Non-GM Character controls

So I'm loving this so far, but the guys I've gotten in my campaign have complained a bit about their lack of control. They want to be able to create a character themselves, pick the avatar/token, and also edit their own character backgrounds. Is there a way to make this happen? Also, can they update journal entries on their own or will the GM have to constantly update those? I haven't tried anything from the player side, only the GM, so I don't know if these options are blatantly available and they're just missing them or what. Thanks!

I know we've talked some about journal use with players being an upcoming shift. The other elements, time will tell. This is really good feedback, though. Thanks.

Believe me, I don't want these guys having too much power (that's why I'm the GM haha), but I like the idea that they can at least pick the character from the available tokens and they can also make their own backgrounds. At the moment I made 2 journal entries for each character...1 that is Character - True, and one that is Character - Allies. The True one is the background they gave me, the Allies is put into everyone else's journal and it is only what information the character has shared with them (whether true or not). Don't know if there'd be an easier way to adjust that either, or just allow them to edit their own journal entries...but I'm excited to see where it leads! Thanks for the quick responses :-D

I also think this is a great idea. Additionally, the control of them to edit the published stats .. i.e. the Hit Points etc ... the bars and hearts. Thx!

I did a little familiarisation test run with one player in order to know most of the commands and not be lost when we would start the true games for the beta , and the lack of control over the character that my player had was also brought up . But what he pointed out as most '' important '' over the journal entry was the fact that there are no character sheets . Journal entries are fun to know who each character are and what their backgrounds may be , but without a character sheet that are visible to at the very least the player and the GM and the possibility for the player to modify his own character sheet depending on what happens in the game makes it harder to get all the different stats , stats modifiers , abilities , spells , etc . Yes you can have a paper character sheet on the side of your keyboard , but then the GM isn't able to see what are the stats and abilities of the characters , and having your players sending you their updated character sheets by email after each game is still not as practical as in game character sheets . XIII

I'm afraid I can't think of any specifics off the top of my head, but I know I used to use a program to keep track of my players' stats and such on my laptop while we played on the tabletop...it would be a bit inconvenient to have to keep alt+tabbing from that program to this one, but that might be a good filler until they come up with something here :-)

This should probably be under Suggestions, but I also am putting in my support for more PC Token/Character control to the players. Just letting them update their own HP will alleviate some burden off the GM (or you could make this optional if the GM is a control freak ;) ) My point of view is that the character is theirs to do what they want with, from customizing to maintaining.

For what it's worth, I've been keeping character details on a wiki for ten years. Yes, I'd like each player character's page to be editable by the player on Roll20. But for me that is not such a high priority as exchangeable tokens/hands of cards.

Like most of the above comments I would really like to see more options for players to have lots more control (i.e character sheets things, control over stats and auras ect). Riley, your comment about making all players GMs would allow most of these things but wouldn't the players then see everything ( through fog, monsters stats, all maps, ect)?

In the interim, as a GM, I was just going to use those nifty editable PDF character sheets - they're springing up now for most popular RPGs. I'd have a copy and my players would have a copy. Also, we have a potential trio of relative newcomers for our games so having a copy to hand will make it easier to help them too. I'd love to see some sort of editable in-game Character Sheet (attached to player tokens themselves?), but when you consider each RPG usually has it's own sheet, even if it uses the same or very similar system to other games, whilst others are completely different, I can see that being be tricky to implement. Either that, or use a completely blank template that you can fill in with each stat/skill yourself. Another alternative could be a blank space that players and/or GM can fill in with the Block-of-Stats method that most gamebooks give NPCs? But other than sheets, allowing players to handle the HP, auras and journals of tokens assigned to them would be useful.

In the interim, as a GM, I was just going to use those nifty editable PDF character sheets - they're springing up now for most popular RPGs. I'd have a copy and my players would have a copy. Also, we have a potential trio of relative newcomers for our games so having a copy to hand will make it easier to help them too. I'd love to see some sort of editable in-game Character Sheet (attached to player tokens themselves?), but when you consider each RPG usually has it's own sheet, even if it uses the same or very similar system to other games, whilst others are completely different, I can see that being be tricky to implement. Either that, or use a completely blank template that you can fill in with each stat/skill yourself. Another alternative could be a blank space that players and/or GM can fill in with the Block-of-Stats method that most gamebooks give NPCs? But other than sheets, allowing players to handle the HP, auras and journals of tokens assigned to them would be useful. I think that the most common ones should be quite easy to implement , be it a Wizard of the Coast or White Wolf or Shadowrun game for an example , but what they could do is simply allow the GM to set up/write a character sheet for house rules or less common games and then simply give out the sheets to his players , I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be that hard and I really think it's one of the most important things to implement for the release .

Embed Zoho docs into the journal (I only say Zoho because what are the actual odds of Google letting you do it) That should give you enough rich editing control that you could create your own character sheets, and Roll20 wouldn't(shouldn't?) run aground of mighty lawyer-y teams from, um, let's say, "Mages of the Shore"

(I only say Zoho because what are the actual odds of Google letting you do it) <a href="http://www.blogjer.com/2009/04/20/how-to-embed-google-docs-into-html-pages-or-blog-post/" rel="nofollow">http://www.blogjer.com/2009/04/20/how-to-embed-google-docs-into-html-pages-or-blog-post/</a>