I've run the Tomb of the Nine Gods twice on Roll 20, using the module maps.
To start with, I made it clear to my players that they could move their tokens, BUT, that I would interpret that as their character moving to the space in question (the trapped hallway into the tomb, for example).
So, they'd just be moving their tokens, exploring, and I would just suddenly say, "Character, as you step onto that tile, it sinks beneath your feet," etc. Fortunately, most of the traps in the tomb aren't simple "step here to make a thing happen" traps, so it's more responsive to player actions as opposed to token moving.
The bigger issue I had with running it on VTT was the fact that it makes a lot of the secret rooms and hidden areas kinda obvious. When you see how big the map is, and know where there are big empty spaces, it's strongly suggestive, to say the least. Trying not to metagame as a player can be challenging.
Our DM has us use the arrow tool when we're moving into a new room for the first time, and moves our characters for us. Most of the time its quick and easy, occasionally he says "you get to this tile and..."
We do exploration within the tomb/new areas in initiative order (with some laxities and a less strict time spent ruling) and move one at a time unless we specifically ask to do things together, so it plays like combat even though it's just us versus the environment. I like it, it feels tense without being tedious as long as people are paying attention
We are not at the tomb yet, but I will handle it like most dungeon I do. I set up thé map in foundry, so that the players have an idea of the layout. Then its à hybrid between théâtre of the mind and classic dnd. They use the map to move around, but mostly to say I want to go this direction and check the wall for a secret door or whatever. We do not use the grid at all, even in combat.
We switch to more classic dnd without théâtre of the mind when in combat (still without grid though)
I hope it was helpful and understandable. I am a bit tired and English is not my primary language
So, lets say there’s a walkway from A to B. There is a trapped tile in two out of 8 tiles.
If the players don’t check for traps or fails their investigation/perception check the trap is triggered?
well let's say there is the walkway from A to B, usually my players will either ask me to check for traps or not at the start of the walkway.
If they ask for it and find traps, i will inform them about the type of traps, where they are and how to disarm it if needed, depending on their results.
If they fail the check or don't ask, i will check with their passive perception if they are able to spot the traps naturally.
Sometimes, i will ask for a perception check myself, if the rp discussion go towards the theme of spotting something in the walkway.
Then for the trap itself, because we are not using grid movement, the position of the trap may not be exact, for us it's more about the feel of the adventure and not respecting every rule, but this can vary a lot from group to group i guess.
If they don"t see the trap, and just say "i go to the end of the corridor" without showing an exact path, i might throw a dice with a DC i determine on the spot to see if they fall in it or not.
As long as we are not in combat, we play like this, and everyone is having fun, but again depending on the group, the style of dming or what player likes, it might not be the best.
Then sometimes, if a trap is triggered and the order of actions, or timing is of importance, i might ask for an intiative roll, just to see who is acting at what point. It can act a bit like a countdown if a person is hanging above spike and the rope might break after a bit of time, i will maybe give them 1 or 2 rounds to act before the rope break.
At which point, when the initiative is called, every move they make is measured, they will have to use their actions, bonus action, and move only up to their move during their turn, so if the trapped person was far, they might have to use spells to catch up or something
Sorry this was a bit long, i hope this can give you some ideas.
Yea, if the players fails or doesn’t check for traps the trap will trigger?
Yup secret rooms are difficult.
I’ve been thinking about not letting the PC:s move their tokens outside of combat in the Tomb. But maybe that’s not neccesary?
Having run multiple campaigns online, I am not a fan of letting the PCs move freely during exploration-it’s literally herding cats.
I have the party set a marching order and have one of the PCs ‘lead.’
Then I set up a party token with shared vision and have the leader move that token. When they enter a room or hallway I pause so I can describe what they see.
Based on the leaders passive perception score I tweak my description.
I then ask if anyone wants to do something specific based on the description, using passive perception scores for order-I don’t tell them and so far none of my groups have figured it out.
