Campaign Broken into Modules

Hello, Long-time DM, new to Roll20. Looking for advice/suggestions... In pen-and-paper home campaigns, I create modules for each play session (around 4 hours). Campaign = series of session modules. However, Roll20 uses "Games". Question. So... if you are running a campaign in Roll20, do you create a separate Roll20 Game for each session/module, or do you create one game and try organizing all the content in a single game? On the one side, it seems easier to use separate games such that your content is in more manageable chunks. Maps, handouts, monsters, etc. would be in a more manageable numbers. You aren't scrolling through 200+ pages of maps, aids, etc. On the flip-side... I am wondering if 20+ modules would create issues moving character sheets, duplicating handouts, not being able to see handouts, etc.  Thanks, Brett

As roll20 has barely any support for copying stuff properly I HIGHLY suggest to manage everything in one game. As long as all you want to transfer are characters over the vault for multiple games this is fine but the longer you play, the more invested you get on roll20, the more stuff you add the sooner you will begin to hate roll20 if you have to manually recreates stuff for each game. My main campaign would take me MANY MANY MANY hours to get running in a copy because copying on roll20 simply is barely supported. The problem is: In the beginning you will have likely nothing to loose, but the more you add, the more you loose from game to game.

Hello Brett.  Brett W. said: Question. So... if you are running a campaign in Roll20, do you create a separate Roll20 Game for each session/module, or do you create one game and try organizing all the content in a single game? It all depends on what you want to do. Did you know you can archive  handouts ,  journals , and  map pages ? This allows you to create your modules and archive them when you are not using them. The Archive Handout button will move the Handout to a special area where it will no longer show up in the Journal Listing or in results from the Search field or Tag List Dropdown . Archived handouts can be accessed in the Archived Handouts Dialog at the bottom of the Journal Listing , and can be restored there. Archiving the Character will put it in long-term storage. You can easily return it to the Journal tab by clicking on the "Archived Items" link that will appear in the list after you've archived at least one Character. You can archive any page to save for use in the future.

I have one Game for my Heroes of the Dragon Empire campaign, and one Game for my 13th Age Alliance games. I have 1 Map for each session, often with several sub-map images on it, using Fog of War to hide the sub-maps the players don't need to see yet. 

Wandler and Pat S., Ok. I'm leaning towards a single game for the entire campaign, rather than modules. The folders seem fine for grouping monsters and handouts. Archiving (thanks Pat S.) seem Ok for the pages, although there is likely to be a lot of them. Naming convention might make it ok to archive/unarchive new/old of map pages. Any other suggestions on managing large amounts of content?

Keep it sectioned off and build as you need it or build one a short bit before you need it. Don't go crazy and build 20 "Modules" as you might not get to them. Archive them as you are done with them also. This will let you keep it limited to current and the next one. Reduces the clutter that way. Only other thing I could suggest is if you go to pro, look into creating a "workspace" game that you do not invite players to and using the  transmogrifer to shuffle your work between the active game and your workspace. This would help with the clutter also in the active game.

For me, an individual Roll20 "campaign" consists of one over-arching plotline, consisting of many individual adventures. For example, my Intro campaign is designed to take the characters from brand-new to 3rd level, all while pursuing the same story line. When my more senior group of players finished with that, I ported their characters over to a new Roll20 campaign, and we picked up from there with a new story line. I think it's a good balance between having a Roll20 "campaign" be only a short adventure and having it be one single giant structure that would take the characters all the way to 20th level, or whatever you have in mind. Since you're already a "Plus" member, you might consider just upgrading to "Pro" and get access to the Transmogrifier. As Pat S. says, it's a huge help in managing your campaigns. Similar to what he suggests, I have what I call a "Template" campaign, which has no players and is where I do all my campaign building. When I finish building an encounter scene or map, I use the Transmogrifier tool to copy it over to what I call my "Live" campaign, where my players are. Then, when they reach that point in the adventure, they are moved to that encounter map and can interact with it all they want. But I always still have the original, untouched copy of that encounter map on my Template account. So, if I were to ever start the campaign again with a new group of players, everything is already built and is ready to be played through once more.

I run it much like Brett, I have three campaigns one 2E game that I transferred onto roll 20 almost three years ago, it has been running for 24 years, one 2E game I started here a bit over 2 years ago and a SWN game running just under a year. I also run one shots and then use the transmogrifier to move them into my other games. Copying with the Transmogrifier works pretty well, but it does take time. I used to write things in test games, but I have over 200 maps, 400 handouts and at least 500 NPCs amongst the three main games. If you archive stuff you are not using, you can really fit a ton of stuff without causing any problems.