Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

talespire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 48 posts

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#11

Post by FridgeSeal »

gerdesj wrote: post #7
Aeolun wrote: post #5

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. This is really easy when you are in a room together. Not so much so when apart.

If only there was some sort of online collaborative audio and video enabled thingie. Cool kids use Twitch I gather (it sounds like a minor STD to me). You could get together with Teams, Zoom, Blue Button, whatever and then play. Organise your online events in a similar form to err ... ... reality and you'll have the same problems to deal with 8) Create a place and arrange to meet. Have a chat and then get on with the…

My friends and I have a private Discord and it’s basically ideal.

We have a text and voice/video channel that’s restricted to just the DM and the players, we’ve all got webcams and pick a time where we can dedicate the attention to the game. Small groups also help.

Funnily enough we’re going to be using Talespire for our upcoming game, but all mechanics/tracking goes through DnDBeyond.

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#12

Post by jfabre »

hresvelgr wrote: post #9

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. 1. No fog of war. You can create zones that have toggling visibility, but its cumbersome and not automatic. 2. No cyberpunk/modern assets. They did make their stretch goal so this will be arriving eventually. 3. No custom audio streaming. I believe yo…

The project is still in its infancy, so yeah they're missing a couple of things. I've been building stuff in it for a while and currently running my first campaign in it.

1. I agree with you, but hidden zones are good enough for now.

3. discord...

4. Meh... I think it's the kind of thing that people complain, but will still pay for.

You can't really compare foundry vtt who displays jpegs in a browser with Talespire who offers a 3d environment. It's like comparing a car to a plane.

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#13

Post by apocolyps6 »

jfabre wrote: post #12
hresvelgr wrote: post #9

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. 1. No fog of war. You can create zones that have toggling visibility, but its cumbersome and not automatic. 2. No cyberpunk/modern assets. They did make their stretch goal so this will be arriving eventually. 3. No custom audio streaming. I believe yo…

The project is still in its infancy, so yeah they're missing a couple of things. I've been building stuff in it for a while and currently running my first campaign in it. 1. I agree with you, but hidden zones are good enough for now. 3. discord... 4. Meh... I think it's the kind of thing that people complain, but will still pay for. You can't really compare foundry vtt who displays jpegs in a browser with Talespire w…

> It's like comparing a car to a plane.

Planes can be impressively fast, but the vast majority of my commute/transportation needs are better served by a car.

These are both VTT software. I don't see a reason why one should be above reproach just because its 3d.

I get it, 3d makes everything harder, but tbh it also makes playing the games harder. I can use random jpegs and hand drawn maps and direct translations of existing tabletop content in Foundry. What are my options for making my own content in TaleSpire? Recreate every map object by object?

I can buy a PDF of The Shady Dragon Inn (published 1983) and copy-paste all of the maps over into Foundry in minutes, or spend as much time making pretty maps as I want. Lets not even get into the incredible modding support

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#14

Post by tessierashpool »

jfabre wrote: post #12
hresvelgr wrote: post #9

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. 1. No fog of war. You can create zones that have toggling visibility, but its cumbersome and not automatic. 2. No cyberpunk/modern assets. They did make their stretch goal so this will be arriving eventually. 3. No custom audio streaming. I believe yo…

The project is still in its infancy, so yeah they're missing a couple of things. I've been building stuff in it for a while and currently running my first campaign in it. 1. I agree with you, but hidden zones are good enough for now. 3. discord... 4. Meh... I think it's the kind of thing that people complain, but will still pay for. You can't really compare foundry vtt who displays jpegs in a browser with Talespire w…

I'm a PC in two games right now but DMing zero (and maybe too busy to start), so I've only built a few maps with TaleSpire so far. But I'm very excited about it, and especially the sites where you can share assets.

