Roll20
Originally launched in 2012, Roll20 is among the largest and longest-running virtual tabletops around. Boasting a user base of approximately eight million and a marketplace overflowing with supported systems, fully built adventure modules, and map and asset packs, Roll20 is a firmly established player in the online TTRPG space. Roll20's platform is fairly simple: a blank slate for game masters to fill with maps, tokens, and handouts, a digital dice roller, integrated voice and video chat, plus tools for playing music, sound, and visual effects. A slew of officially-supported and fan-created character sheets help players and game masters organize characters and NPCs, and a marketplace bustling with goodies to enhance the game. More advanced users can create and upload their own assets, program automated macros, and create full scenes complete with sound, visuals and dynamic lighting! But Roll20 is fairly beginner friendly, working perfectly well as a virtual tabletop that lets players draw, measure distances, and move their tokens around. Roll20's mergers with both online RPG distributor DriveThruRPG and digital compendium Demiplane, as well as a partnership with Discord allowing players to use it through the voice and video chat application, make the platform both versatile and highly accessible.
Popular RPGs using Roll20
Alien: The Roleplaying Game
The official ALIEN tabletop roleplaying game pits a crew of space truckers, scientists marines, synthetic human androids, corporate stooges, and other explorers against the cold, harsh void and the lurking horrors that haunt it. Save your oxygen—in space, no one can hear you scream.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay takes you back to the Old World. Get the gang together, create your (anti)heroes, and set off to face vile corruption, scheming plotters, and terrifying creatures intent on destruction. The Old World is a grim and perilous place. Its vast mountain ranges are teeming with warlike Orcs and Goblins. The deep forests are the home of marauding Beastmen. The corrupting force of Chaos leeches into the world, the result of a tragic accident when the world was young. The insidious taint of Chaos leaves folk hideously altered, and liable to seek solace in the worship of Daemons and the Ruinous Powers of the Chaos gods. The followers of Chaos gather in the north, armies of reavers and monsters that threaten to overwhelm the world. But they also reside in secret in the towns and cities of the Old World: an enemy within plotting to overthrow civilization and establish their own regime in its place. Nations such as the Empire stand defiant against the darkness. Its people come from all walks of life, from landed aristocracy to the urban poor. Most are heedless of the true dangers that beset their world; they imagine themselves safe within city walls and merely try to make a good living for themselves. But there are those adventurous folk who, driven through desperation or ambition, seek to confront dangers and win renown.
Dungeon Crawl Classics
You’re no hero. You’re an adventurer: a reaver, a cutpurse, a heathen-slayer, a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets. You seek gold and glory, winning it with sword and spell, caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished. There are treasures to be won deep underneath, and you shall have them. Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role-Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you.
Pirate Borg
A scurvy-ridden, rules light, art heavy tabletop RPG. Inspired by history, fantasy, horror and rum. Your cutlass & flintlock won’t save you from the hordes of skeletons, the Kraken, or even your own crew. Find a ship. Recruit some crew. Raid, pillage, plunder, and otherwise pilfer your weasley black guts out. Get a bigger ship. Kill some things. Upgrade your ship. Sneak into a fort. Raid a port. Acquire treasure. Bury said treasure. Become infamous. Search for someone else’s treasure. Flee in terror from unfathomable creatures from the deep. Drink all of the rum. Die on the high seas. Roll a new character and do it all again.
Fallout: The Roleplaying Game
How will you re-shape the world? Will you join with a plucky band of survivors to fight off all comers and carve out your own settlement? Will you team up with pre-existing factions like the Brotherhood of Steel or Super Mutants to enforce your own ideals on the wasteland? Ghoul or robot, paladin or raider, it’s your choice - and the consequences are yours. Create your own survivors, super mutants, ghouls, and even Mister Handy robots, and immerse yourselves in the iconic post-nuclear apocalyptic world, while gamemasters guide their group through unique Fallout stories. This 2d20 edition of Fallout is as close to the bottlecap-bartering, wasteland wandering, Brotherhood battling excitement of Fallout you can get.
