Creating Splash Pages

Hello everyone, Wondering if the community could share best practices regarding setting up a splash page. More specifically what should be the 'page settings' (I.E. standard 25 by 25 or other suggestion).

It's really difficult to pick a best size, due to the difference between screen resolutions, browsers and preferred zoom level. You might find some good advice in  this thread.

Hi Pax. As Keithcurtis mentions, it is hard to recommend page size as each game and group is different. I have used splash pages that range from 10x10 (big enough to shows the game's avatar image with a single token on it that has a macro) up to 50x50 world map. Lately I have been using the smaller pages for my splash page unless my game requires the players to be put on a specific page. Doesn't help much but this relies on a personal settings and preferences which makes it hard to say what is best.

A wide variety of sizes can work fine for a Splash Page. Do you want any special utility / purpose for the Splash Page besides the usual? There can be reasons for making a larger splash page, if the GM wants some extra functionality there. Something neat is, the GM can always expand the page size later, if they have a reason. I would say the usual 2 reasons for a Splash Page are: (1) A cool picture, logo, or scene that's the first thing that Players see and which avoids starting the Players on the initial Map/Page of the gameplay. (2) A place to park PC tokens, during set-up and for purposes of organizing/collecting the party, marching order, and let the Players Ribbon stay there so Players can access their Token in-between game sessions. For that, anything like 8x11, 25x25, 25x30, is enough. Reasons to make a much larger page could include ideas like: Displaying the World Map or multiple maps in different scale (the town, the continent, the world); spreading a bunch of illustrations; a place to keep a Portrait of every NPC that the party has met in the gameplay; GM can put a bunch of pictures/illustrations in the margins, in the background, perhaps hidden under Fog Of War or blocked out by Dynamic Lighting walls, and then the GM can use "Shift-Z" technique to pop-up the pictures, perhaps making a sort of introduction. You can put areas for Players to draw or type things, if you want them to, for example a Poll ("Which adventure do you want to play next? Type your name under the title"). You could easily go to 50x50 and can go larger which will trigger page-size warnings from Roll20. If you put a very large size, remember that Players will initially load at 100% zoom at the Top Left, so put some visible starting material up there. Happy adventuring!

Usually I go with something around 15x10 - it's just a picture and some text anyway.

I find it depends on the group and the stage the game is at. For brand new players I have used a 'tutorial' splash page. Effectively a small dungeon set up with some target tokens, dynamic lighting (if available) and some helpful text describing some of the key functions and quirks of the VTT. This gives them a place to get used to having tokens, working on macros or getting used to the ones I supply as well as moving around a dungeon. For a more established game I've put together things like the below, effectively a place to track the overall plot as well as a nice visual representation of their world: Some games have just had a simple image to represent the theme with the name of the game as a holding page. Others have been blank, with no grid, and a few simple instructions like 'get scribbling out of your system here'. One even had a fully functional game of HeroQuest laid out for them to play between sessions or while waiting. Generally these days I just go for a map of the current area or the full world depending on the narrative.

It's a good idea to keep the PCs' tokens on the splash page, in case your players want to tinker with their token actions. Mine is set to be 40 x 28 grid squares at 70px per grid. Your players will almost certainly need to find the right zoom and centering upon being brought to the page. Here is what I use. It has the two main campaign area maps (world and city) a list of the most recent adventures, the PC tokens, and some recently defeated enemies in the upper right. This is getting a little old, though. I should freshen it up somehow.

keithcurtis said: It's a good idea to keep the PCs' tokens on the splash page, in case your players want to tinker with their token actions. Mine is set to be 40 x 28 grid squares at 70px per grid. Your players will almost certainly need to find the right zoom and centering upon being brought to the page. Here is what I use. It has the two main campaign area maps (world and city) a list of the most recent adventures, the PC tokens, and some recently defeated enemies in the upper right. This is getting a little old, though. I should freshen it up somehow. That one looks awesome :D

keithcurtis said: [...] I sincerely apologize to Pax for hijacking his thread. But: Keith, you absolutely must go into some detail on that beautiful splash page. How much of this is done in an image editing program and how much of it is done in roll20? This is just awesome!

Apologies also to Pax. The maps I created in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I have a  lot of experience in this. The wood grain is photographed from my desk top. The compass and the calipers are created in Adobe Photoshop (with an assist from Illustrator) and lifted from a logo design I developed for Inkwell Ideas (makers of Hexographer/Worldographer) . The book is adapted from a piece openly available from texures.com, as is the torn paper lower center. The writing on the book is either Photoshop or Illustrator, I can't remember. The writing on the paper is from Roll20's text editor, to make it simpler to update. The dice and dice bag are photos from my dice collection. The felt texture is created from scratch, I think. The trays are a Photoshop filter. All of the PC tokens are originals I created in Photoshop, the ones upper right are ones either freely available or adapted from web search finds. The whole background was composited in Photoshop from placements of the source files to keep them editable. Only the tokens and the type are Roll20. As for why I don't have stuff on the Marketplace? I ain't got no time. :) I'm either on commissioned work or at my day job or doing family activities. (or gaming, of course)

Many thanks all for the advice. Great stuff! Apreciate it!