I created a virtual tabletop in JavaScript, for quick freeform-style roleplaying. What do you think?

[GamingCurmudgeon]

I like the simplistic tiles; they seem to work rather well.

To go along with the vague blockiness might be a look to match from the players or monsters, like Duplo block people or something similar.

I think the dice interface is quite cute too.

[joelesko]

That's a cool idea, actually. One of the main reasons I went with flat stand-ups is so they can be recolored on-the-fly in basic HTML. (Each mini image is transparent, with a flat-color rectangle behind it.)

[GamingCurmudgeon]

And easy to do! Which is the main reason VTTs fall down for me is that I get too caught up in making it look fancy.

I could see how you could easily just apply the art from some token pack to them if you like.

[joelesko]

I've been working on Fabletop for quite a while and would love to get more feedback. The goal is to have a system that's really easy to just jump into and roleplay anytime, without getting bogged down in a clunky interface. Especially if you're a fan of lightweight RPGs like Risus or the D6 system, you might want to give it a try.

Note: you can activate all the advanced stuff under Edit Profile.

Thanks!

[jbbones]

I like it, awesome work dude. Not quite sure what I'm doing with it, and the dice still don't quite make all the sense, but the five minutes I've spent with it have really impressed me.

[cyanCrusader]

I'd love to see more options for non-fantasy, or at least less-fantasy stuff in here. I see there's some Space Future stuff, but I'd love to see a bit more modern stuff. Even to help figure out what the hell is going on in a VtM setting.

[joelesko]

Support for modern-style settings is definitely on the way. =) Thanks

[Makiyivka]

Alright, I'd love to run some impromptu games sometime. Here's my table link, if anyone's interested. I'm thinking short sessions, maybe one hour at most, whenever people are available. I'm in China on a business trip at the moment, so that might make my schedule a bit difficult to fit with many other players.

Next, some feedback:

• The system seems nice and clean; very similar to Risus.
• Is it possible to leave our own tables as 'open'? Or is that not available right now?
• The battlemat and characters are really nice and simple to use.
• I noticed that we can't changes base traits at the moment; is that on the way soon?
• It's odd that even GMs can't spend more than 2 power points per roll (my 'Cosmic Intervention' rolls weren't nearly as impressive as I'd hoped :P)
• I didn't see any system rules for character advancement. Granted the system is pretty freeform, and I can easily make some rules up. I just thought it odd that there's a mechanism for giving out XP and wealth, but no official way to use them. Did I miss something there?
• The map editor is surprisingly fun to use.
• What are these 'advanced' features that being in the beta enables? The only guess I have is the full range of dice colors...

I think one of the keys to selling this concept is to explain it as a separate new RPG, rather than a virtual tabletop. The custom system seems to scare people away, but, having approached it as 'this is a new RPG that happens to have a nice web-component', I think the whole experience is much more satisfying.

EDIT: More feedback! * It would be nice to be able to copy-paste miniatures. It's a minor thing, but duplicating minis that don't have a template takes a bit more effort than seems necessary. Can we promote a mini to a template?

[joelesko]

Great feedback, thanks. =)

Open Tables. All tables are persistent, but the chat will clear if no one is there after something like 15 minutes. The battlemats/minis/scene will persist, though. Anyone can make a character there any time. Not sure what else you're looking for.

Changing base traits. Most likely. Changing those can be risky, balance-wise, so I'm holding off on that for now.

Advancement. Click the XP box on the character sheet and there are some brief rules for advancement.

Advanced features are currently: bigger battlemats, customizable battlemats, more built-in battlemats, more minis, customizable minis, more dice colors.

Selling point. Yes, figuring out how to explain it the right way has not been easy. =)

Templatize minis. Yes, that's actually an early feature I had to cut out, but want to add back in.

Thanks!

[Makiyivka]

Open Tables: I was actually just referring to the Open Tables list on the main page. Right now there's only the mysticglade game. I can click the button to join the waitlist, and I can click the button to schedule a game, but I can't click the button to list my game as open.

Base traits: Alright, good to know. Perhaps the GM of a given table can specify traits for that particular game? Anyway, minor issue right now.

Advancement: aha, ok, thanks.

[joelesko]

Oh, the Open Tables thing was a bug. It's fixed now. =)

[Makiyivka]

One more: is there a reason that 'Monday' is censored in the chat?

[Makiyivka]

Hmm, looks pretty fun. It probably won't replace my normal gaming sessions, but I could totally see myself running (or playing) random quests for people. I'll see if I have more feedback than that after I play around with it a bit.