Delta Green
Born of the U.S. government’s 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green opposes the forces of darkness with honor but without glory. Delta Green agents fight to save humanity from unnatural horrors—often at a shattering personal cost. In Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, the players are those agents. They fight to keep terrors from beyond space and time from infecting the world and claiming human lives and sanity. The Handler is the game moderator who creates and interprets their world, presents the unnatural horror that they investigate, and describes the awful aftermath of their sacrifices.
Star Trek Adventures - Second Edition
The Star Trek Adventures roleplaying game takes you to the final frontier! From the 21st through to the 32nd century, join Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, and countless other civilizations, and journey across the Star Trek universe with your crew. Explore strange new worlds, encounter fantastical alien life-forms, and engage in dramatic adventures in a detailed and immersive Galaxy. Tell your stories and unravel the mysteries of the unknown!
Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game
A neon-noir wonderland that’ll take your breath away. One way or another. An evocative world of conflicts and contrasts that dares to ask the hard questions and investigate the powers of empathy, the poisons of fear, and the burdens of being human during inhumane times. An iconic and unforgiving playground of endless possibilities that picks you up, slaps you in the face, and tells you to wake up. Time to live. Or time to die. Blade Runner The Roleplaying Game propels you into the streets of Los Angeles as Blade Runners with unique specialties, personalities – and memories. The game pushes the boundaries of investigative gameplay in tabletop RPGs, giving you a range of tools to solve an array of cases far beyond retiring Replicants. Beyond the core casework, the RPG showcases the key themes of Blade Runner – sci-fi action, corporate intrigue, existential character drama, and moral conflict. It challenges you to question your friends, empathize with your enemies, and explore the poisons and perseverance of hope and humanity during inhumane times.
Scum and Villainy
Unwise deals. Blaster fights. High adventure among the stars. Welcome to the world of Scum and Villainy. Scum and Villainy is a Forged in the Dark game about a spaceship crew trying to make ends meet under the iron-fisted rule of the Galactic Hegemony. Work with the members of your crew to thrive despite powerful criminal syndicates, warring noble families, dangerous aliens, and strange mystics. Explore the ruins of lost civilizations for fun and profit. Can your motley crew hold it together long enough to strike it big and insure your fame across the sector?
Power Rangers Roleplaying Game
Become a Power Ranger and protect Angel Grove and the Earth against the evil forces of Rita Repulsa, Lord Zedd, Master Vile, and more in the epic world of Power Rangers! Whether you interrupt Rita’s monster attacks in her attempt of world domination or defeat the forces of the Machine Empire from invading Earth, there is no limit to the heroic stories you will tell. In the Power Rangers Roleplaying Game, create your ultimate Power Ranger persona by combining personal traits, childhood influences, and your chosen Ranger color to make a hero worthy of the Power!
Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
Vampire: The Masquerade presents a more dramatic, contemplative world than most tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). While the average TTRPG experience is a Dungeons & Dragons inspired one (fighting monsters and getting treasure), Vampire is about simply surviving and keeping a piece of yourself intact. Players in Vampire become the titular mythological figure in a version of our modern world. And while near-immortality and superpowers seems cool, they come at the cost of existing in a secret society where hunters and other clans are out to get you. And there’s also the whole hungering for blood thing. In a typical Vampire game, holding onto humanity is just as tough as fending off foes.
Tales From the Loop
Roleplaying in the ’80s That Never Was: In 1954, the Swedish government ordered the construction of the world’s largest particle accelerator. The facility was complete in 1969, located deep below the pastoral countryside of Mälaröarna. The local population called this marvel of technology The Loop. In this roleplaying game, you play teenagers in the late 1980s, solving Mysteries connected to the Loop. Choose between character Types such as the Bookworm, the Troublemaker, the Popular Kid and the Weirdo. Everyday Life is full of nagging parents, never-ending homework and classmates bullying and being bullied. Explore the secrets of the Loop in two main game settings – one based on the Swedish Mälaren Islands, the other on Boulder City, Nevada. The Mysteries let the characters encounter the strange machines and weird creatures that have come to haunt the countryside after the Loop was built. The kids get to escape their everyday problems and be part of something meaningful and magical – but also dangerous.
