Roll 20 Audio And Video: How Is It?

Alot of people use Discord for Voice and Video as it is very good for the most part. But my question is, why don't people use the Audio and Video on Roll 20? Im asking because, if I start to run games, it might be easier to simply have everything in one place on Roll 20 without the need for another app being open.   So why not just use Roll 20s built in Video/Audio? Thanks for any insight, Jeff

In our player group, some of us have limited choices when it comes to ISPs and because of that don't have the best bandwidth situations. Roll20's A/V requires a certain amount of bandwidth for each player player that's logged into a game, so once you have more than three of four people logged in, people with slow connections, or even older computers, will begin having audio and video problems.

I use Discord for voice because it is a separate program and ease of use. I find if there are going to be problems it is best to have a different method of communicating.  If Discord malfunctions we have Roll20 as a backup, if Roll20 has issues we are still communicating through Discord.  Additionally none of my groups use Video, so we don't care about the real estate issue. 

Hi Jeff! I use the built in A/V every week for my regular game and have for years. When A/V was new on Roll 20, it was very spotty and problematic. A number of upgrades came and went and it slowly improved. For the last 3-4 years it has been rock solid for our group and is our preferred method. Having the video in the same place you are already looking is much more immersive, and the whisper functions are great. We typically have five people in the feed on all levels of computational power. Unfortunately, those early years of connection issues scared a good number of people off of giving it another shot. That, combined with the number of people who like to use what they are familiar with are what I feel are the main incentives to using Discord. That, and it has some other features they might want to use, like individual volume controls, or a music bot. Personally, I use Discord only when a group I am playing with expresses the preference, If I am running the game, I use the built-in. If it makes sense to you, give it a try. If you run into issues, it's easy enough to fall back to Discord.

I have been using the Roll20 voice and video for a couple of years now without any problems (GM + 5/6 players usually). The ability to whisper between players without having to switch to a different app just makes things smoother. Prior to that, and occasionally with another group who have more constrained bandwidth or when using a different platform such as VASSAL we use JITSI ( <a href="https://meet.jit.si/?rCounter=1" rel="nofollow">https://meet.jit.si/?rCounter=1</a> ) which we find much better than discord.

I have used the following voice and video options recently: Roll20 Discord Zoom Zoom provides a superior experience for my group. Roll20 and Discord consume so much data that it can interfere with the operation of the VTT. Even if your bandwidth can handle it, it's possible that your computer cannot. You then might see frequent video disconnects as well as slow response times to roll dice, update tokens, open character sheets, etc. Here is the bandwidth during a recent session. The highlighted portion is when we switched from Roll20 to Zoom. Later we tried running Roll20 as a Discord activity but eventually switched back to Roll20 and Zoom. Last session, we used Zoom for voice and video and Roll20 for the VTT. The game was the first smooth experience we collectively had in ages. I maximize the Zoom window and set it to speaker view. That sets up all the participants across the top of the screen. I then arrange the VTT window so that it hides the active speaker but shows all the participants across the top. This allows me to see everyone but keep as much of the screen for the VTT as possible. It is not as good as the Roll20 participants overlay (which allows the VTT window to be maximized), but it is better than the screen real estate usage of the Discord activity. The main downside is that Zoom requires someone to have a paid subscription, or you would have to restart the meeting every 40 minutes.

We use Roll20 + Discord, and have for years now. Just to be clear, we do not use video chat, only voice. It has always worked out best for us to have two separate programs, one for the game itself and one for communications. Sometimes, if a player is running late getting home from work for example, that person will go ahead and dial into the game using the Discord app on their phone. That way, they can at least participate verbally, until they get home and logged into the game. Another thing that we have found convenient: I do make full use of the Handouts feature in Roll20. However, if I have a handout or illustration to display to the players, I will first drop it into Discord so everyone can see it right away. Then I will activate visibility for that Handout in Roll20. That way, they get to see the Handout immediately, in the Discord chat window, but can go back and review it later in Roll20 if they want to.

Our player group do the same thing; using voice chat only due to bandwidth issues. Having a Discord chat channel open also allows for the posting of player silliness without clogging up the Roll20 chat window. Brett said: We use Roll20 + Discord, and have for years now. Just to be clear, we do not use video chat, only voice. It has always worked out best for us to have two separate programs, one for the game itself and one for communications. Sometimes, if a player is running late getting home from work for example, that person will go ahead and dial into the game using the Discord app on their phone. That way, they can at least participate verbally, until they get home and logged into the game.

My groups tend to use Zoom, primarily because it is a different app than the VTT.&nbsp; Some weeks, we play virtual board games instead, and having a uniform communication mechanism means not explaining to the less tech savvy among us how to connect to a different service.&nbsp; I also prefer having the video chat on a different monitor than the VTT.&nbsp; We've used Discord in the past, but it had problems for some of our members.&nbsp; (Though it did have the benefit that if one particular player muted their mic, it kicked the GM off Discord and we could plot as a team for a few minutes while he reconnected... =D)