Premade Campaigns

Hello everybody. I'd like to start saying that I'm not a great english speaker, so if there is any mistake on my writting I apologize. The question i have is: there is any premade campaign to start with? My friends and I are looking for starting playing on Roll20 but building from the start a campaign is a "sure fail" for us... If the GM has to learn how to use Roll20 AND create a new party we wont get throw.  If someone has asked for it before I also apologize, I'm not even sure if you use "premade Campaign" term, or you use a diferent word to talk about it... So i didnt know how to search it. (When I say premade campaign I mean a game that you got the maps and tokens more or less created, with some notes or something so you can start playing without creating it). If there is not this possibility I suggest it, even as a paying service, becouse it really worth it. Thanks everyone for reading and I hope i didnt write too badly. (If someone wants to correct me, be ahead) Carlos

First, what game system are you using?  Second, we have only recently added premade module support. There is currently one such module available called Crow's Rest Island. It is a campaign intended for level 1 PCs using the Pathfinder game system. Right now it is free with a Mentor account. Finally, if you have a PDF of an existing adventure I can instruct you on how to get it into the game. It is usually pretty easy. Roll20 is very easy to use. - Gauss

My best advice is to give yourself plenty of time before the first actual game.  I set my game to start two weeks after I got who would be in the party figured out.  That gave me time to figure out the roll20 interface, create a campaign website through Google Sites, create a message board for the site, get all my characters entered onto the roll20 virtual tabletop, get art that I needed, find good tokens and edit them when they needed editing and create macros for common rolls.  This is all stuff that I won't have to figure out come game day and when we all sit down at our laptops or whatever, we'll be able to have a smooth game that won't get delayed because no one's familiar with the site.

@Gauss We are open to any game, but we usually play Cthulhu, Anima Beyond Fantasy, Vampire and D&D... I'll look for a campaign and probably I'll take your word for your help @Aaron It's a good advice... Working a few weeks before the start of the game so everything goes faster. How ever, it would be nice that starting a campaing could have some "premade" options (or copy&paste someoptions..)

I don't want to discourage or anything but creating a campaign takes time. Eg I just started to DM a new campaign last weekend which I started plannig for about 2,5 months ago. I was once told that a good rule of thump is that it takes about 1 h of work to set up a session of 4 hours. Of course this differs a lot between campaigns and DMs and even systems but I have found out that it's not too much off base. You're clearly not new to roleplaying so Roll20 shouldn't increase the amount needed that much. The more you need to use DL the longer it takes. If you're the GM the DL shouldn't cause troubles since you need to be a supprter or mentor to use it. I have noticed that the biggest thing consuming time with Roll20 is my vanity. Now that I have a software to make things look good I have a hard time not trying to make things look good when really they don't need to. Eg does the token really look like the character? No, I must find a better one. Or I don't like the look of this sand, it's too dark, I'll look for something more "suitable" to be ground of this map.

Maetco said: . I have noticed that the biggest thing consuming time with Roll20 is my vanity. Now that I have a software to make things look good I have a hard time not trying to make things look good when really they don't need to. This is probably the biggest challenge I've faced in using Roll20. It also comes from the years of playing MMORPG. The desire to make your maps look just as good as a computer game is very strong. I have to keep reminding myself that we used to have hours of fun with nothing more than a battlemat, a 4-color set of water-based marker pens and some lead miniatures. But back to advice for the OP, you really do need to allow yourself time for the initial build of your campaign setting and overall familiarization with the Roll20 application. 2 weeks is probably reasonable, as others have said. Then, when we first started as a group, our first game session wasn't actually playing at all. It was really more like an orientation meeting. I explained all the Roll20 tools, showed the players how to roll their dice, move counters, update the stats on their tokens, edit their character sheets, draw on the map, etc. I also laid out lots of tokens representing the different character classes they had picked so they could look them over and decide which one they wanted to use for their characters. Same with portraits for their character sheets. It was time very well spent before we ever actually played a game session.

Seems like there would be a desire to convert some of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths to roll20.    I know I've started doing this with the Kingmaker campaign I'm running and I imagine that much of what I'm doing would be useful for other GMs.   Is there a place where people can share resources for specific adventures?

WFRP 2nd edition has a good number of pre-made campaigns and I've been told that the general quality is good to excellent but that would mean learning a new system in addition to Roll20. But the GM would still have to make the maps, NPCs, etc in Roll20 before playing but it should be a lot faster than starting from nothing. Eg the maps are already there, just import them to Roll20 adjust page settings, add DL walls and NPCs and you're ready to go.

Lee, generally what you are asking for would violate intellectual property laws. Sharing ideas is one thing, sharing copyrighted content such as Pathfinder APs is another. It is unlikely that Roll20 will ever provide a means to share campaign resources.  With that said, if anyone ever wanted to build a module and sell it on the Marketplace they can contact Nolan and work with him on it. The author would need to own all or have legal use of all content. Note: I am not a legal expert so I am just stating a general idea.  - Gauss

Creating maps for an specific adventure would not violate IP, unless directly copied from materials where permission to copy is not granted.    Therefore someone originally creating maps for Kingmaker, or any published campaign and sharing that materials does not violate IP.  If you were to copy a map from published materials and share it, then a no-go.  In the case of PF AP's, they sell map packs, so that's a big no-no, but you could share originally created maps for it.  You also have to evaluate risk of infringement vs. risk of exposure. Now, I happen to be in BusDev, and if I were you guys, I'd reach out to Paizo and see what kind of partnership you could develop.  They may be open to a small pilot program where you'd be able to link directly paizo and sell PF Roll20 designed maps, etc.  I know I'd buy a Roll20 PF map pack.  Shit, I bought several of your graphic sets, and they're not that great! Cheers, Lawyer BossDuggo

Regardless you need to find a way to share user created material.  I'd love to be able to share some of things I've done.

BossDuggo: not necessarily. One of the rights protected by copyright is the right to authorize derivative works. I'm a criminal attorney, not an IP attorney, but I would say the answer is not that clear-cut, and urge caution to anyone interested in creating and distributing custom maps based on published material for which you don't own the copyright.

Really a question regarding making a module or pre made campaign. are art assets that are free from the library usable in a module or would you have to make maps and tokens to be able to assemble a module?

chris with most things like this generally the accepted format with using things others have put up for free is to directly ask their permission to use it, if it something you plan to distribute (generally if you say you're going to charge for it they'll tell you where they can shove it though), usually all they'll ask is that you credit them in the work somewhere, but if they don't give permission then you can't use it. As for the general storyline, that's a whole different area of IP law. TLDR artists work when freely distributed is still theirs, you ahve to ask to distribute it as a 3rd party.

Boss Duggo said: ... I'd reach out to Paizo and see what kind of partnership you could develop.  They may be open to a small pilot program where you'd be able to link directly paizo and sell PF Roll20 designed maps, etc... Paizo currently has their own VTT (dubbed " Paizo Gamespace ") in a near-release state, and they're already touting the availability of "official" AP's and adventures with maps and tokens for it, so I don't think this is something that would prove fruitful.

Boss Duggo, even if what one particular user makes does not&nbsp;violate IP there is still the risk that if Roll20 provides a place to exchange resources without first vetting each and every resource it will not be long before another user shares protected IP. At that point Roll20 could be put in a position of defending a publisher's IP (and ruining many campaigns in the process) or risk being shut down. It is not worth it.&nbsp; In any case, we do have a way to share user created material that is vetted and that is via the Marketplace. If you feel the quality of the work on the Marketplace is not adequate then please, submit your own work for consideration.&nbsp; <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/home/becomecreator" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/home/becomecreator</a> - Gauss