There are multiple maps built for Waterdeep Dragon Heist, for instance. The modern, web-augmented experience of playing D&D is a huge change from the game's past, and it makes modules and campaign books a lot more useful, since the community can share so many more specifics than ever before. TaleSpire takes that a step further, since you can also now share buildings and outdoor spaces.

In 5 to 10 years, this space is going to be just absolutely incredible. It's going to converge with machinima. It's already begun converging with independent theater.

I'm super excited about this, but I do a lot of front-end work, so I've always hated Roll20. It reminds me of a terrible app I built with Backbone.js, with all kinds of event bubbling problems. Plus, before TaleSpire existed, I was building experimental maps in Cinema 4D to see if I could enable online games with gravity magic. (TaleSpire does not support alternate gravity directions, but it's still way better for this use case than C4D.) So I may just be the ideal target customer or whatever.

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#15

Post by dragonwriter »

jfabre wrote: post #12
hresvelgr wrote: post #9

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. 1. No fog of war. You can create zones that have toggling visibility, but its cumbersome and not automatic. 2. No cyberpunk/modern assets. They did make their stretch goal so this will be arriving eventually. 3. No custom audio streaming. I believe yo…

The project is still in its infancy, so yeah they're missing a couple of things. I've been building stuff in it for a while and currently running my first campaign in it. 1. I agree with you, but hidden zones are good enough for now. 3. discord... 4. Meh... I think it's the kind of thing that people complain, but will still pay for. You can't really compare foundry vtt who displays jpegs in a browser with Talespire w…

> You can't really compare foundry vtt who displays jpegs in a browser with Talespire who offers a 3d environment. It's like comparing a car to a plane.

Really, you can't compare Foundry which has rules support and rulesets for lots of games with TaleSpire where any rule support is off in the distance. Its like comparing a plane to a half-scale wind-tunnel mockup without engines or controls. Most tabletop gridded rules systems are 2d, so a 2d display covers the parts that aren't theater of the mind quite well; it's the rules support that makes or breaks a VTT.

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#16

Post by luckierdodge »

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.

Remarkably, it's probably more reliable in terms of performance and stability than Roll20.

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

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#17

Post by Aeolun »

gerdesj wrote: post #7
Aeolun wrote: post #5

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. This is really easy when you are in a room together. Not so much so when apart.

If only there was some sort of online collaborative audio and video enabled thingie. Cool kids use Twitch I gather (it sounds like a minor STD to me). You could get together with Teams, Zoom, Blue Button, whatever and then play. Organise your online events in a similar form to err ... ... reality and you'll have the same problems to deal with 8) Create a place and arrange to meet. Have a chat and then get on with the…

We have all that. My point is that both doing everything on a computer, and being in your own home are basically distraction machines.

If someone turns off their mic or walks away from the computer you cannot ask what’s up until they’re back. And the fact that they went to get the door is eminently understandable.

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#18

Post by jfabre »

apocolyps6 wrote: post #13
jfabre wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project is still in its infancy, so yeah they're missing a couple of things. I've been building stuff in it for a while and currently running my first campaign in it. 1. I agree with you, but hidden zones are good enough for now. 3. discord... 4. Meh... I think it's the kind of thing that people complain, but will still pay for. You can't really compare foundry vtt who displays jpegs in a browser with Talespire w…

> It's like comparing a car to a plane. Planes can be impressively fast, but the vast majority of my commute/transportation needs are better served by a car. These are both VTT software. I don't see a reason why one should be above reproach just because its 3d. I get it, 3d makes everything harder, but tbh it also makes playing the games harder. I can use random jpegs and hand drawn maps and direct translations of ex…

Lookup talestavern and talesbazaar those are fan-made websites that host a ton of 3d maps that were built in Talespire and the game is not even popular yet.

People will be able to build their own minis, tiles and props very soon.

Building homebrew maps in foundry might be fast, it still looks like crap. We're in 2021.

Re: TaleSpire is a beautiful way to play pen and paper RPGs online

#20

Post by trynewideas »

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.

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.

Post reply on HN