Announcing Roll20 Characters!

JC said: OMG.   How does one turn this new interface off?   You removed critical information making it impossible to use.  I have several copies of characters for very good reason,and I want to be able to see when I imported them into the Vault and from which game.  How does one now distinguish and manage characters properly under this new interface?? It used to be a functional Character Vault, but now it's effectively useless - see screen snapshot below Hey JC, Thanks for that feedback. We're working on that now. We're going to add back the date it was added so that you can see a better picture of which character you recently added. As far as the game it came from, we're making some changes that will help make this a little more clear but they're going to take a little while longer. Sorry about that. I know it's super frustrating to have to click into each one of those to see which is which. I'll update this thread when we have the added date back on those Character Cards. 

Hey Folks, I really appreciate the feedback we’ve seen in this thread over the last couple days. I have seen a lot of passion and drive to make sure you can keep using this tool to solve your problems. I’m sorry. I should have done a better job communicating that you can still use the old link to the vault; <a href="https://app.roll20.net/vault/characters" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/vault/characters</a> . We specifically left that link active just in case people might want to use it during this transition period. At this point in our shift to Roll20 Characters beta, we can still keep up the old functionality along with the new functionality. Because of your feedback, I see how this beta release changed things for you all in unexpected ways and I see how, in some ways, it made it harder to manage your characters and games. I want you to know that we’re working to get some quick fixes out for these issues. Changes We’re Making in Response to Your Feedback&nbsp; First, we’re going to add the old link to the Vault functionality in the beta banner at the top of the page. This change should make it easier for you to access and will make it available to users who are just learning about the update. We should have done this from the start. Sorry about that. Second, there was confusion over unsupported character sheets. I miscommunicated that and I’m sorry. Those characters that use sheets that aren’t yet supported ARE still supported in Roll20 Characters beta. You can still do a lot of things to them but you can not view their character sheet (YET). We’re going to remove that language so you can see the avatar again and we’re going to make sure the text in the red pop-up communicates it properly. We’re also hoping to give you a way to vote on which character sheets you’d like us to release next. Third, the imported date was removed with this change. This was clearly a mistake and we’ll be adding it back as soon as we can. We removed it because there was some confusion between the words “Added” and “Created”. As we release the ability to create a character outside the VTT, some characters are likely to never have an “Added” date and instead, they were just created. Either way, we’re going to add that back because the confusion around identifying the right character you’ve added is much more frustrating. Sorry about that and I’ll let you all know when that has been updated. Lastly, removing a character from your “My Characters” list when it is moved to a game is a big change. It’s also not the ideal way we’re hoping that works in the future. We’re currently working on our ideal solution which I call “Add to game”. This will keep the character in your “My Characters” list and will just connect it to the game so that you can see it in the game as well. This means that the character data that you see in the VTT is the same as what you see out of the VTT. Someone making a change in one place will be reflected in the other. I know this isn’t exactly how it worked before in the Vault, but we’re hoping this change will be a big benefit in the long run. It means you could have your character sheet open while also looking at the VTT. Or even better, you could be using your character on a tablet while looking at the VTT on my computer. It also means that you can make changes to your character for this weekend during your lunch break and you don’t have to go into the VTT to do it. Demo of What’s to Come The vision for Roll20 Characters, when it’s out of beta, is to allow you more flexibility with your characters in and out of the VTT. And we hope to accomplish that without losing the reason you started using the Vault in the first place. I’m sure you have thoughts and opinions about how to make sure we do it right. I’ll, of course, be reading along in this thread, BUT I would also love to show you how it’ll work and get your feedback on what we’re planning. If you’re interested, you can schedule some time with me to walk through it and ask questions. <a href="https://calendly.com/acsearles/characters" rel="nofollow">https://calendly.com/acsearles/characters</a> The Old Vault functionality With the changes we plan to make to allow you to see your characters in and out of the VTT, there will soon come a point where we can’t support the old Vault functionality anymore and I’d like to share why that is. NOTE: We won’t take away the old vault functionality until we know you are happier with the new thing. In the past, we stored character data in Firebase and we organized that data around each game. For years, this worked fine for us because characters were only ever in the game and it was easy to access them for the VTT. But then we started getting requests to move characters from one game to another and to keep those characters outside of a game. That’s why we created the Vault in the first place. To accomplish this, we copied data from the game in Firebase, and put it in a new Postgres database. We did this so we could store characters more economically. For users, this meant that moving a character from one game to another would create 3 copies of the character: one in the original game, one in the vault outside of the game, and one in the new game. Each of these copies were completely separate and updating one would not update all the rest. For some, this was perfect. It would save a snapshot of that character at that time, but for a lot of other people, it now meant that they would leave a trail of copies of characters wherever they go, and keeping those in sync just wasn’t possible. Today, to make sure that you can view and manage your characters in and out of the VTT, we need to make sure that a character is always a character and that they are stored consistently across all the different databases. Essentially, we’re going to keep all character data in Firebase. This will mean that it doesn’t matter if a character is in a game or not, you can still view and update it. Adding a character to the game only creates a link from the character to the game instead of creating copies of the character in different places. Because of how the databases will need to change, we can’t keep the old Vault functionality around, but what we can do is give you similar functionality as you had before. We are currently working on, what I call, “Add to Game”. We hope this will solve your problems so you don’t need the old vault functionality.&nbsp; We hope to be completed with this work around mid-December which means I want to make sure our plans will, in fact, meet your needs before then. We won’t move forward with removing the old Vault functionality until we’re sure of it. We Want Your Feedback Between now and mid-December, I really want to hear from you all about what you think. I’d love to show you what we’re planning, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. If you’re interested in seeing designs and perhaps a demo, please schedule a time for us to meet . Thank you all again for your passion and feedback.

