, years ago, where done without real character sheets and no auto-calc wizardy or such. Just using character sheets made with Roll20's text editor and few dice macros (roll 2D6 with a query for modifiers, basically) was all and it went all right. However, having a pretty looking and widely functional character sheet does help, a lot in fact, and I would really like to have something like the Foundry character sheet in Roll20. Maybe I just need to switch my games to Foundry...

 

[First Age]

Just bought a Foundry license and I am building out my own house rule Traveller system from scratch, which is a good excuse to brush up on my programming skills. One of the things I really want is to give each player a customised view of their ship depending on their role to make space combat a really interactive team event.

What I would really like is access to Traveller digital assets in a form I can use.

Exciting to see another developing Traveller in the Foundry, and from scratch too! I agree, it would be great to see Mongoose provide, at some sort of cost, assets for Foundry.

As the GM, I'm still using my physical books + PDFs. I've looked into using Foundry, but the up-front investment in both the tool as well as (possibly) buying rules and modules and such again is quite a barrier. I rather spend my money on new books and supplements from Mongoose (or third party ones on DriveThru).

I went into Foundry for the one off cost of owning it, rather then going Pro for the Roll20 Subscription, linked with me just preferring the interface and aesthetics. Both platforms will deliver a cool game, I have no doubt. Yes' I hear you about having to re-purchase a different sort of digital of the same stuff you've already bought in PDF and good old book form. That would be true regardless of platform. I'm currently enjoying building a game of MgT2e in Foundry with just the free system sheet. I'd like some more automation, especially around the starships, but it will come and doesn't get in the way of running a game on there.

Mongoose Traveller assets on both Roll20 and Foundry, in addition to Fantasy Grounds, would be sweet.

 

[heselbine]

It's interesting to see Foundry is ahead of Roll20 as I post. That I find surprising.