Best posts made by MarsGrad

With nearly 7k hours on Roll20 almost exclusively as a DM, I can say with absolute certainty that Foundry is by far the better product IF you're looking to get into the deep end of using VTTs. I'm talking special effects, animated maps, looping status effects, weather effects, all that fancy stuff... Definitely go for Foundry.

If you're just looking for something to hold your character sheets, help you with a dice roller, give you a dry-erase mat for basic and quick maps to help with ToTM, and maybe have some music and sound effect options, the basic (read: free) Roll20 account is more than enough to get you where you need to be, and probably a little further with a few extras you didn't think you'd want and that I haven't mentioned.

IIRC, the 5E sheets have D&D Beyond integration as well without the need for a better-than-basic account, but I'm... Not positive. Don't quote me. I don't run much 5E.

ETA: Combat support on the three big VTTs (Roll20, Foundry, and FG) is pretty much a core feature. How usable and how much you get out of it sort of depends on the VTT and what you put into it (I don't have any experience with FG, so speaking primarily about Foundry and R20 here), but they all do the basics like NPC stat tracking including health and AC. They also all have initiative trackers built in and other QoL stuff. Out of the box, neither Foundry nor R20 do any sort of easy encounter generation, but I'd eat my hat if Foundry didn't have some sort of 5E module to help with it and if R20 didn't have some sort of script (a paid feature). Both have compendium support though, which is going to be all your OGL content like rules and stat blocks in a searchable, encyclopedia type format. Roll20 lets you purchase rulebooks through them that add the non-OGL content in and Foundry I think you can just import it if someone provides it, but again... I don't run 5E so I don't know.

I've tried Armageddon a few times over the years. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

All in all, it's an RPI. A somewhat more brutal example of the genre, admittedly, but more or less just an RPI. You either love 'em or you hate 'em. Or maybe you have a more mild opinion on them, I don't know.

As much as I hate to contribute to the horrific overuse of this comparison...

If you like Dark Souls and you like MUs and you like... I don't know, hairless dwarves and sand and mantis people, you might like Armageddon! Or you might not. It's a crazy world of risks we live in.

I recall @tangent used to do massive scenes on some of the games we were on together, but broke them up into different rooms and ran them concurrently. They were comic games, so it would typically be one group of heroes punching the Big Bad Robot guy while another group dealt with a bunch of smaller robot minions and a third rescued civilians or whatever. All the rooms would get the same emit about big things going on, but each would ALSO get individualized poses about the results of the heroes' efforts...

Not really a take on how much is Too Much, but man was it impressive to watch.

I more or less went from absolute noob without any idea of how to start coding a game to absolute noob who has nonetheless managed to patch together something resembling the start of a game in about 2-3 weeks. In my case, I went at it a bit too hard and burned myself out for a bit, but it honestly isn't difficult to get started -- just pace yourself better than I did.

I also definitely second the Udemy recommendation. Learn to Code with Ruby by Boris Paskhaver is fantastic. He's thorough, methodical, and sounds a bit like Fred Savage. Mixing in the Ares tutorials when you get to the relevant points in the lesson is also definitely a big help to learning the nuances of how Ares does things.

Good luck!

Maybe I'm reading this badly, but I feel like this thread has descended into everyone arguing on the same side against people who posted once or twice at the beginning and haven't turned up since, and misinterpreting what side everyone else is on.

And plus, isn't it an Advertisement? I feel like this is no longer about this specific game, and more about what people find acceptable as far as thematic limitations go.

Yeah, it doesn't seem plausible with what we currently have, but that doesn't mean this alternate future doesn't have some crazy secret sci-fi tech hidden away for government testing, and some politician decided to actually make use of it instead of just sitting on it. Plus, the way I understand it, the places that were flooded are still flooded. No one's trying to rebuild like with Katrina, they're focusing what's left of the population into what still remains largely untouched.

And finally, that whole part of the history is just... window dressing. Sab already said it's not the focus of the story. It's just a pretense to get the characters into the right state of mind for the actual game.

I can not recommend this game enough. Between the satisfying code, excellent theme, extremely friendly and open playerbase and staff... It's just instantly addicting. Plus, since it's still got that new MU* smell, everyone is new and figuring things out, and you can watch as the code and game grows which is always a really fun thing. At least for me, anyway.