The Roll20 Team
Gather round, all ye Sheet Authors and Custom Character Sheet makers: today we launched a new Pro subscriber feature to make your lives easier! The Custom Sheet Sandbox gives you a new, streamlined game type where you can upload character sheet files directly from your computer and update the sheets in real time on the VTT.
Over 3,000 users currently run games with their own custom character sheet. Meanwhile, across Roll20, 37.1% of games use character sheets developed by our amazing Sheet Author community. These folks have dedicated a tremendous amount of time and effort to make a wide variety of games accessible to everyone on Roll20. Until now, any change they made required them to change the code, copy it into the game settings, save, and then reload the entire virtual tabletop. It was an arduous process.
The Custom Sheet Sandbox changes all of this. This special game type is streamlined for fast loading, and allows Sheet Creators to make and preview their changes directly in the VTT. Our internal team has been developing sheets with this tool and found that it increased their efficiency by up to 30% (and reduced their frustration immeasurably). We also added a place to edit and test the sheet’s .JSON file (describing what the sheet is and giving users a way to tweak the settings) inside the sandbox.
We wanted to do more than just make it easier to create and update Community sheets, though: we wanted to make things fancy. Many Sheet Authors told us on the Suggestions Forum they wanted more fonts, so we added Google Fonts which can now be used in the sheet as well as programmed into Handouts, API scripts, and Chat outputs such as dice rolls.
Altogether, the Custom Sheet Sandbox offers the following features:
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Pro Subscriber access only
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Access the “My Games” page
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Click the purple button that says “Custom Sheet Sandbox”
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Create up to 15 Custom Sheet Sandbox games
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Custom Sheet Sandbox Games
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Allows loading sheet files from hard drive without using in-browser editor (yes, this means you can use your favorite code editor program at last!)
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Reloads character sheets on change without reloading the entire VTT
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Feature Limited
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CAN access the API and Compendium Data
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CAN’T invite other players, use Video and Voice Chat, or create new Pages
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New Game Details / Game Settings page
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A place to edit and test sheet.json file when submitting to the Roll20 Sheet repository
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Streamlined for options that work in this special game type
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Now all Character Sheets can include Google Fonts, and can output them to the Virtual Tabletop through APIs, Handouts, and chat functions such as dice rolls
These enhancements will make it easier for Sheet Authors and Pro users to make the character sheets they really want, much faster and with more visual style. More sheets are better for everyone, so check out the new Custom Sheet Sandbox and see what you can create! We’d also love to hear your feedback on the Bug Forum.
