Brand Noob(TM) - Glaring off-the-cuff suggestions.

Brand new to Roll20, and I just want to say it's awesome. I also have Asperger's and I just love to pick things apart, so here are a couple of MASSIVE suggestions that just knock me over right away. 1) Can Players access their character sheets AND handouts when I'm not online as GM? In fact, can they just access the campaign when I'm not online? (I have some pretty weirdly obsessive players who would probably just come to stare at their token between sessions, and that's okay.) Maybe we just haven't figured that out yet. If so, never mind. They need to be able to. I could digress into how you are going to have more players than GM's and so things for them to do when not directly in session is important in terms of your web traffic, but I probably don't need to - although I just did, so there's that. Players need to access the quest when the GM is away. Needs to happen. 2) Handouts. Sometimes handouts are actually meant to be read. My handouts can be on the order of 15 pages long, single-spaced. I want backstory, I want politics, I want very, very, very detailed maps. I want the players immersed in the setting. So, yeah, handouts need to be an actual, readable, multi-paged document, not a 50% zoomable JPEG - not just suitable for a ransom note, suitable for the Rules of the Esteemed Order of Abjuration, 17th Edition, in the original, unedited Duergar, as it were. 3) Jukebox. Simply need to be able to upload MP3's. Worrying about licensing issues would be irrelevant. Users assume full responsibility for what they upload. There could of course be a size limit. The idea about multiple playlists is pretty great, too. 4) Ability to upload MY OWN background. Yours are fantastic, but there are FOUR of them for 777,000 users. Have no doubt we can produce animated GIF's or large JPEGS for our own backgrounds. 5) FOLDERS in My Library! 6) I know moving the ribbon moves the Players' screens, but can I literally move the party, tokens and all to a new screen? That way I don't have to update hit points, status effects, etc.? Maybe another ribbon for player tokens? And maybe a third for enemies? (Because what happens when everyone, enemies and all are sucked through a dimensional portal and the battle continues? 7) Since we've got the code for all these macros, and we have examples of stock character sheets, shouldn't it in theory be possible to just add some macro buttons placeable from the Toolbox? Initiative, combat roll with power attack, etc.? Eventually API scripts will be at a place that's possible, too. --- So that's from someone who is totally fresh to this thing. Those seem like big deals to me. There's so much to love about Roll20 I wouldn't know where to begin. Happy, happy, happy to be a supporter! Rock on!

Robert B. said: Brand new to Roll20, and I just want to say it's awesome. I also have Asperger's and I just love to pick things apart, so here are a couple of MASSIVE suggestions that just knock me over right away. 1) Can Players access their character sheets AND handouts when I'm not online as GM? In fact, can they just access the campaign when I'm not online? (I have some pretty weirdly obsessive players who would probably just come to stare at their token between sessions, and that's okay.) Maybe we just haven't figured that out yet. If so, never mind. They need to be able to. I could digress into how you are going to have more players than GM's and so things for them to do when not directly in session is important in terms of your web traffic, but I probably don't need to - although I just did, so there's that. Players need to access the quest when the GM is away. Needs to happen. Players do have access to the campaign without the gm. They can only access the page that the player's ribbon is on and they only have access to items they have permission to view/edit. If you are a Mentor, player's also have external access to the campaign Journal, although this only allows player's to view items. Player's can also use the campaign's discussion forum and view the chat archive . 2) Handouts. Sometimes handouts are actually meant to be read. My handouts can be on the order of 15 pages long, single-spaced. I want backstory, I want politics, I want very, very, very detailed maps. I want the players immersed in the setting. So, yeah, handouts need to be an actual, readable, multi-paged document, not a 50% zoomable JPEG - not just suitable for a ransom note, suitable for the Rules of the Esteemed Order of Abjuration, 17th Edition, in the original, unedited Duergar, as it were. You are correct that handouts are limited to having a single image, but you can add lot's of text and you can link your handouts using the name of a handout enclosed in single brackets. ie [Handout A]. You can also add url's and there is a trick of copying an image online and pasting it into the text editable area so that you can add more images if needed. This is more of a workaround for the single image limitation. 3) Jukebox. Simply need to be able to upload MP3's. Worrying about licensing issues would be irrelevant. Users assume full responsibility for what they upload. There could of course be a size limit. The idea about multiple playlists is pretty great, too. You currently can't add mp3 or other sound files to roll20. There are many suggestions made already to improve or add to the current soundcloud-only feature. 4) Ability to upload MY OWN background. Yours are fantastic, but there are FOUR of them for 777,000 users. Have no doubt we can produce animated GIF's or large JPEGS for our own backgrounds. I assume that you are talking about the custom campaign backgrounds. Good suggestion. 5) FOLDERS in My Library! Folders are being added and are currently being developed on the Dev server. 6) I know moving the ribbon moves the Players' screens, but can I literally move the party, tokens and all to a new screen? That way I don't have to update hit points, status effects, etc.? Maybe another ribbon for player tokens? And maybe a third for enemies? (Because what happens when everyone, enemies and all are sucked through a dimensional portal and the battle continues? Linking tokens to character journals allows them to retain any linked settings and can be moved or copied across the maps of the campaign. Moving the player's ribbon only moves the "focus" of which map the player's are on. You need to copy player's linked tokens to the new map. You can move single players (splitting the party) by moving a players name (avatar) to a map. 7) Since we've got the code for all these macros, and we have examples of stock character sheets, shouldn't it in theory be possible to just add some macro buttons placeable from the Toolbox? Initiative, combat roll with power attack, etc.? Eventually API scripts will be at a place that's possible, too. Each game system and character sheet uses different attributes, so it's nearly impossible to have global macros that will work for everyone. I do like the idea of being able to share macros amongst user's of the same character sheet. There are many examples of macros in roll20 wiki and the forums. copy/paste/adjust. --- So that's from someone who is totally fresh to this thing. Those seem like big deals to me. There's so much to love about Roll20 I wouldn't know where to begin. Happy, happy, happy to be a supporter! Rock on! You will probably get more attention for a suggestion by focusing on a single suggestion per post. The roll20 wiki has lot's of useful information and is a great place to start as you learn roll20. Hope this helps Robert. Cheers.