Gold said: So in the future that you describe, HOW do we keep a "1st Level" copy of my Character, while also playing the "3rd Level" evolution of that character?&nbsp; You seem to be saying that changes to Character in a Game, WILL change the stats of the Character in your NewVault "Roll20 Characters". Ok, but then what is the feature to maintain a Copy of your Character from an earlier state which is NOT subjected to modifications from gameplay?&nbsp; That's a great question! Thank you, Gold. We're hoping that your new "My Characters" page is where you can go to see all of your characters (the ones you want there). This page can have characters that are "IN" a game and characters that are not. We're hoping that people don't just see this as a place to put characters they aren't playing with, but rather a place where they can find characters they want to play with in person or just outside of the VTT. Ultimately, you should be able to see your characters without going into a game (regardless if a character is linked to a game or not). When we finish the "Add to Game" work, you'll be able to keep a copy of the character, or you can connect it to a game. Characters that are connected to the game aren't really "IN THE GAME" they're connected to it meaning that it's literally the same character data that is viewable in and out of the vault. So, to answer your question directly, right now, you can copy a character. That will allow you to have a copy of your "1st level" character which you can keep forever and if you never connect it to a game it will just stay there untouched. With the original character, you can add it to the game and play with it as long as you want. If you wanted too, you could even copy that character each time you level up and then you'll have a backup of that character at every level. The copying is available today, but with "Add to Game" the rest of everything will be available. I hope that answers your question. Now that I've answered your question, let me know what you think! If you'd willing, I'd love to show you in person what we're doing too. Thanks again!

Jarren said: It seems like there's a simple solution to give users both options: a character in the Vault should have the option to be linked or unlinked to a game (or maybe even multiple games?).&nbsp; (I know the 'Vault' name is likely going away, so I'm just using it for clarity below.) If you create a character in a game, and then you want to put that character into the Vault, you should have two options: 1) the option to export a 'linked' character that has the same Character ID in the Vault, and any changes made in the game will also automatically update in the Vault; 2) the option to export an 'unlinked' copy &nbsp;of the character into the Vault which is then saved as a snapshot.&nbsp; Then there should be a reciprocal option from the Vault: if you have a character stored there and want to use that character in a game, you have two options: 1) a linked character or 2) unlinked copy.&nbsp;&nbsp; I think &nbsp;that's what you're saying is the plan when you say "what we can do is give you similar functionality as you had before", but it's not 100% clear if that's what you mean.&nbsp; If that is what you mean, then it sounds like from a player-facing perspective all of the current functionality will remain (unlinked copy characters that can be used as backups) while also including new functionality to have linked characters that automatically update in both locations. Great!&nbsp; If that's not what you mean, then a little more explication would be appreciated. :) I would also make sure that when an option is selected to copy a character between the Vault and a game that there is a popup or some notification that makes it explicitly clear that while it is linked any changes in either location will be shared, or if the character is unlinked that changes will not be shared. Hey Jerren, That's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not 100% sure if those will be the exact buttons, but users will have the ability to make that happen exactly how you described. Part of the problem that we're trying to solve is making all of this intuitive for new users as well. We have millions of people using Roll20 and the old Vault wasn't really hitting the mark for all our users. We're hoping that this newest evolution will be more usable and more intuitive for them. We also want to balance that with everyone that has been using it for so long. Ideally, users that liked the Vault, will be able to use it in a very similar way as they use to. Clearly, we have some work to do here (and we're working on it right now). So, yeah, that's what we're hoping to do, but I'd love to show you more and get your feedback on it. Thanks again for all these questions. Loving it!

