Had my first session!

It's been 20 years since I played but the session went well. The campaign was all from scratch. I downloaded various maps - towns, taverns, dungeons, caves, ruins, country and decided what route I wanted to go. I then built the scenario along a story line that we are all familiar with as players. Being able to place the tokens (images) on the map and being able to edit the info made it such a smooth creation process. I would highly encourage anyone who is thinking of DMing a session to create the player characters prior to the first session. I did this as it made for a great experience for the players. The most boring thing to do is wait while one character is being created, then figuring out the side stats, etc. I would also advise making sure everyone uses a headset. Video isn't necessary. Background noise and nonsense has a way of interrupting the game and changing the game play. I used the Fog of War feature. It worked well. I am going to use the Dynamic Lighting for my next adventure and am in the process of creating it. This website has been amazing - the features and the support. For someone who played in the early - late 80's, it's nice to be able to play online and have an actual 'tabletop' experience, even if it's virtual. As I continue to figure out the features, my sessions will hopefully improve. Tom

Woot!... for it is most worthy of Woot'ness. Glad to hear folks having a positive experience with Roll20.

Many thanks to those who took the time and executed the vision. I would highly encourage the staff to consider an '80's campaign to reclaim'. It was by mere chance that I found Roll20. I was reading some articles on the 40th anniversary of D&D and clicked on a link to view a video of one of the current D&D execs. As I was watching I looked to the right where the suggested videos are and saw one that had videoed a campaign. I clicked on it and that is how I found Roll20. I am certain that there are puhhhlenty of guys like myself, who played regularly in our HS and college days through the 80's, that would enjoy this site and most likely support it. I was fortunate to find you, as I had never seen an ad online. I didn't frequent the D&D resource sights because I wasn't playing so there was no need. Now that I'm on here, I am using those sites frequently to aid me in building my campaigns. Tom

Yep - welcome and this site is awesome. A lot of advertising is word of mouth. I forget how I first stumbled onto roll20 - probably saw a link somewhere. I share roll20 on facebook and try to get the word out to other players I know.

Ah - and a tip - Fog of War and Dynamic Lighting can be used together. I find it a great combo as SOME folks like to "randomly" move their tokens ... through walls. ... ... Fog of War prevents them from seeing anything that they shouldn't - until I'm ready to kill them .. I mean show them.

I use FoW in conjunction with Dynamic Lighting as well. Even if the players don't intentionally do it, sometimes the snap-to-grid will pull their character through a wall while they're moving if they're not careful. Another good idea: Create a "parking page" for your campaign and move the player tab to it in-between game sessions. That prevents any players from logging back in later and scouting out the rest of your map before the next game. I personally don't think my players would actually do this, but might as well remove the temptation anyway. And the parking page doesn't have to be blank, you can put all kinds of campaign background information on it.

Brett, I do the parking page already. I would be remiss in my DMing if I allowed the possibility that happening. :) Paul, thanks for the heads up. Tom