Tokens for Virtual Tabletop

by Jan Loos

What is a Virtual Tabletop

A Virtual Tabletop (VTT) is a piece of software that allows you to host and play
tabletop board- and roleplaying games on your computer.

The software offers all the things you need when playing a roleplaying game, such as:
  • Dice rolling
  • Importing and displaying battlemaps
  • Shading Handouts
  • A digital character sheet
  • The ability to use and move tokens

Although nothing is as fun as playing games with your friends in real life, using a VTT to play together through the internet is gaining popularity.

Playing Tabletop RPG’s online is very easy. You can do it from the comfort of your own home, and you can play with friends that live far away without having to travel the distance.

There are also some things that VTTs offer, that are hard to do in real life, such as:

  • Having high quality battle maps for each encounter
  • Using Fog of War or Dynamic Lighting
  • Using animated battle maps


These are my favorite Virtual Tabletops:

Foundry VTT

Benefits:

  • One time payment
  • Host on your own computer
  • Very customizable
  • Many mods available for download

Drawback:

  • Official D&D adventures are not yet available for Foundry VTT


Roll20

Benefits:

  • Play from your browser
  • The basic version is free
  • Official D&D adventures are available on their marketplace

Drawback:

  • You run out of space quickly and will need to get a subscription


Fantasy Grounds

Benefits:

  • Great community
  • One time payment
  • Official D&D adventures are available on their marketplace
  • Host on your own computer

Drawback:

  • The software is slightly more complicated
  • Misses some of the customizability that the other VTTs offer

What are Tokens

When you play a tabletop RPG such as D&D or Pathfinder in real life, you often use battle maps. On top of the battle maps are miniatures that represent the characters and monsters.

Top Down token of an Owlbear

Tokens can be compared to the digital versions of miniatures. When using a Virtual Tabletop, you use images that represent the characters and the monsters.

VTT Tokens can be divided into two groups. There are top down tokens, and circular or pog tokens.

Top down tokens resemble characters and monsters as if seen through a birds eye view.
Benefits:
  • Clearer view of the anatomy of a creature
  • Easier to understand what direction a creature is facing
  • More immersive

Circular Pog Token of a Dungeons & Dragons character

Circular or pog tokens are circular images that often have a decorative border.

POG or Circular Token


Benefits:

  • Easy to create with a picture from the internet
  • Easier to understand the exact squares that a creature occupies

You can create your own Circular or Pog tokens by grabbing a picture from the internet and importing them in Token Stamp 2. Within this web app, you can scale your image, trim the edges, slap on a fancy border, and download it as a transparent png.

If you are feeling creative, you can use Artbreeder to create a portrait of your character. This web app allows you to generate faces and modify them by crossbreeding them with other images or tweaking their genes.

You can find top down tokens on my webshop. But if you are looking for more Top Down tokens I recommend the following places:

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