TheMarkus1204 said: Will the name of the Game also appear in the new Characters feature? Or just the Added / Created Date? (above a screenshot from the "old" Character Vault that has exactly those infos!) Hey TheMarkus, We'll get the whole thing in there so you have it all. Do you need the game name as well or will the import date be enough? Also, I'd love to show you were we're doing as well. If you're willing, let's chat face-to-face! Thanks again for your passion.

TheMarkus1204 said: As I have multiple campaigns with the same system, the Name of the Game it was imported from is needed! The old Vault has it, so I don't see the reason why it should not be possible with the new one since you need to select the game first and then the character in order to import it... And I do LIKE the two columns now to display characters. What I really DISLIKE though is the huge menu and buttons of the new Characters in the header as it takes away way too much space... (See screens in previous posts) Hey TheMarkus, You're absolutely right. It's not an issue. We'll get that added back in there. Thanks for the feedback! Also, I'm glad you like the design better. That's good! And I hear you on making better use of the space. We've heard that feedback a couple times in other channels as well. Thank you again for your feedback!

vÍnce said: Regarding "unsupported" sheets; it seems that being able to create/edit a sheet outside of the vtt is one of the primary reasons for changing the Character Vault...&nbsp; Will this functionality only be available for official roll20 sheets or will it be possible for the community sheets as well?&nbsp; Thanks Hey VÍnce, That's a good question. Right now we support 10 Roll20 Sheets and one Official Publisher sheet (Blades in the Dark). We started with our most used sheets first because we wanted to test things out in our Beta. We're hoping this will prove to be stable without too many bugs. Eventually, we plan to release ALL of our 1,200 or more sheets to be used outside of the VTT. Releasing New Sheets It's likely that once we're ready to start releasing more sheets, they won't come all at once. We've already had a number of requests for different sheets in feedback and from publishers. We're planning on releasing the ability to vote on a sheet for us to release soon. We'll probably start with those first. More Info on Bugs You might ask yourself, "If you're just showing us the sheets from the VTT, why would there be bugs?" Or you might ask, "There are a lot of bugs in my character sheet, but they were there in the VTT too. What are you doing about those?" Well, I'm glad you asked! For us to display sheets outside of the VTT, we built a new Character Service that will serve data to both the VTT and Roll20 Characters. This new character service is faster and can do a lot more than our previous service. Right now, the new Character Service just serves data to Roll20 Characters and NOT the VTT, and as with anything new, there could be places where we missed support. Usually, this shows up by "working as expected" in the VTT but not in Roll20 Characters. Over the last few months that we have been slowly releasing sheets, we've been going through each of the sheets that we release and making sure they work the same way as they work in the VTT. There were a LOT of bugs at first, but slowly we've gotten them down. Now that Roll20 Characters is live, we think the Character Service is in a stable spot. That's why we released the Beta. If things are truly stable and users do enjoy this new product, we'll start releasing more for sure! Question to You I love seeing people playing new and different games. It's one of the reasons we're doing this. We want people to try more games.&nbsp; What sheets do you use that aren't currently available to be opened outside of the VTT? Thanks again for the questions and feedback!

Jariah said: Can you make it so we can access the character token library when we're making characters? Seems like that was forgotten unless I'm missing something and didn't see it. Currently, adding a photo opens up the pictures on my pc drive and no option to use the token library. Hey Jariah, This is excellent feedback. We've heard this a few times actually and I think it makes a lot of sense. We're currently focused on being able to Add characters to games rather than moving them to the game (and removing them from your list). But we'll keep this in mind as well and see if there's something we can quickly do to make this easier to get to outside of the game. We do want to make it much easier to manage your character out of the VTT and to set up your character for your next session, especially if you're starting a new game. This seems right in line with that. Thanks for the feedback.

