It worked just fine, though I wouldn't do it exactly the same way again, as it's much easier to just have a browser window open with my notes.
I recently bought the D&D 5e Humble RPG Book Bundle, for instance, created PNGs out of four pages pages of the Kobold Press Book of Lairs, and then created custom tiles in Tabletop Simulator for myself to reference.Ībove: Be sure to grab the mod that's just a framed photo of Nicolas Cage. If you use high-res PNGs as the custom art on in-game 'tiles,' and hold Alt to view them as flat images, or zoom way in, they're perfectly legible.
So rather than having a physical DM screen cheat sheet awkwardly balanced behind my monitor, or the Monster Manual open in my lap, I put everything I thought I'd need into my Tabletop Simulator setup, including a tablet open to my campaign notes. I'm not always going to use maps, but they're useful for keeping track of my more complicated ideas.Īs part of the experiment, I also wanted to have as much of my reference material as possible in the game (you can't alt-tab out of a dining room table, and that was the experience I was trying to replicate). I'm arguably making it harder for myself by using 3D models and not just a digital pencil, a 2D grid, and a bit of imagination, but the 'physical' space of Tabletop Simulator has only encouraged my creativity, not hampered it. At the moment, I'm building a multi-layered battle map using hovering boards and a 3D ladder model I imported, and recently, I had some players take on a trio of half-orcs in a game of 'harky,' making them roll d20s to pass and shoot a 'puck' I made by resizing a checkers piece. The best thing about Tabletop Simulator is that only the host has to have any Workshop or custom assets used in the game-it's all uploaded to the Steam Cloud and shared with the other players. Because you can't quite get a perfect topdown view, it didn't really work, but it was a fun experiment. And secondarily, because you love spending hours creatively setting up your play space, which I do.Ībove: I made this board using the Divinity: Original Sin 2 mod tools. So why use Tabletop Simulator? Primarily, to approximate the feeling of being around a real table, with all the goofing off that goes with it: players ignoring the DM and stacking dice, flicking downed monsters off the table, arguing about whether a dice roll was really a roll. It's also terrible at handling editable text.
Clicking links in the tablets sometimes stops working, and the browser is just about featureless: no tabs, no history, no bookmarks. Though the Steam Workshop provides a bounty, I'm surprised by how few high-quality fantasy figurines, backgrounds, and table styles are included by default. More serious players will probably prefer it, and Tabletop Simulator leaves much to be desired despite its frequent patches. is the cheaper, more practical solution for remote D&D: a clean mapping interface, easy access to official reference material, built-in video chat, and quick dice rolls.
My players also had atrocious pings, especially our poor indie editor, Jody, who was connecting to me from Australia. If you instinctively hit Ctrl-Z to undo a line you drew, for example, the whole table reloads, and dropping items near boxes sucks them in nearly instantaneously, making all containers dangerous black holes. It's powerful-and frustratingly janky, which is why I worried the whole thing might be a bust. There are built-in rulesets for common games, but everything down to the lighting and individual object physics can be customized. Tabletop Simulator is just what it sounds like, a virtual table where game boards, playing cards, dice, figurines, and other objects can be picked up, dealt, rolled, and chucked around.