Seeking advice on setting up an online campaign.

[Trellis Serf]

Long time no talk.  Between moving around the world where I'm now on an isolated island in the east of The Philippines in a time zone only kangaroos and perhaps naval personnel care about, I'm finding I would like to run a full game online for folks to kind of break up the monotony of weekday work.

Last time I tried to run a game online about six years ago, I was rightfully accused of being unprepared.  A fair and accurate accusation.  So, if I try again, I do not want to bog things down and disappoint players, especially those who are veterans of the game and don't want an amateur fudging things up for them.

I used to have maps and stuff for live games, but now, they're all in a storage unit back in the US.  As I'm not spending any money here, I am willing to drop a bit of dosh for online assets that would make an online game doable.

So, what are some must-haves, besides pdf copies of books?
MegaMek/MekHQ for maps and perhaps mech combat?
Recommended VTT?  I have Foundry, but I would need tons of assets.  Roll20 has stuff, I know.  Is it better?
Any considerations I need to take in?  I already will be waking up at sunrise to accommodate players on the other side of the Earth, as I've not found many folks in my general region that want to play anything other than D&D 5e.

[monbvol]

Mekhq will definitely be helpful for combat and unit management tasks.

For vtt roll20 does have an AToW sheet that is a bit of a bear to fill out but with some work it can handle the not mech stuff pretty well and the free options aren't too bad.

[Daryk]

I created a spreadsheet to help with character creation in AToW, if you're using that system... It's linked in my sig block.  Just ask if you have any questions... :)

[Trellis Serf]

Mekhq will definitely be helpful for combat and unit management tasks.

For vtt roll20 does have an AToW sheet that is a bit of a bear to fill out but with some work it can handle the not mech stuff pretty well and the free options aren't too bad.

Yeah, so it does.  A little clunky, but anything to help players do automatic rolls without having to search for a character sheet and stuff.  Okay, so it's up there.  Thank you!

I created a spreadsheet to help with character creation in AToW, if you're using that system... It's linked in my sig block.  Just ask if you have any questions... :)

I created my own personal spreadsheet in 200...8, whenever we had the beta test for the first version.  Just dusted it off from an old thumb drive.  But I guarantee yours is much better organized!

I want to do AToW... but with getting pulled between research and teaching science classes to villagers at the local school here, I'm starting to lean towards Destiny because it would allow me to improvise storyline more... but I figure if I had maps and assets to be able to throw down an encounter now and then that'd be great.

All I know so far is it's going to be set in the Periphery, and likely a Pirate based game.  Same as mercenaries, but you make your own contracts!

[Daryk]

If you want to give AToW a shot, I could help with character creation if you like... it goes pretty fast for me these days... :)

[Dahmin_Toran]

If you want to give AToW a shot, I could help with character creation if you like... it goes pretty fast for me these days... :)

What is you approach for fast ATOW character creation?

[Daryk]

Basically, once I've typed in a particular module, I copy it to a reference sheet, and can just paste it into a new character.  I still haven't managed to do ALL of the modules, but I'm getting there! :)

[Jazzhands Licker]

I am a weirdo who enjoys making characters in this system using the life paths, but I would be interested in tips on how to potentially not lose players when going through character creation.

Point buy best for that?

[Atlas3060]

Point buy would be the easier option, quicker too.
The quickest in my opinion is make templates with a few hundred points free for them to tweak and make that template their own, much like how the book has the existing templates. However with my idea you make multiple variations of similar templates.

Make a template for "Nobility Mechwarrior", "Commoner Mechwarrior", "Scrappy fighter" or such where you see points going to specific traits and disadvantages the players can't buy off. Give them some free XP to work in some ideas for themselves so no two Noble Mechwarriors are the same.

[Daryk]

How I do it is ask the player what they're looking for, throw together a rough draft, and then tweak it with them.

[Jazzhands Licker]

What would you suggest for someone who is thinking of running a similar pirate campaign?  I mean, to possibly cover bases for players who want to run Pirates that may be at the tail edge of the Raven Alliance and preys on that alliance.  (For the Raven fans, it's my game, I get to decide if they drink the stupid juice.    )

[Daryk]

I'd probably sketch out the band, offer the PCs various roles and tweak from there.  I would expect most of the characters to have an "Independent" affiliation.  That covers Pirate, Antallos, Tortuga and Spacer options.  Bloodmark and Enemy traits should be common.  Since you're looking at a clanner era, Dark Caste is also a possibility.

[Yskonyn]

I would be interested in joining any AToW campaign, but my timezone is UTC+1 and usually I prefer the mornings (my time) for games. In theory this would fit with you being far east, as long as your goal would be to play in your evenings.

Have both AToW and Destiny. Just never played either yet, so consider me a noob.

[Daryk]

If you're at all interested in play by post, I'm always looking for players... :)

[Jazzhands Licker]

If you're at all interested in play by post, I'm always looking for players... :)

Feel free to DM me the details.

[Daryk]

PM sent! :)

[Jazzhands Licker]

But to circle back to the original post, I have some similar questions:

Map assets and the like.  For Mech Battles, I assume that MegaMek would probably be the way to go?  But if say I wanted to get a bunch of assets for a VTT like Foundry or Roll20, do their marketplaces sell good assets?  Things like that.

I want to know, too, because I'm kind of hatching a Dark Ages era game.

[monbvol]

MegaMek is probably the best way to go for that scale of combat.  I haven't really seen what Foundry has available but Roll20 doesn't have any actual official Battletech maps or books in their marketplace last I checked but they have a decent selection of maps.

[Jazzhands Licker]

MegaMek is probably the best way to go for that scale of combat.  I haven't really seen what Foundry has available but Roll20 doesn't have any actual official Battletech maps or books in their marketplace last I checked but they have a decent selection of maps.

So, snag plenty of D&D maps from Pinterest and slap hexes on them?  Hey, it's worked for me for other games.

[monbvol]

That should indeed work.  I do seem to rmember there is a hex overlay on Roll20.

[Daryk]

If MapMaster is still around, he had some AWESOME hex maps based on real world satellite shots...