Hey Folks, Quick update, we've added back the "Added" date and time. When you hover over it, you will get the game that it was added from. Also, we removed the "Unsupported" message over the Avatar. Now, if you have a character sheet that is not yet released, you can do all the normal things you would have been able to do, you just can't view it outside of the VTT (which is how it use to work in the Vault as well). Thank you all for the feedback. We're still working on "Add to Game". It'll be a couple more weeks for that, but if you'd like a demo of what we're thinking for it, schedule a time on my calendar! <a href="https://calendly.com/acsearles/characters" rel="nofollow">https://calendly.com/acsearles/characters</a> Thanks again for your Feedback

Doug E. said: Is the +Character button in a game staying? At least, in games where it is enabled for the players by the game creator? Currently, that is my workflow as a GM. I don't allow importing from outside the game because I have the players create their character in the game and use the charactermancer and/or the compendium to utilize compendiums that are allowed (example, Xanathar's but not Fisban's for 5E). Creating characters outside the game, it seems, would bypass the GM control of what compendiums are used/allowed. Hey Doug, This is a great point, and thanks for the feedback. This is what we're hoping to tackle in our "Add to Game" feature that will be coming out soon. You'll be able to share a link to a game where you have all the content already shared or disabled as you wish. The players will be able to go to the link and hit a "Create Character" button. That will allow them to make a character using the content sharing/disabled rules you already set. And TheMarkus is right, it will honor the setting on the game currently that allows players to create a character or not. The one thing I heard in your statement is that you might also want to block importing a character, but allow the creation of the character in the game. That's something that we can look at. One thing I've thought about is instead of completely blocking players from importing a character, it might be cool to have an "Audit Content" process where you can see what content a player uses on their sheet so you can see if that character is ready for a game. It's just a thought. Lots of things to think about. Thanks for the feedback!

Gold said: Andrew, There is a strange bug where all my Characters pictures are showing in Black-and-White. Can you make them back to normal color? Thank you for the continued work and communication about this feature! Hey Gold, I'm not seeing that the avatars are black and white. I just uploaded this random picture and it seems to work fine. Can you upload what you're seeing? Thanks!

Gold said: Secondly, we still need to add the Game (Title) on the Character Card. It's still not there in the new pop-up.&nbsp; The new pop-over does NOT show what Game that the character came from. This still fails.&nbsp; It shows what GAME SYSTEM that the character sheet uses. This is not the same as the Game (Title of the Campaign) from-which the character came, and it is not a useful addition since it already showed the Game System on the character card. This should be fixed to show the Game Title. The old Vault shows the Date and the Game Title (the campaign's name).&nbsp; Let's remember Roll20 changed the term from Campaigns to Games, years ago. When people say they want to know what "Game" that the character came from, this doesn't mean the game system, it means we want to know which GM/group/experience/campaign that the character came from. For example let's say I KNOW it's another copy of my usual 5E character named Bill The Killer, but was it the one I played in Ravenloft 5E "The Horror Campaign", or the Humblewood campaign called "Everyone is animals" where I reused the same name, "Bill the Kill"?&nbsp; Hey Gold, You're right! We missed it. I saw it working with the game title but for some reason it's not right now. We're looking into it. Sorry about that. We'll get it fixed. Thanks for keeping us honest!

TheMarkus1204 said: This is what it looks for me: As you can see, the images of the non-supported sheets are in Black &amp; White... Gotcha, I forgot we did that. I'll make sure those are in color. Thanks for catching that so quickly! a

Ok, we just updated and now you should be able to see the Game Title in a hover. TheMarkus, thanks for your feedback on that. You're right, there is space on that card. For now, we're going to leave it in the hover. We hope this will give you the information you need for now and we'll continue to listen to the feedback on future improvements. If you'd like to talk more, let's schedule a time to meet!&nbsp; <a href="https://calendly.com/acsearles/characters" rel="nofollow">https://calendly.com/acsearles/characters</a> Thanks again to everyone for your feedback!