Not Enough Benefits For Subscribing As Non-Campaign Host

Well, this is the second time I have subscribed and cancelled my subscription at the end of the month. This is mostly because my hosted campaign ended because of lack of free time on my part. I would love to stay subscribed, but I feel like there is absolutely no incentive to do so if you are not a game host since almost all of the member benefits apply to campaigns you host only. There really need to be some features for the players to make use of that would justify subscribing for more than just supporting the Roll20 team. I am just going to toss out a few possibilities to get the ball rolling. I have no idea how each of these would be implemented necessarily, or if they are a good idea, but its a start. Dynamic Lighting - If I pay at a mentor level, why should I not be able to enjoy dynamic lighting in all the campaigns I play? Why is my only choice to pay for a person, who is typically a stranger and who may kick me from the party at a moments notice, just to be able to enjoy this feature? Yes, I know this isn't so simple to accomplish, but there needs to be a way to make this happen. Roll20 Hosted Character Sheets - Why not offer a nice character sheet system for members who pay that could be pulled up in game or accessed on another tab? How about something akin to what is offered by mythweavers but more readily integrated into this system and allows an uploaded image for the avatar and a space for uploading a token that the DM can then use with one click in his game? Maybe make it more advanced so that it could incorporate a player journal system for people to write their back-stories on and log their game adventures. Obviously this would be something more expansive than the current character sheet system and could be accessed out of game and linked with a url. Chat Effects - How about letting the subscribers get different chat colors and chat effects when posting on the forums and when playing in game? Just throwing the idea on the table. Tablet Mode - Please look into this for windows tablets too. I own a surface pro. That's all I got right now. If anyone posts their own suggestions, I will be happy to add them to the list.

Subscribers can use Android and Apple tablets regardless of the status of the owner of the campaign. Regarding the Surface Pro, I have heard that one person was able to use Roll20 on it in Chrome. But, that is not a supported tablet at this time. - Gauss

How would a subscriber player see dynamic lighting on a game if the GM does not use it? and if the GM does use it, the player gets to see it, right? or am I making dynamic lighting for my players for no reason?

Who PhD. said: How would a subscriber player see dynamic lighting on a game if the GM does not use it? and if the GM does use it, the player gets to see it, right? or am I making dynamic lighting for my players for no reason? I was thinking more along the lines that if one person has it, the DM can utilize that feature. Maybe limit it so that it only happens on a mentor subscription.

Zerocaliber said: Who PhD. said: How would a subscriber player see dynamic lighting on a game if the GM does not use it? and if the GM does use it, the player gets to see it, right? or am I making dynamic lighting for my players for no reason? I was thinking more along the lines that if one person has it, the DM can utilize that feature. Maybe limit it so that it only happens on a mentor subscription. This does sound like a good idea if you are a player in a campaign and a mentor (maybe subscriber) you should be able to press a button that upgrades the campaign (just that campaign) to use all the functions you have access to, I think this would convince a lot of players to sub that would otherwise not. In before im told you can do this by making the campaign then giving the GM permission in it, I already know.

If that were so . People would sell mentor bonuses and just have them join the campaign idly and just have the rest of the group reap the benefits. Just explaining the downside. Basically everyone could have this for free when its meant for mentors only. If anything only a limit to said Mentor buff for the non Mentor DM like for only one of your campaigns

Jose A. said: If that were so . People would sell mentor bonuses and just have them join the campaign idly and just have the rest of the group reap the benefits. Just explaining the downside. Basically everyone could have this for free when its meant for mentors only. If anything only a limit to said Mentor buff for the non Mentor DM like for only one of your campaigns Truth

Jose A. said: If that were so . People would sell mentor bonuses and just have them join the campaign idly and just have the rest of the group reap the benefits. Just explaining the downside. Basically everyone could have this for free when its meant for mentors only. If anything only a limit to said Mentor buff for the non Mentor DM like for only one of your campaigns Limiting it to one campaign at a time would work, but anyone selling mentor benerfits would just get banned anyway im sure its against the rules to profit from roll20, unless you mean "Let me in your group I'm a mentor." then thats the GM's problem if they want to do that they just create problems for them self.