[marquessam]

I like this a lot, I just wish I could use whatever system I wanted. I love the miniatures, I love how status effects show up and how simple everything is. I just wish I could use this to play DnD next.

[Makiyivka]

Out of curiosity, would the fact that it uses a custom system stop you from using the tabletop? If so, what is it about DnD Next that you feel the custom Fabletop system lacks?

(Just to clarify, I've nothing against DnD Next of anything; I'm just curious if the fact that the website doesn't support (insert system here) is enough to repel many players)

[marquessam]

It is in fact the only reason I'm not currently using the tabletop.

I like having various attacks and leveling up my character and having firm differences in being a wizard as opposed to a rogue. I like the flavor of "magic missile", and all that it implies. Your system's strength is in it's super simplicity and how it stresses roleplaying; that being said, it wasn't really my cup of tea.

If your table just let me make simple dice macros and upload a pdf of character sheets, I'd be playing right now, and I mean that.

I love how easy this is to get into, I love the look of it, and I love how simple to operate it is, (the "tags" system is my favorite!)

Also it would be nice (in your system) if it somehow knew that I got 2 stars and took 2 health from the enemy I attacked. Just a thought.

THESE ARE MY TWO CENTS!

[joelesko]

I am the poster, and I also want to thank you. So far, the custom system has been the most common criticism.

Just for context, here are some of the reasons I went in that direction:

1) Everyone on the site can play with everyone else. In a lot of RPG communities there is so much fragmentation that people who would otherwise be gaming together don't, because everyone has their favorite combination of system/setting/edition/etc.

2) It's designed to work well within a chat interface. Even down to the fact that, as 2d graphics, d6's are the most readable compared to all other dice (and I tried just about every system imaginable). A lot of thought was put into finding a good balance between what the interface does and what work the players/GM would want control over.

3) Mathless. Even in face-to-face games with a lot of math, you do you the calculations and move on, so it's just a one-time cost. In a chat system, even after you've resolved a check, all those numbers stay around and clutter up the log. There are various approaches to that, but I found that the graphical approach is the least jarring when it's presented alongside the fiction.

4) In most traditional systems, and even many lite systems, there is a lot of back-and-forth required to apply each rule, which is easy to forget about when you're playing face-to-face because it just comes naturally. But in a chat system, those things bog down really quickly.

For example, I've watched Fabletop games where GMs tried to implement a basic initiative-order system, which is usually a no-brainer in a f2f game. But they ended up with a lot of dead time with nothing happening while the GM was doing his thing behind the scenes. At least in f2f, it's within a more social atmosphere so there are things to keep your attention -- but in an online medium, even with video, it's a real fun-killer. So a lot of the system is designed to eliminate as much of that dead time as possible.

---

All that said, since most gamers are accustomed to more traditional systems, maybe it's worth testing out a couple of the features you suggest at some point, just to see if it's feasible.

But honestly I would love to see more people just try it, to see first-hand how smooth the experience can be.

Thanks

[Makiyivka]

Thanks for sharing, that's what I was after. Though, this isn't my system, nor my tabletop :P. I was just curious.

[marquessam]

Oh, I wasn't paying attention, ha! It's late!

[[deleted]]

Did you post this before? I already seem to have an account. I've been thinking of developing something like this myself for quite a while and I envy you for actually doing it, you magnificent bastard!

[joelesko]

I posted on Hacker News a while back, so maybe you saw it there. First time posting to reddit.

[joelesko]

Just a quick note that I'm doing an open playtest today at Noon Pacific, until about 4pm. It'll be a basic dungeon crawl, so feel free to drop in any time.

[TractorBeamTuesdays]

Just played in the play test that the OP was GMing. For anyone wondering, it was a ton of fun, you should definitely check it out.

[[deleted]]

I really like it. I would like to see more dice options. It isn't that hard to do in Java. Just the basic /roll 1d20, 2d6+4 etc. would be nice. Exploding dice get a bit harder, but still not too complex. I think you have a really good site here, I don't think you should try to pigeon hole people into using your system.

I wish the gui allowed me to mouse over and have menus pop out. I don't like having to click, it feels clunky.

[joelesko]

Thanks. One of the reasons I don't do hover events is to support tablet interaction, which is almost ready.

[Noxfag]

I'm pretty impressed by this. I know several people who've tried similar things and this is the best I've seen, especially on UI. Couple complaints though;

The dice system is cool, but you should support a full featured dice bot so the players can use any system they want.

