Hey everyone! Lavi and Fran here, from Product and Design on Roll20's Virtual Tabletop team. We're lucky to work alongside an incredible group of Engineers, and over the last year, we were heads-down building features that expand what's possible on the VTT (Map Pins and Foreground Layer being a few of the big highlights). For the next 6–12 months, our focus is shifting to reducing friction in GM and player workflows by making the tools they already rely on easier to find, learn, and use during onboarding, game prep, and play. Continuing our approach to community-focused development, we've been conducting extensive research and working closely with both new and experienced GMs. It’s obvious, based on the analysis of interviews, forum threads, and testing sessions, that GMs care deeply about their players' experience… building campaigns for their table. To that end, the need to test what the player experience will be ahead of time is of the utmost importance. In their own words: "I wish I could toggle between my perspective and the player's perspective." "I want to understand what the feel is for the player." GMs put serious work into building experiences, and we want to remove friction in their workflows wherever we can. That way, they can spend less time fussing with workarounds or feeling frustrated, and more time getting excited about playing. This is exactly what inspired our next feature, View as Player. Current Options Roll20 currently provides a few ways for GMs to approximate a player's view, although each has some limitations in execution: Ctrl+L displays line of sight, but strips away player-specific elements while continuing to expose GM-only controls Rejoining the game as a player gives player-level permissions. However, the GM is still themselves (not their player), so visibility, token access, and character sheet controls may not match what the player will actually see based on permissions. Creating a new account for testing works relatively well, but managing a second login and running simultaneous accounts in a test game can be cumbersome. Additionally, it still doesn’t replicate a specific player's exact experience. The result: GMs go into their sessions with a level of uncertainty, where avoidable surprises may interrupt the flow of their games. Introducing: View As Player To make it easier for GMs to see what their Players see, we're building a straightforward tool that shows exactly what specific players see, side by side with the GM view, without needing workarounds or test accounts. Our goal is to give GMs the confidence to know: their scenes look right permissions are set correctly players are going to have a great session with fewer interruptions or display issues We've already kicked off user research and are working closely with our interviewees and community champions while addressing feedback from our forum, social, and community spaces, so keep it coming! We’ll be back in a few weeks to share preliminary designs and more about what we've learned and where we’re heading.