I think the most interesting idea in the OP is a hosted character sheet area for subscribing players. It needs considerable thought though, and would probably rely on the community gravitating towards some standard templates for popular games, so that GMs could rely on these additional character sheets fitting their games (think of how attribute and ability fields and macros would have to be merged with the campaign being joined). However, hosted character sheets would provide a continuity between campaigns that players currently lack, and would allow players to bounce from game to game with a favoured character, if that's acceptable to the GMs involved. It would also provide the framework for a public repository of pre-generated characters, which could be a massive benefit to Roll20 users.

Spyke said: I think the most interesting idea in the OP is a hosted character sheet area for subscribing players. It needs considerable thought though However, hosted character sheets would provide a continuity between campaigns that players currently lack, and would allow players to bounce from game to game with a favoured character, if that's acceptable to the GMs involved. I agree with Spylke and would like to add: The ability to host character sheets would also be a required starting point for adopting a playing style based around a living campaign. An good example would be Pathfinder Society Organised Play. A Roll20 player subscriber ability to get a hosted character sheet to bounce from game to game would seem like a useful benefit for someone willing to "pay to play" but that does not require all mentor benefits.

How about a new subscriber level? Adventurer : 2/month or 20/year You would get all the aspects of the free account plus the following Your character sheet linked to your account (backpack) Dice skinning Would that be worthwhile at that price and then when you go up to the supporter, you would get all the aspects of the free and the adventure levels, and so on for the mentor level. This would keep it close to how the pricing goes already.

Metroknight said: How about a new subscriber level? Adventurer : 2/month or 20/year You would get all the aspects of the free account plus the following Your character sheet linked to your account (backpack) Dice skinning Would that be worthwhile at that price and then when you go up to the supporter, you would get all the aspects of the free and the adventure levels, and so on for the mentor level. This would keep it close to how the pricing goes already. I think they said that they cant realisticaly have subs for under what they currently do because of payment problems (ie they would get nothing after fees)

still it is a suggestion but I wasn't aware that the $5 month was the lowest they could charge due to their fees.

For players I think it would be beneficial to look beyond the subscriptions model, and try and introduce more micro transaction elements; it's possible this is already in place with something like the market place, as I have not looked into the models roll20 have put in place. For me I am very loath to sign up to any subscription, and I am pretty sure I am not alone. But there is a possibility small chunks from a buffet of items might be more palatable.

Limiting GM features seems odd to me, since I assume that what you want is more people to GM and produce higher quality games, which in turn attracts more players. In my experience people who want to support something don't tend to be looking for big feature incentives so much as smaller cosmetic effects that offer greater customisation and allow them to show their support to others. Making it easy for GMs to share content they've produced, through some sort of virtual currency (available in limited amounts to all players, but in increased amounts to those who's assets are 'bought' or who have a subscription) seems it could serve everyone's interests. Increasing the availability of resources for GMs (which makes it easier to run a game, and hopefully provides a better experience for players), while also providing an incentive to create those resoures and subscribe.

A working character sheet for each game built in would make me begin to pay a monthly right away.

I've already posted this in another thread, but I'm not buying a mentor sub for one reason. It's $100/year for forums access. I'm already buying my gm a subscriber level sub. I want to support roll20, but I don't gm any games so the only thing I'd gain from picking up the mentor sub for myself is access to the forums. I couldnt even use API in my game unless I bought two mentor level subs. It's pretty frustrating.

Dragonsbane777 said: A working character sheet for each game built in would make me begin to pay a monthly right away. Same here. BUT that character sheet would need to be customizable enough so that you could play with different game systems. I also very much like the idea of having your own token, already associated to your character sheet, so that the player can carry it to any campaign he/she is currently playing. Customized dice are another thing entirely, not sure if that can be done (seems to me it would be too much trouble, but hey, I'm not a programmer). However, if this could actually be done, I'm quite certain from my 20+ years GMing that a large number of players (free suscribers) would immediately want a paid subscription for such a feature. Remember: for a player, all that really matters is their character, miniature/token and dice. Players do not handle any of the GM stuff, so that is no way to attract their attention to a paid subscription.

Having a hosted character sheet could open the marketplace to custom made character sheet templates (game type, class, etc) and that would be RAD to see what people came up with, and man, it could make dice rolls just a matter of clicking on your sheet... SO COOL! I'd want to subscribe for that...