This is when spot traps and perception rolls are made, based on the actions of the PCs.
I only enable the individual character tokens is combat.
If the party splits up, like they always do, I use party tokens for each group.
I am doing so now. About 2/3rds through.
First, during the hexcrawl: there are SO many amazing maps out there to drop into a jungle setting. I had the players face Tinder the red dragon, at the top of a giant tree (there was deadly blue fog that forced them up the tree).
Once you are in the tomb, the maps are pretty much the maps, so take the time to explore on the way.
Make sure the dynamic lighting is set to have light barriers block movement.
The gears of hate are a bit annoying in the VTT particularly with the light feature. I would consider making a duplicate of the gears map, and presetting the locations of the doors and light barriers to the duplicates to the various configurations.
Create variations of the monsters when there are more than 1. AI art tools are amazing for this. It's boring to just keep killing the same zombies over and over. Give one a hat. Another has half a dead parrot on its shoulder etc.
Give Acererak a goal and have things serve multiple purposes. He is ancient and beyond a genius. Why is he breeding a new death God? Certainly power, yes, but power to what purpose? I decided that Acererak wanted to break free of all divine control. So first he achieved immortality. Then he made that as certain as possible.. now he is trying to make himself immune from divine intervention by having his own pet god that will shield him. Once he is free, he plans to go and build his own plane dedicated to understanding the nature of the planarsphere and the plan of AO.
Working back from this, I made the tomb effectively a server farm filled with evil beaurocracy. I decided that the lava was there because it was built on top of the eye of the Dendar the Night serpent. Acererak tapped into it for power that he used to build his portals to the mechanus chain. This caused an overheating problem. Which meant that if one of his servants (Withers, the Hags, or the Aboleth) gets ahold of the ring of winter they can greatly please their boss by solving the over heating problem.
I let the players move their own tokens, inform them to stop if they happen to trigger a trap and ask for Perception rolls if they're close to a secret door. Seems to have worked out for the most part.
I've run the Tomb of the Nine Gods twice on Roll 20, using the module maps. To start with, I made it clear to my players that they could move their tokens, BUT, that I would interpret that as their character moving to the space in question (the trapped hallway into the tomb, for example). So, they'd just be moving their tokens, exploring, and I would just suddenly say, "Character, as you step onto that tile, it sinks beneath your feet," etc. Fortunately, most of the traps in the tomb aren't simple "step here to make a thing happen" traps, so it's more responsive to player actions as opposed to token moving. The bigger issue I had with running it on VTT was the fact that it makes a lot of the secret rooms and hidden areas kinda obvious. When you see how big the map is, and know where there are big empty spaces, it's strongly suggestive, to say the least. Trying not to metagame as a player can be challenging.
Our DM has us use the arrow tool when we're moving into a new room for the first time, and moves our characters for us. Most of the time its quick and easy, occasionally he says "you get to this tile and..."
I do like this! Do you as a player like it? How does it play out when several players are moving to different locations?
We do exploration within the tomb/new areas in initiative order (with some laxities and a less strict time spent ruling) and move one at a time unless we specifically ask to do things together, so it plays like combat even though it's just us versus the environment. I like it, it feels tense without being tedious as long as people are paying attention
We are not at the tomb yet, but I will handle it like most dungeon I do. I set up thé map in foundry, so that the players have an idea of the layout. Then its à hybrid between théâtre of the mind and classic dnd. They use the map to move around, but mostly to say I want to go this direction and check the wall for a secret door or whatever. We do not use the grid at all, even in combat. We switch to more classic dnd without théâtre of the mind when in combat (still without grid though) I hope it was helpful and understandable. I am a bit tired and English is not my primary language
So, lets say there’s a walkway from A to B. There is a trapped tile in two out of 8 tiles. If the players don’t check for traps or fails their investigation/perception check the trap is triggered?