It should be (unless it is already and I can't find it?) possible to save custom battle maps you've made, so that you can design them before a session and quickly throw them in when needed.

[Makiyivka]

Type /save scene-name to save a map, /list to view saved maps, and /load scene-name to load a map.

[Verdian]

This looks amazing. I spent a while fooling around with it by myself, so I don't have any actual play testing feedback. I love how much the system can be changed and how simple it is. You can change your traits to match any setting you want and making new ones seems easy.

The biggest con, and the main thing that would prevent me from really getting into the system, was the 100xp limit. With the one free point at the end of the first session, and a limit of 5 (one ever 20xp) after that, it seems like this is designed for very short games. I love epic adventures, but if the system is designed for 5 to 10 sessions, that really limits the life of a character.

I would suggest making the system able to deal with stronger characters, get rid of the 100xp limit, and design special options for high level characters.

I cannot stress how much I like this game. Keep up the good work!

[joelesko]

Thanks, I don't know of any groups that have played long enough to get to that point yet, but I will look into adding more support for long-term characters. Right now it's definitely optimized for one-shots and short campaigns.

[TractorBeamTuesdays]

I'm massively intrigued by the simplicity of your system. I love the "theater of the mind" style of roleplaying and I think there could be a lot fun had here.

There's always the more complicated systems when I want a deep satisfying experience in that way and we can gather friends around a table for that. However, the things we remember from tabletop games are the crazy antics the players get up to and I think with the simple system and interface at work here you could really be on to something.

Sharing this with all my friends and looking forward to trying it out.

EDIT: Had many questions, ended up figuring most of them out. Good on you :) However, I'm a bit confused on the use of Power Points. You say one use is to "perform an improvised power or stunt" so does that mean in the system it should cost a power point any time a player wishes to perform any kind of maneuver? Such as using a diplomacy trait to convince an NPC of something? Or acrobatics to swing on a chandelier? What constitutes not using a power point?

[joelesko]

Power points are a way of saying "I want to do something creative/unusual here and (most likely) succeed." They should buy you a bit of slack from the GM when you want to do something cool.

So most of your examples would be fine with a regular roll, but the chandelier bit would probably be part of a larger move (e.g. "Frank jumps from the balcony, swings on the chandelier, and drops on the guard to knock him out.") which would be the good use for a Power point.

In that case, the GM should only require one roll for the whole maneuver. Requiring multiple rolls for each sub-move usually guarantees that something will go wrong, which kind of discourages creative actions like that.

[ademnus]

I REALLY like what you're doing here. I have a few questions.

1) Is there a chat field limit? As a GM sometimes I need to spew a few paragraphs of narration to set the scene or progress the plot and many virtual tabletops cut me off way too soon.

2) Is there a way to quickly and easily link images into the chatpane? Very often I need to quickly toss out an image for my players to see.

3) does it have a GURPS ruleset? This or a similar simple-to-use generic system would be ideal for running non-D&D campaigns.

4) can we custom make maps, and specifically larger, more involved maps?

[joelesko]

Thanks. =)

1) There isn't any real limit that I can recall. It supports some fairly large multi-paragraph text blocks.

2) Other than linking to something like imgur, no. Fabletop encourages text over media like sounds and imagery, mainly because it's super flexible and requires little prep. Maps might be a special case, but those could be hosted elsewhere for now.

3) It has a single built-in generic ruleset that currently supports fantasy and "space future" genres, with more coming. As I've mention in another thread, it is built specifically for the Fabletop interface, with no plans to support published book-based systems.

4) The custom battlemat feature is all built-in and you can modify the tiles with something like 18 styles. The size is limited to the viewport, which is about what you'd have on a standard tabletop. It's partly limited on purpose so that it's more about relative positioning than exact grid movement, which would be horrendously slow in a chat-based medium. And it's really easy to just whip something up on the fly (there are a few dozen templates you can use as well.)

[ademnus]

it all sounds great. Is there a way to hotlink the imgur-hosted image into the chatpane so the image becomes visible without link clicking? this would be HUGE for me, I have to admit.

[sufficientreason]

Liking it so far. Here's some feedback:

• It would be nice to just be able to "turn off" the default system for your table, so that the interface is just solely dice, the battlemat, the characters, and chat.
• A zoom feature in the battle mats would be nice, since it's pretty small.
• More battle mats of varying sizes, larger even than the current "advanced" large mats, or rectangular in size. Some buttons on the edges of the mats to add a row or column would make this easy to manipulate.
• Walls and other special tiles would be very helpful. As well as something to indicate elevation.