I have looked at this extensively and other VTTs for an internet campaign, and while it is very impressive, there are a few things preventing me from using this myself.<p>1. No fog of war. You can create zones that have toggling visibility, but its cumbersome and not automatic.<p>2. No cyberpunk/modern assets. They did make their stretch goal so this will be arriving eventually.<p>3. No custom audio streaming. I believe you can play music and sounds but only what came with it.<p>4. Expensive for players at $35aud. I don't mind spending money for resources as a DM, but there should be a player-only version that's much cheaper/free. I would rather pay $120aud if it meant my players didn't have to.<p>Currently as it stands for me, the best option for a VTT is Foundry[1]. It has everything I mentioned prior and more. Pair that with Dungeondraft[2] and the mountains of free content packs at Cartography Assets[3], you have everything you could ever need for running an internet campaign. None of these require a subscription and are imo the best bang for buck you can get for a VTT setup.<p>When Talespire addresses my current pet peeves, I will likely switch, but for now it's just not viable for me.<p>[1] <a href="https://foundryvtt.com" rel="nofollow">https://foundryvtt.com</a><p>[2] <a href="https://dungeondraft.net/" rel="nofollow">https://dungeondraft.net/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://cartographyassets.com/asset-category/specific-assets/dungeondraft/" rel="nofollow">https://cartographyassets.com/asset-category/specific-assets...</a><p>edit: formatting
While (as I understand it) Talespire isn’t written in Common Lisp, one of its main developers often explores solutions for the software in CL, and has written some cool REPL-based shader tools in Lisp. He streams his coding sessions and some Lisp tutorials here: <a href="https://youtube.com/user/CBaggers" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/user/CBaggers</a>
TaleSpire really unfortunately feels like someone had an idea for a 3D VTT and implemented the 3D part first, instead of the VTT part. It's a beautiful 3D map toolkit with assets for a very specific slice of RPG settings, but nothing included to help with the actual game mechanics or organization.<p>And while I get that it's still early days, I don't see anything here that to be excited about where it'll wind up. Streamers will get great visuals out of it (they already are, TaleSpire's doing a good job using streamers for marketing) but this is just another fiddly prep timesink for everyone else that would be better spent setting up characters, locations, plots, etc.
TaleSpire beautiful but I've always found I actually want something simple for RPG playing which is why so many players are using tools like Roll20. In my experience not handling rules is a strength though, as someone who wants to try new RPGs and plays with homebrew the platforms that run the rules for me work against me because unless I implement every homebrew weapon, creature, etc. into the application I'm double checking every roll anyway.<p>I built my own entry into the VTT space with that in mind before the pandemic with Tableplop[1] when I wasn't happy with the front ends on what was available at the time. My aim is something free, solid and always online to move tokens about a map with fog of war and a simple dice roll syntax. The 2d maps have a lot of weaknesses in judging heights and especially with flying creatures but it's unbeatable for the number of existing assets and maps and for making your own with something like DungeonDraft[2] or DungeonScrawl[3]. 2d also makes it easier to draw lines on a map on the fly and will in the gaps with imagination when you need to improvize, something that does not translate to 3d very well but is the epitome of RPGs for me.<p>[1] <a href="https://tableplop.com/" rel="nofollow">https://tableplop.com/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://dungeondraft.net/" rel="nofollow">https://dungeondraft.net/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://dungeonscrawl.com/" rel="nofollow">https://dungeonscrawl.com/</a><p>Edit: formatting
Reminds me of the last year and a half of my life...<p>I play table top rpg's a lot online and it would be nice to have something besides roll20 and the various play-by-post options.<p>The thing is, I think the best thing you could is something <i>less</i> data intensive than roll20 and something more aesthetically pleasing. If the video is a guide, this seem like a thing that an average consumer machine is going to completely choke on. Roll20, the go-to full-featured ttrpg server is infamous for audio, video and general connectivity problem, to the point most people doing video on a different server (zoom, discord, google-meet,etc) and just use the server for simulating the table top. I'm doubting this thing, even more feature heavy, could work better.<p>And just generally, succeeding in making this truly look like a video game might not be realizing the imagination-based ttrpg ideal.
This looks really cool, but I feel like there's just too many obstacles to using this with my group. Right now we use Roll20, which has a LOT of faults. Weird glitches happen basically every session. But it's free, and it works on everyone's computer, and those two benefits outweigh all its faults. To switch to TaleSpire, we'd have to make sure everyone is on a Windows PC (or know how to trick it into running on their non-Windows computer), we'd have to make sure everyone's hardware is capable enough, and we'd have to spend a collective $150 up front. And if anyone else wanted to jump in for a single session, they have to jump through those same hoops.<p>It feels like the sort of thing that will be great for groups dedicated enough to organize it, though.
Still need to get around to trying this. My problem with playing online is not so much the method used, as coordinating everyone and preventing them from being interrupted.<p>This is really easy when you are in a room together. Not so much so when apart.
I guess I'm not the target audience, but I don't see the appeal of skeuomorphism here over something like on-the-fly zone creation tools. Can someone help me understand the market here?<p>I've know that the first thing dice rollers seem to grow is 3D simulated dice, so clearly the market is there.<p>But this would be (for me) replacing an assortment of wood blocks, lego minifigs, scribbled-on index cards, and assorted tokens with a whole lot of additional prep time.
I can speak to this a little bit, as I've been running a game in Talespire for a couple months now. It's very good! Still in early access, so there's a lot of stuff that's still a little rough around the edges or features that are planned but not out yet, but even so, I'm happily running a game that I can craft beautiful settings in that my player's seem to enjoy.<p>Remarkably, it's probably more reliable in terms of performance and stability than Roll20.<p>Even though it can be a little more work sometimes building in 3D instead of 2D, 1.) you'd be surprised how quickly you can put stuff together once you get a little practice under your belt and 2.) there's already a ton of great builds out there, and the developer's have made it SUPER easy to import stuff (literally just copy and paste for "slabs" of content, or you can share entire boards with a URL). Plus, being in 3D makes it a lot easier to handle things like flying, verticality in map design, and just generally living in a 3D world in a way that I haven't found with most VTTs
Fantasy Grounds is where it’s at: the system actually understand the rules of the system. Everything else you spend hours doing manual rote stuff instead of playing the game instead of having fun.
Each player has to pay 20 quid. That's outrageous considering how rudimentary this is compared to free tools. I really don't need pretty graphics in a pen and paper rpg.
Projects that proclaim themselves to be “beautiful” are off putting imo. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, as in a bit full of ourselves aren’t we? I’m curious if others have this reaction as well?
So essentially a "PC version" of <a href="https://fireballrpg.com/" rel="nofollow">https://fireballrpg.com/</a> ?