How to prevent players from entering the map in between sessions

Hi everyone, I'm going to start a campaign on roll20 very soon but I'm a little concern about the ability of players to "join the game" (a.k.a. enter the map) outside of the play sessions. I know I can prevent them from writing on the map or moving tokens around by using a blank welcome map, but for example I can't prevent them from editing the characters or the handouts I have put under their control; they could be able to mess around with stats and descriptions. And also they could flood the in-game chat in between sessions and I'd like to keep it clean. As I don't see any reason for leaving the map open at any time, but I see plenty of reasons for avoiding it, I'd like to know if there is a way to give players access at the map only during play sessions. Thank you for any help!

You can clear the chat and should frequently to help with lag issues. I would have a mature talk with your players if this is something that happens with your group. I trust my players they are not 9 year olds. If you don't want them to edit material don't give them the ability to.

There's no need for this. Just tell your players to not be children and behave like adults.

I don't really know my players up to now as I'm running an open call for players, so I don't know yet what to expect from them. I understand your point as with my players in real I'd never been worried about such things, but I'm just curious if there's a way to do it. Also can somebody clarify me what is the need for an ever-open map? Why this choice?

So players can go in and update their character sheets between sessions. Some people do play by post roleplay on the campaign forums in between full sessions as well and need access to their sheet and such.

Since your potential players are not already personal friends, the solution I would recommend is to clearly state your game's rules on the sign-up page: No foul language, no playing with the drawing tools, etc. Whatever you think is appropriate for the game you want to run. Warn your prospective players that violation of your rules can result in dismissal from the game. Then enforce those rules once you do start playing. As for preventing players from altering their character sheets between games, I suppose you could remove their control of those characters at the end of the game session. Then re-assign them the next time you play. But that seems like a lot of trouble to me, and there's nothing to stop them from making alterations during game play. As the GM, you're probably going to be too busy to notice anyway. Really, the way I see it, if you don't trust your players to be honest then they probably shouldn't be in your game in the first place.

Ok, thank you all for your suggestions. Removing and giving back control at end and beginning of every session seem too much trouble to me also. And you are right, they are going to be able to modify the values also in game, I'd probably not be able to notice. I'm going to state everything clearly and hope to have good players then. :) Anyhow for the future, the ability to close the map could be handy in some situations... ;)

Hakan said: I'm going to state everything clearly and hope to have good players then. :) As long as you're willing to do a little vetting, there's no reason why you can't put together a good group of players. This recent thread has some good advice on how to find people who will be a good match for your game: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/742876/best-way-to-match-up-with-players-who-have-the-same-expectations-in-a-game-on-roll20#post-746351" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/742876/best-way-to-match-up-with-players-who-have-the-same-expectations-in-a-game-on-roll20#post-746351</a>

The talk is a good place to start. If you not sure of the players, duplicate the sheets and handouts but do not give them the control on the dupes. Prior to game you go in and compare the two. If the players copy has been changed like the stats or such then that person might be a cheater and could do the same during the game. The other thing you can do after the talk is just trust your players then run the game to your best ability. This is something we do for fun so just kick back, relax, and enjoy that you have players enjoying themselves. It's not like any cheaters are stealing from the gm. If anything they are stealing from themselves by removing the fun for themselves.

Wait, couldn't you just move the "Player Ribbon" to a blank page, or even better one full of Demons, If they do look they will be sorry.

al and Kristin, the OP understands using a landing page, he's asking about a way to prevent players from accessing character sheets/handouts between sessions.

To add onto what Brian said, the only way to prevent the players messing the sheets / handout is to remove their permissions after each session the reinstate them prior to the game unless there has been changes made recently to the permission controls. I was just making a suggestion with my post also.

Oh, I encourage my players to access the journals, I put information in there all of the time, and there is a group journal as well as character journals and sheets, I only give them edit permission to certain items and I periodically copy their sheets so i have a record, major things are recorded in the Gm notes. If I felt they were tampering I would remove the player, back in the paper and pencil days I used commercial modules and found out a player had purchased the module and was using it to cheat, he was gone right away and I never used a preset module again. That was in about 1980.

Thank you all for your answers :)

Hi folks - I've only recently started playing with roll20.net. Love the features. My biggest issue is I like to run a PbP type campaign and we actually use Obsidian Portal to do just that. However, I've been contemplating running the combat turns using roll20.net. If I understand this thread correctly - I should be able to setup a campaign on roll20.net that my players can access whenever they want, without me needing to be logged in, to make their 'moves' and do their dice rolls (and have them logged) etc. Is this correct?

Yeah. I ran a few pbp games over here. There are a few things that help out if you are going tactical with maps. One: Have them declare all their moves in descriptive text then they use the drawing tool to map out their movements. This allows you to see if they trip any traps or such. I do recommend you do the actual moving of the tokens so that if they hit a trap or a bomb or anything in the middle of their move, you can stop the token there and post your descriptive text of what happened. Two: Try not to rely on maps unless you truly need to for they will slow the game down drastically. Three: build your character sheets with every macro roll the characters will need so that all the dice be kept in the campaign area and you can keep all the descriptive text at the other site. (Since I don't play at OBsidian Portal, I;m not sure how they are setup). Four: Use your head and ignore anything I said or what anyone says if it doesn't feel right for your game. Five thru Ten: Refer back to Four. Have fun.

For play by post games you can also make use of Polygon/Line drawings to show planned movement or use the waypoint feature to show a tokens last move.

A trick I'd use is to make an extra, empty map, and move the 'players' bookmark to it when inactive. That way, they only see an empty map. It may or may not mess up player token locations, but even then a screencap would solve most your problems.