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Intro

Tabletop Simulator (“TTS”) has been growing in popularity and is a great tool for remote play.  Like it says on the tin, TTS allows you to make a virtual tabletop and invite up to 10 people (including yourself) to it.  Uniquely among all the VTTs, TTS feels a lot like interacting with a video game.  If you and your players are familiar with camera controls for 1st or 3rd person games (you can change the setting for that), you’ll intuitively grasp the core controls of TTS.  Much like Roll20 and others, it has a menu bar for different pointer tools that you can use to manipulate objects, draw, etc.  Also uniquely for VTTs, TTS offers three dimensions and simulated physics.  It has VR integration as well, though I cannot speak to how well it works.  Unlike Fantasy Grounds, which has different windows for every reference document, in TTS you will place your reference documents on hovering boards that you have to turn your camera to examine, or you’ll access them through a virtual tablet object that has a web browser.  Many people host their own content on Google Drive or other cloud storage and access it in-game through the tablet feature.  Presenting information in a 3D space means you don’t hog as much screen space as something like Fantasy Grounds, but I would still recommend a full keyboard to use the F1-F12 keys to rapidly switch between pointer types.

TTS has the added perk of Steam integration, so you can link up through your existing social contacts and guiltily check your total time in-game every time you launch it.  The Steam overlay gives in-game chat and voice features, but no video.  It is also supports many other games as DLCs or Workshop downloads, for when your no-show player turns D&D night into a board game night.  One flaw of TTS is that the GM’s computer will be acting as a server for the game (rather than a cloud-based platform), which means all the data is on the GM’s machine and if they lose connection, people get kicked out.  Also, if the GM isn’t running the server, then in-game data is inaccessible to players.

Cost

Tabletop Simulator is $19.99 on Steam, or $59.99 for a 4-pack. Every player needs a copy of the game to play. DLCs are available and range from $5 to $15, but most of those are board and card games, rather than RPG content.