Cypher System
Cypher System is a groundbreaking tabletop game engine that allows for incredible flexibility to play any type of campaign, in any genre. One can play in the system’s flagship setting “Numenera” or in the worlds of popular podcasts such as “The Magnus Archives” and “Old Gods of Appalachia”. Additional settings can include Post-apocalyptic, sci fi, fantasy, cyberpunk, horror– if you can name it the Cypher System has it! Regardless of the genre, Cypher System games feature a narrative forward play experience that emphasizes discovery, problem solving, character growth, and meaningful roleplay over defeating monsters and getting XP. Character creation is simple yet elegant, as players make a three-part sentence describing who they are going to play. The rules are simple enough for beginners to learn quickly, and sophisticated and deep enough for veterans to unleash their creativity in surprising new ways.
Alice is Missing
Alice is Missing is a silent role-playing game about the disappearance of Alice Briarwood, a high school junior in the small town of Silent Falls. The game is played live and without verbal communication. Players inhabit their character for the entirety of the 90-minute play session, and instead of speaking, send text messages back and forth to the other characters in a group chat, as well as individually, as though they aren’t in the same place together.
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Roll20 Beginner Tutorial: Learn the Basics!
If you're just getting started with Roll20, start here! This video will teach you how to create a free Roll20 account, join an active campaign, and launch the game. From there, you can set up your audio and video settings, whether you'll be using Roll20's native voice and video features, or disabling those and using another platform for teleconferencing. You can also use the chat feature to send text messages as a player or character, as well as send secret messages to the GM and other players and roll dice using text commands.
You can also explore the journal to find character sheets and handouts, the compendium to look up rules to your game on the fly, and the jukebox to listen to music and ambient sounds to help immerse your table in the game world. On the main map, you can learn how to move tokens, open their character sheets, edit their labels and appearance, and several ways to roll dice automatically! You can also use drawing and measuring tools to alter maps, draw areas of effect, measure distances, and customize your playspace. Once you know how to use these tools, you're well on your way to mastering the basics of Roll20.
How to GM on Roll20 Tutorial
So you want to run your game on Roll20? Learning how is easy! Once you've created a game, you can familiarize yourself with the features of the virtual tabletop; some of them are the same as the ones the players have, but a few are for GMs only! You'll be able to select, pan, draw, add text, create effects, lighting, and fog of war, measure, track turn order, and roll dice. You'll also have access to the token, lighting, map, and hidden GM layers. Next you'll learn how to create, edit, and manipulate tokens. Then you can get advanced, learning how to create automated macros, rollable tables, and card decks.
Using the journal, making character sheets, and creating and using handouts will be crucial to any GM's game, so that's up next. Then you can master the finer points of the turn tracker, allowing you to use initiative or other turn-based systems seamlessly. For games with a map exploration element, you can also learn how to use dynamic lighting and fog of war, creating walls, light sources, and obstacles for players to navigate!
For Roll20 subscribers, you can also learn how to use mod scripts to truly customize your game, adding existing scripts from the community or creating your own. You can also access the transmogrifier to transfer elements you've set up in one game into another game you own. In ten minutes, you'll have become completely proficient with the Roll20 platform!
Frequently asked questions about Roll20
Blog links about Roll20
A New Player's Guide to Roll20
About to join an online gaming group? Here's your guide on how to use Roll20. Learn the basics on finding a group, making a character, and using the map.
How to Use Roll20's Charactermancer
Roll20's Charactermancer is a powerful tool that can help you build your character for your next online RPG campaign—if you know how to use it! We'll show you how.
How Roll20 Characters Can Be Your New Session Zero Essential
If you're starting a new campaign, consider using Roll20 Characters to gather your group and all build characters together!