Any Advice for First Time Roll20 GM?

This coming Monday I am running my first campaign using roll20 with people scattered about the nation.  I haven't played on roll20 before and none of the players have used it before either.  Actually, this is the first time I have played an RPG virtually since doing it in chat on AOL around 1995.  I have been busy getting tokens, maps, characters, etc. set up for the first game session. Any tips or pitfalls I should be aware of or to make my players aware of for when we start out?  The game is Lamentations of the Flame Princess so anything OSR specific would certainly apply.

Definitely use the GM layer to your advantage. While I am unfamiliar with the system you are running, you can hide tokens and traps on that layer so they are visible to you but not your players. If there is an initiative order in that game, placing tokens on the GM layer allows you to add them to the order so that when they do become visible they pop into the proper place. Also I don't know if you are going to be using voice chat or not but if you do I would suggest using Skype. While roll20 does offer a built in voice and video chat program, it does not always function properly with everyone. Other than that, just take your time. With everyone being new to the site try not to rush things.  Good luck and I hope you enjoy this awesome place! :D

Good to know about skype.  We are planning on doing voice, so I will see if I can get everyone to make sure we can all connect to each other via skype as a backup.

Using Google Hangout is also a good alternative. Another advice: Don't try to do it all perfectly right the first time. Roll20 has a lot of features, and they can certainly make things easier if you know how they work. But for the first time, I'd concentrate on the map, having a few tokens there to move around, and know how the dice roller works. You can then slowly look into macros, character sheets and linking tokens to them, using attributes and all the nifty stuff, once the basics work, otherwise it might be a bit overwhelming. Advice 2: Make sure the map is actually on the Map layer, so you don't accidently move it when trying to move a token, or tokens vanish behind the map.

Google Hangouts is a good alternative if you have the screen space to work with. Quatar gave good advice. Start simple and work from that. If you happen to get a token behind the map just right click on the map and choose the "to the back" option and that will shift the map to the last z layering.

Great advice all, thanks.  My only concern with the google hangouts was if my players have used hangouts in general before (I haven't).  Even if voice and such doesn't work the best the first run through I just want to make sure it isn't game crippling bad, so 1 or 2 alternates is great. Yeah, I haven't dumped the map on the token layer on accident yet but I have done it to the GM layer, along with drawings and other things, and temporarily confused myself.  I have been impressed for the most part with the ease of setup so far but am waiting for all hell to break lose in an actual play session.  Simple is good, I may be trying to go a bit too far to start but will see how it ends up working with what I have done so far.

Google hangouts is just an added frame layout that eats up a lot of screen space in my opinion. I prefer using the straight roll20 but I do understand that others prefer the hangout. To each their own. When I run my live game, I use skype for ooc voice and roll20 site for the map and dice rolls along with game text but most people here prefer voice for gaming. Good luck and if you have a question then just post. someone will answer.

Even when using Google Hangout for chat, you can still run Roll20 seperately in a different window as well, to have the full screen available. As a player that's not needed too often but it helps as a GM. Setting up a Hangout the first time can be a bit challanging as you need all the players G+ account names and have them as friends etc. But then with skype you need their skype names etc, so not too much difference.

Everything will take longer than you think it will. VTT games definitely do not move along as quickly as face-to-face games, in my experience.

Hey there Matt, Good luck with your session tomorrow!  I started my first campaign with Roll20 back in April, and here were a few things I learned: (1) I preferred Google hangouts over using the native Roll20 environment - it seems less laggy. (2) Certain times of day (nights more than days) are busier on Roll20 than others as the server slows a bit. (3) On every page in your campaign, be sure to click on the gear and 'view page as a player'.  This ensures you haven't set light to darkness or that you have fog of war preventing them from seeing anything. (4) Don't forget to use the Journal functions to define your players.  Then assign your player icons to those characters,  Then give one of your players the task of keying in the initiatives for all the other players.  They can key that in while you key in monster initiatives.  It also gives them the power to move their own icons. (5) Only after you complete step 4, for each page of your map, copy and paste your player icons on every map page.This way they are already pre-loaded and you don't have to do it later. (6) If you are using map pages to display portraits - things the players are seeing, like monsters - don't forget to turn off the grid so the picture looks cleaner. (7) I would strongly recommend you try to have each of your players log in in advance of your Monday night game. Most of my players were required to create a login with Roll20.net before playing, which slowed things down.  By having them log in in advance, it helps a lot. (8) Make sure all your players are using headset speakers.  If they leave it open mike, you often get annoying infinite echoes. Make sure they turn off all background sound - music, television, etc. (9) Holding down the mouse button causes a circle to appear and 'ping' the map.  Holding down SHIFT and the mouse button causes all your player maps to shift to the same spot you are AND pings that spot.  Very handy for getting them on the same spot. Good luck!

