Previous Article - 1. Creating your game lobby on Roll20
We are now inside the Roll20 Virtual Tabletop (VTT). This is where you will be able to play and manage your game. From editing and creating maps and character sheets to making rolls and taking notes, you can do it all within the VTT.
Here is a quick overview shot of what the VTT should look like when you first load into your game. There is a lot to cover, so we will walk through each section of the interface and talk about the components individually.
If you are already familiar with the VTT interface or prefer to learn as you go, please feel free to skip ahead to the "Building Your Adventure" section of this article!
Left-side Toolbar
We are going to cover only a few of these tools for now, as we'll come back to the others later when we discuss how to run the game. For now, we are just going to touch on a few of the most important tools you need to know to build the adventure.
Let's start with the top section.
- These are the Select and Pan tools. These allow you to actually pick up and move assets around that are on the play area (the large gridded area in the middle). As you add tokens and map assets, you will need to use these tools to manipulate and place them. You can also hold the right mouse button to pan around without swapping tools which can save you some time.
- These are the Brush Shape, and Text Tools. These work just like most other image editing programs you might be familiar with such as Photoshop or Paint. It allows some quick access to tools that you can add to the play area if you need it. If you have played in-person before, these are similar to drawing on a dry-erase board.
- The next important tool here is the "Dice Roller" which allows for some quick access to common rolling options from your favorite polyhedral clickety clacks! It starts out in the "Simple Roller" with some quick options. But you can also enable the advanced roller which adds some additional settings you can tweak. Most of the time you will be using the character sheet to make rolls, but this works great in a pinch!
Next up is the bottom part of the left-side toolbar.
This can also be called the "Layers toolbar." Starting from the top, we have four layers to work with.
The Token Layer -- This is visible to everyone in the game and is where you will primarily be working and placing tokens. This area also allows players to move their own tokens using the same Select tool as outlined before.
The GM Layer -- This layer is only visible to the GM and can be thought of as a GM screen that overlays over the whole map. Here you can put secret texts with notes or pre-organize how NPCs and Monsters are arranged before your players seet them.
The Lighting Layer -- this is a paid feature related to Dynamic Lighting. We won't be covering that much here. If you'd like to learn more, please see our article: What Is Dynamic Lighting?
The Map Layer -- This is on the "Bottom" or "Beneath" the other layers and is intended for images and assets that are not intended to be interacted with regularly or moved around a lot. Similar to having a pre-made battle map or flip map. Normally you are not moving the map itself but rather the tokens or miniatures you place on top of it.
If you'd like to know more about all parts of the right-side toolbar, please see our article: Toolbar Overview
Right-side panes
Moving over to the right-side, we have the menu pane. Here you can access critical information and features you'll need to create, run, and manage your game. We'll be going over each of these options from left to right.
First up is the "Chat" pane which is open when you first load the VTT. This is where you'll talk to your players like any other chat software. This is also where roll results will show up from the dice roller and character sheet rolls. You can also use chat commands such as `/r 1d20` (without the quotes) which will roll a 20 sided dice.
Learn more about the Chat pane: Text Chat
Next is the Art Library. This is where you can access your image assets that you upload to your account such as maps or character art. You can also access any art packs that may have been purchased from the Roll20 Marketplace here. You can also find some free assets you can use for your adventure!
Keep in mind, Free accounts have 100MB of storage space for custom uploaded content. For our demo today, this is more than enough space.
Note: Modules, Addons and other types of adventure content will not be included in this section.
Learn more about the Art Library pane: Art Library
Third on our list is the Journal pane. This is where you will find links to Character Sheets as well as where you will make and manage your notes. Similar to how you might read information on an adventure from a pre-made book, this is where you would find and keep track of similar details.
Learn more about the Journal pane: Journal
Fourth is the Compendium. This is essentially a database of information about the system. Since we are using the D&D 5E sheet, it has automatically detected the system and connected that specific compendium. If you are using another sheet with a supported compendium, it should also be auto selected, but you may need to do so manually from the "Game Details > Settings" page mentioned previously.
In the compendium, we can find all sorts of information about rules, monsters, items, spells, and much more. Further, the D&D 5E compendium also supports Drag-and-Drop functionality which can help save time instead of copy/pasting or manually entering information.
It's highly recommended to explore this if you are just starting out, but we'll talk more about how to use it for your game later on.
Learn more about the Compendium pane: Compendium
The next two panes are dedicated to the Jukebox and Collections.
The Jukebox allows you to access free audio files and upload your own files that can be played for the group to hear during a game. This allows for the inclusion of battle music or ambiance.
The Collections provides some powerful tools such Macros, Card Decks, and Rollable Tables.
These tools are not going to be used in this example, so we won't spend much time here.
Learn more about the Jukebox pane: Jukebox
Learn more about the Collections pane: Collections
The last pane is Settings. Here there are a variety of options and selections you can make to customize how Roll20 behaves and operates. You can also enable features such as 3D dice or hotkeys.
Learn more about the Settings pane: My Settings
Page Toolbar
Located in the top right of the play area is the button to access the "Page Toolbar."
Once open you will have a drawer come down from the top that shows you a variety of tools and options.
The Page Toolbar is where you actually manage the maps and scenes that you set up for your game. It is also where you can manage your group and decide which page they are actively looking at. Some quick notes about how to use this page:
The "Yellow Ribbon" that appears on one of the pages shows which page your players are looking at. You can drag and move this ribbon to other pages. You can also see a yellow ribbon in the top right which you can also use to move the party around. This is really helpful if you are using folders and your players are nested in another folder elsewhere.
The page that is highlighted as pink is where you as the GM are currently located. This helps you differentiate about where you are in the game compared to your players.
If you'd like to know more about the Page Toolbar, please see our article: Page Toolbar & Folders