Features

• Battlemaps
  • 💙 Shared battlemaps with player- and GM-controlled tokens: Battlemaps feel just like you’re sitting at the table, except it’s much cheaper to put your 5’ long high resolution epic battle map into the game than it is to print it out in real life.
    • There are permissions you can give or take away from players, but they’re not very granular. Most of the time, each player will have as much control as they would in person (i.e. if they want to chuck dice at your dragon mini, they can).
    • There are a few animated miniatures that come with the game, but you’ll end up browsing the workshop or making your own miniatures most of the time. Still faster than painting up your skeleton horde by hand.
    • You can save groups of objects (such as a battlemap and all the enemy models) and load them into the game as a group.
    • Also, each player’s cursor displays as an individually-colored 2D hand-in game that they can use to point to objects, and the Tab key drops an arrow where you’re pointing and makes a chime to get the attention of other players.
  • ✅ Basic drawing capabilities: You can draw on the table and place text boxes. The system doesn’t do much to let you mark objects, though.
  • ✅ Map-making tools: You can import 2D maps from external files to create a surface image on a board. You can also drop in 3D models you have created externally or collected from the Workshop or DLCs.
  • 😕 Ruler: The game has a built in ruler that measures in inches or centimeters. Precise measurement can sometimes be difficult because you’re looking at a 3D space without binocular vision, so depth perception suffers. Frequently when you measure from one point to another, other players will perceive you measuring from the wrong point. Perhaps VR fixes this issue. I don’t own any VR equipment, so I can’t say.
  • 😕 Fog of War and Dynamic Lighting: You can create quadrilateral “hidden zones” that can be used to hide stuff from players, but it doesn’t prevent physics interactions. Also in a 3D space it gets a little wonky to cover everything you need to without obscuring stuff you don’t need to.
• Chat & Dice
  • ✅ Basic chat: There is an in-game chat and access to chat through the Steam overlay. There are no chat roll commands because it kinda defeats the purpose of TTS.
  • ❌ Die rolls from character sheets: Character sheets (see below) do not integrate with the game in this manner. Again, if you’re using TTS you’re trying to recreate the “at the table” feeling.
  • 💙 Visual (non-chat) dice rolling interface: This is the bread-and-butter of the game’s dice support. You can create as many 3D dice as you want, of any size you want. You roll them with the press of a button and if you hover your cursor over the selected dice (which are highlighted in your color), it displays individual die rolls and the sum of all dice as a tool-tip.
• Character Sheets
  • ❌ Character sheets for various games: You’re responsible for bringing your own. Either have a paper sheet in front of you, create one in game, or load it on an in-game “tablet” from the internet.
  • ✅ Moving character sheets between games: You can save objects to your own device, so if you have your character sheet built as an object in game, you can transport it yourself. Make sure to update the save file at the end of each session though!
  • 😕 Custom character sheet creation: Is almost necessary, because the game doesn’t come with any.
• Compendium
  • ❌ Game SRDs available: Not supported.
  • ❌ Game rules available for purchase or upload: There are Workshop files people have made that have commonly-referenced rules on pre-positioned floating boards. Most of the time, you’ll probably use an external source.
  • ❌ Drag-n-drop to character sheets: Not supported.
• Handouts, Etc
  • ✅ Types of handouts able to be edited and displayed: Anything you can make in-game or find on the Workshop can be put in front of players as a 3D model.
  • 💙 Playing cards, random tables: Tons of support for this.
  • 💙 Storage: You can save objects or groups of objects and import them onto the VTT when you need them. Storage is done locally, so you don’t have to worry about paying for more space.
• Automation
  • ❌ I’m addressing this category as a whole because none of it is really supported. It goes against the ethos behind TTS; that is, the game is designed to make you feel like you’re sitting at a table and playing manually. About the most you’ll get is being able to import groups of objects you have saved or from the Steam Workshop. However, virtual tablet integration enables you to access automation tools you would otherwise use at the table.
• Music & Video Streaming
  • 😕 Integrated voice & video calls: You can place voice calls from the Steam overlay, but video is unsupported.
  • 😕 Stream uploaded music to players: You can use a tablet to link to a youtube playlist or other internet service to stream synchronized music. I have experienced issues with finding volumes that work for everyone though.
• Extras
  • ❌ Mobile device support: Not supported.
  • 😕 Help & support: Most of your content will be self-created, so only issues with the underlying software will be supported.
  • 💙 Community: Active and thriving community with tons of free fan content.

Pros & Cons

• Local storage (as opposed to cloud) means you can use up as much space as you need.
• The initial cost is low and there are no recurring subscription fees.
• Tons of community content that is easy to import.
• Useful for things other than RPGs. If you and all your friends get TTS, you can play many board games together too!
• You can flip the table!
• The 3D dice are even better than Fantasy Grounds’! You can throw the, drop them, scatter them, whatever you want, and you can even have different colors. | - GM’s machine will be the server for the game, and if you lose connection then everyone gets kicked out until it comes back.
• Each player and the GM must purchase the program.
• Only steam backups for maps/tokens/models etc. No separate cloud service for backups.
• Almost no automation features.
• Concealing portions of the map is difficult.
• Because the game’s host acts as the server, it needs to be run on a reasonably powerful computer (that is, not somebody’s budget college laptop). |

Recommendations

• People with VR equipment that want a chance to use it.
• People using a full keyboard with separate function keys (not a laptop keyboard). This allows for quick selection of different in-game tools (i.e. rulers and pointers).
• People who have flakey players and need to rapidly convert RPG night into board game night.
• People who want to have complete ownership (with no subscriptions.) | - People who hate video games or get motion sick from them.
• People that are uncomfortable interacting with 3D digital environments. If you can’t work a first-person shooter, you’re going to struggle with this game. Seriously, the UI is great, but it’s ultimately a sandbox video game.
• People playing games that benefit from automation features and quick rules references.
• People with unreliable computers. Everything is stored locally, so if your machine gets hit by lightning, you might lose your setups if you don’t manually back them up. |