Thanks Bob!  I have already done, or at least tried to do (I can't make the players make an account in advance though at least half have, for example).  Can you elaborate on #4 please?  I understand making another player responsible for managing player initiatives, but are they entering it as an attribute or just a general note field to me, or something else?  Still getting use to fog of war and dynamic lighting.  I saved myself some wasted surprises and turns with dynamic lighting by logging in as a player.  I think I will need to use fog of war more to see the best way to handle it with live players.  Having an entirely dark screen isn't good for them, but there are multiple entry points on some maps.  I am just glad I can do a shift+left click hold down to bring all their attention to one spot.  I am expecting that to mitigate issues there, but I guess I will find out for sure in a couple of days. Also, for the journal and characters, I have set up a template for the system I am using and just duping it, though I suspect they won't use most of the fields.  Any must haves or must add macros you have all found?

If you intend to do hidden dice rolls, I recommend building macros for those. I do a lot of dice rolls out in the open, but there are some times when I want the results to be hidden. So I have macros built for that, where only I see the roll results but it also displays to the players the message "The DM rolls some dice behind the screen". It's not necessary, but I like for the players to have that cue that I am rolling for something.

Brett E. said:  It's not necessary, but I like for the players to have that cue that I am rolling for something. Or if you are like me, you want the players to think you are rolling for something but you are just rolling for the fun of it.

Great idea with the dice and a message for the players to see, thanks.

Hey Matt - so how did it all go last week?

It went well overall!  Biggest complaint system wise was voice issues.  We got everything working pretty well at first but one player could hear everyone but his voice didn't come through or would come through poorly (he tried 3 different computers, same issue) and then another player was fine in the beginning but then after he was connected for a little while, say 20minutes ish, he either couldn't hear certain people at all or they would only come through sometimes.  We were planning on using skype as a backup but the way we were going it just didn't work out that time and it definitely changed things having two players who needed to use the chat window in some capability and not relying entirely on voice.  We will be testing something else out (skype, hangouts, ventrillo, teamspeak or all of the above) for the next time. No real issues with layers.  I had one player drawing circles around NPCs he was charming instead of setting the indicator which caused problems when I moved the token without the player drawn circle. I also need to set up some extra maps for random encounters ahead of time. Other than that it was all positives about using roll20 as a virtual table which was great since most people had never played virtually or they were like me and not done it in a very long time.

Great to hear. You said you were having voice problems. If you all were using Tokbox, that is a common occurrence. When you can take a look at using like skype (like you said you were going to look into it). The player charming bit, next time after the player tells you who he charmed, you can edit the token and give him control of said token and should be able to put a status dot on it in the same color as the player's indicator is. This should give a quick heads up on who he has charmed with that dot. Just remember that if you have a problem or a question then just ask. There are a lot of people here that will help you.

If the dots are too small to remember, you can also put an aura around a character, and set the distance to "0". That'll keep the aura circle within the player's square, but still visible easier when you're zoomed out. Or even better, use the "Tint" feature to give an entire token a colored hue.

@ Xanthais : I keep forgetting about the aura and tinting but that is mostly because I'm partially colorblind and tend to ignore things like that but you have a great suggestion.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.  The dot size wasn't the problem so much as I just forgot to apply them.  I suppose I will find out soon enough if size is an issue!

*Biting tongue. Must...not...make...size...comment*  :D

ask for links when player presents you with character sheet. wont believe what a hussle it is to be in the same page with the player

John K. said: ask for links when player presents you with character sheet. wont believe what a hussle it is to be in the same page with the player #Truth I always keep a copy of the player sheets printed out and at my side when I can. It's not a trust thing, because none of the guys I play with pull anything shady, it's just to keep on track with them. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time.

I'll add a tip of my own, though this is really for anyone and not just first time GMs. A lot of the maps I am using bounce back between a 5' and 10' per square grid standard.  I didn't realize until yesterday you can set the size field to things other than whole numbers until yesterday.  Now I can just set it to a size of .5 and I get nice 5' representative squares and don't have to worry about confusing players, messing up with snap to grid when moving tokens or manually shrinking them on a map. For the character sheets, I think its handy to have them whether you are playing virtually or not.  Its not even an honesty thing from my perspective but just a rules one.  Especially with a system players are not familiar with they may just make mistakes, good or bad for them, and this helps mitigate that.