this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
39 points (100.0% liked)

rpg

3210 readers
5 users here now

This community is for meaningful discussions of tabletop/pen & paper RPGs

Rules (wip):

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

As a hardcore roll20 hater, I'm not too happy about this. Hopefully this at least makes R20 better and demiplane won't just be killed off in 6 months.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Roll 20 kind of sucks. They haven't made tangible improvements in years for performance, and the gm and player tools are lacking compared to other options despite making money hand over fist.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

Even worse, Roll20 development is not only slow, player made solutions to issues are locked behind a paywall.

Making your customers pay you a monthly subscription to fix your product for you and then charging other customers a monthly subscription to access the fixes you didn't make is a grift so insane it's bordering genius.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

You don't love your GPU being pegged while displaying a static map?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

That’s no reason to hate anything. You just mentioned there are alternatives, just switch to them.

P.S. I am very skeptic of any claim that any TTRPG product making money have over first these days. Especially one with a functional free tier.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

And I’m trying to understand why.

Let me make a comparison. I like Fari as a Fate VTT. Fari is limited to the point of being “bad”, but I still like it for what it provides for free and how they interact with their community. It’s likely related to me preferring to play theater of the mind and using VTT to share art, simplify skill rolls/ math, other stuff that makes the session go smoother.

For that level of requirements, Roll20, Role, Foundry, all offer a decent package.

What is it about Roll20 that rubs you the wrong way enough to elicit hate? Just not updating the product?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

We used roll20, and it sucked, and ruined the experience in a lot of our sessions. You're all like role playing, getting into it, and you can't cast your spells because of roll20. We put money into it, buying shit for our games. They put money into youtuber sponsorships instead of improving the platform. It's personal. You finally get 4h of overlapping free time on a Friday and the adventure won't load. Do you understand now? We switched, but we still hate it. Knowing that they still haven't improved years later just feels like "yeah that's about right". Fuck roll20.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Source: https://blog.roll20.net/posts/roll20-has-acquired-demiplane/?_hsmi=310100938

"We’re excited to announce that Roll20 has acquired Demiplane, the best-in-class character-building solution for tabletop roleplaying games! Demiplane joins a growing suite of TTRPG (tabletop roleplaying game) offerings from Roll20 that include Roll20 Tabletop, DriveThruRPG, and Dungeon Scrawl."

I suppose "hand over fist" is a subjective term, but you don't acquire companies for free.

DriveThruRPG (which merged with Roll20 in 2022) according to https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/roll20-buys-demiplane

Roll20's making some cash to keep their payroll* and purchase other companies.

*the business running

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It’s pretty common to include a stake (ie stocks) in the purchase tender of companies. Sometimes very little actual money is exchanged. They agree on what each company is worth and the owners of the bought business end up with an equivalent stake in the remaining company.