Welcome Robert! Good answers from Vince -- the same as I would say in every case. I'll try to just summarize, add-on, or add something different from Vince's response, in each line-item. 1) You can do this already. Players can enter the "Join Game" and edit their character whenever they want, even if the GM is not present. It's what you described, it's what Vince described, it's what you want. Note that the GM should leave the Player's Ribbon on a "splash page" when you leave the game, so that the players will just see the splash page for the map when they're on. 2) For someone with your thoroughness & longform handouts style, I highly recommend starting some external File Sharing for your group. You could use Dropbox, Google Docs, Evernote, Skype, or another platform for this. I highly recommend Dropbox or Google Docs for you, because of the way they work with sharing files with groups of people using permissions / sharing. The idea is you set up a "Folder" on the web, which your players have permission to access. It can even be automatic: Anything the GM puts in the folder can be Automatically delivered to the players. So you could choose a folder that lets the Players access the items inside (and lets the GM send out a link for each item), OR you can set it up so that everything GM puts in the folder is automatically pushed to the Players. The players can choose to view and receive these items on Phone, Tablet, or Computer, no problem, works equally well. This kind of web folder can contain so many kinds of Handouts that Roll20 isn't near to supporting yet. You can put multi-page PDF's. Spreadsheets. You can put subfolders full of pictures (photo gallery). You can put MOV or AVI or MP4 movie video files. You can put animated GIF images. You can put mp3 audio without the same Roll20 concern about copyright songs (it's your own private folder). 3) You can do this already --- just upload your mp3 to your Soundcloud account. Then find your soundcloud in your Roll20 campaign. You cannot upload mp3 directly to Roll20 but you can upload mp3 directly to Soundcloud (if it fits within the Soundcloud Terms of Service). Unfortunately this means you can't upload copyrighted songs because Soundcloud won't allow it. You can easily use Soundcloud for uploading anything original like yourself playing the lute, or yourself doing the voice of the Innkeeper. Please see my suggestion #2 because you can upload whatever mp3 you want on Dropbox & share that mp3 with your private group using Dropbox. If you need to share a song with your group, the best ways are: Dropbox, or YouTube. With Dropbox you can send the mp3 to your group members. With Youtube you can hopefully find the song already uploaded, which you can paste the Youtube link in the Roll20 chat. If you really need all players to hear the song at the same time, this is possible with YouTube because there are 3rd-party websites that let you Play a Youtube for all the members starting at the same instant. Last and final point about Jukebox -- please vote +1 for some of the other jukebox and sound related suggestions to improve Roll20. I think that this is something Roll20 will upgrade in the future based on the popularity of the suggestions for sounds. 4) A good suggestion --- this would get more mileage if you make an individual suggestion thread just for this (Let users make their own campaign page background images). 5) Folders are coming in the next major Roll20 Update round, which will be called "Update Of Holding". Yay!! Folders will start working in the Journals / Handouts area. Later they plan to expand using folders into other areas. I'm not sure when Folders is coming to Library but I anticipate it will come. 6) First highlight all the tokens on the map you are on. Hit "COPY". Then move the Player's Ribbon. And click that map to move the GM's view to that new map. Now hit "PASTE". This will bring over the Players, and paste over their Tokens with the current status markers, hit points etc. 7) We don't have what you asked, but, there are some pages in the Wiki / Documentation that list various common macros, depending on your game system of choice. So yes, it's still up to you to "make" the macros, but you could potentially copy-paste the actual code for each macro from someone else's work, if someone has shared macros for whatever game system you prefer. The game systems I play (old school D&D) there aren't really standard macros that everyone uses, so I tend to type my own (as GM) and asking the Players to checkmark (enable) the macros I created that I want them to use. If some players write their own macros in addition, that's ok too, the way I play. On #3, I would ask that you look at other Sound related suggestions and lend your vote. On #4, I believe this is a unique or new suggestion that may not be replicated already. I'd suggest you post a new suggestion just for that idea. On #7, you might want to post a new suggestion just about that. Or you might just want to ask around on the general discussion forum, to see if people have already shared a document listing the common macros for the game system you want. Hope this helps

Thanks very much to both of you. Yes, very, very helpful information and thanks for taking the time. I tell ya honestly - I'm just giddy about this Roll20 thing. I've DREAMED of this for years, and it's beautifully executed. There was one thing I forgot, and I may start a suggestion thread for it as well - I found an app called "Combat Manager" that would be great merged with Roll20. Like I say, I'm off to start a suggestion thread or two. Really, I'm not up to speed yet, though, and this thing has all the coolness I can handle anyhow. Guess it never hurts to have a total outsider perspective, so that's where I'm coming from with this stuff. Thanks, again. Good Questing!

Good on you, Robert. Enjoy. By the way I don't recall any other threads suggesting the "Combat Manager" so I think that would be a new suggestion (good for its own thread). There are some other Suggestions asking for integration with a few other sites, I believe mainly some of the sites that can be used for Character Creation and Character management with names like Hero Lab, Myth Weavers; or some requests to integrate with other audio sound services like TableTopAudio and Syrinscape. I'm not sure qhat Combat Manager does, so I can't really answer if equivalent features already exist here, or if it's anything that is coming in the next update. The next Roll20 update is said to include a kind of Campaign Manager / information and rules vault, something like that.