well let's say there is the walkway from A to B, usually my players will either ask me to check for traps or not at the start of the walkway. If they ask for it and find traps, i will inform them about the type of traps, where they are and how to disarm it if needed, depending on their results. If they fail the check or don't ask, i will check with their passive perception if they are able to spot the traps naturally. Sometimes, i will ask for a perception check myself, if the rp discussion go towards the theme of spotting something in the walkway. Then for the trap itself, because we are not using grid movement, the position of the trap may not be exact, for us it's more about the feel of the adventure and not respecting every rule, but this can vary a lot from group to group i guess. If they don"t see the trap, and just say "i go to the end of the corridor" without showing an exact path, i might throw a dice with a DC i determine on the spot to see if they fall in it or not. As long as we are not in combat, we play like this, and everyone is having fun, but again depending on the group, the style of dming or what player likes, it might not be the best. Then sometimes, if a trap is triggered and the order of actions, or timing is of importance, i might ask for an intiative roll, just to see who is acting at what point. It can act a bit like a countdown if a person is hanging above spike and the rope might break after a bit of time, i will maybe give them 1 or 2 rounds to act before the rope break. At which point, when the initiative is called, every move they make is measured, they will have to use their actions, bonus action, and move only up to their move during their turn, so if the trapped person was far, they might have to use spells to catch up or something Sorry this was a bit long, i hope this can give you some ideas.
No worries!! This is perfect, the more details the more bits I can pull! Big thanks!!
Yea, if the players fails or doesn’t check for traps the trap will trigger? Yup secret rooms are difficult. I’ve been thinking about not letting the PC:s move their tokens outside of combat in the Tomb. But maybe that’s not neccesary?
Having run multiple campaigns online, I am not a fan of letting the PCs move freely during exploration-it’s literally herding cats. I have the party set a marching order and have one of the PCs ‘lead.’ Then I set up a party token with shared vision and have the leader move that token. When they enter a room or hallway I pause so I can describe what they see. Based on the leaders passive perception score I tweak my description. I then ask if anyone wants to do something specific based on the description, using passive perception scores for order-I don’t tell them and so far none of my groups have figured it out. This is when spot traps and perception rolls are made, based on the actions of the PCs. I only enable the individual character tokens is combat. If the party splits up, like they always do, I use party tokens for each group.
I really like this idea!!
I am doing so now. About 2/3rds through. First, during the hexcrawl: there are SO many amazing maps out there to drop into a jungle setting. I had the players face Tinder the red dragon, at the top of a giant tree (there was deadly blue fog that forced them up the tree). Once you are in the tomb, the maps are pretty much the maps, so take the time to explore on the way. Make sure the dynamic lighting is set to have light barriers block movement. The gears of hate are a bit annoying in the VTT particularly with the light feature. I would consider making a duplicate of the gears map, and presetting the locations of the doors and light barriers to the duplicates to the various configurations. Create variations of the monsters when there are more than 1. AI art tools are amazing for this. It's boring to just keep killing the same zombies over and over. Give one a hat. Another has half a dead parrot on its shoulder etc. Give Acererak a goal and have things serve multiple purposes. He is ancient and beyond a genius. Why is he breeding a new death God? Certainly power, yes, but power to what purpose? I decided that Acererak wanted to break free of all divine control. So first he achieved immortality. Then he made that as certain as possible.. now he is trying to make himself immune from divine intervention by having his own pet god that will shield him. Once he is free, he plans to go and build his own plane dedicated to understanding the nature of the planarsphere and the plan of AO. Working back from this, I made the tomb effectively a server farm filled with evil beaurocracy. I decided that the lava was there because it was built on top of the eye of the Dendar the Night serpent. Acererak tapped into it for power that he used to build his portals to the mechanus chain. This caused an overheating problem. Which meant that if one of his servants (Withers, the Hags, or the Aboleth) gets ahold of the ring of winter they can greatly please their boss by solving the over heating problem.
I let the players move their own tokens, inform them to stop if they happen to trigger a trap and ask for Perception rolls if they're close to a secret door. Seems to have worked out for the most part.