A Virtual Tabletop that sets itself up
Rolegend's Virtual Tabletop puts every fight on a battle map, with a token for every hero and every enemy. Nobody has to prepare the map or referee it: the game engine enforces the rules of the ground, and the AI Game Master tells the story.
The work a virtual tabletop usually needs
A normal virtual tabletop is a shared board in a browser. It is very good at that job, and it leaves the rest to a person. Before a session, the Game Master finds or draws a map, sets the grid to fit it, places the tokens and hides the parts the players must not see. During the fight, the same person counts squares, checks cover and remembers who already used a reaction.
That is hours of work for each session, and it is one reason so many groups never find a Game Master. On Rolegend the campaign comes with that prep already done, and the game handles the rest at the table.
What is on the map
Each fight gets its own battle map: the map of the place, written ahead of time as part of the campaign, or a map the Game Master draws for that fight. Many maps sit on a painted backdrop of the place. Walls and slow ground are marked in the map itself, so the ground you see is the ground the rules read. A key in the corner says what each mark means.
Every creature in the fight has a token. A token shows the creature's picture inside a ring in the colour of its side, so you can tell friend from foe at a glance. As a creature takes damage, a dark wash rises over its token. The token whose turn it is glows. You can zoom in, zoom out or fit the whole map to the screen.
Moving your token
On your turn, you drag your own token. As you drag, the map shows every square you can reach with the movement you have left. Slow ground costs more, and a wall stops you. When you let go, the move goes into your turn, and you can write what your character does at the end of it.
Keystone Engine checks the move by the same rules as every other part of your turn. It knows your speed, what you already spent and where every enemy stands. If you leave an enemy's reach, that enemy may get an opportunity attack, and the engine rolls it. You do not count squares, and nobody can argue that you were one square further away.
Fog of war and light
Some fights take place where you cannot see everything. There, the map hides each square your party never saw. A square you saw before and cannot see now is dimmed, so you remember the shape of a room you left.
The fog is more than paint. The game does not send your screen any enemy your party cannot see, so a hidden archer is hidden from the map, not only from the story. Light works the same way. A torch, a dark cellar and a bright square all change what your character can see and how well they fight there.
The rules the map enforces
The map exists because D&D 5e assumes one. A large part of the rules of a fight are about position, and text alone is a poor place to keep a position. On the map, Keystone Engine enforces these rules:
- movement and difficult terrain
- cover and line of sight
- opportunity attacks and flanking
- weapon ranges
- light and fog of war
ROWAN, the narrator, does not move a token or count a distance. It decides what each enemy tries to do, and the engine carries out that choice on the map by the rules. Then ROWAN tells the story of what happened.
When a fight stays in the story
Not every scuffle needs a map. A bar fight with one drunk, or a chase through a crowd, can play out in words alone. When a fight needs ground, it goes on the map.
One board for the whole table
A table of up to 6 friends shares one map. Each friend moves only their own token, and only on their own turn, while the rest see the board update. A friend who is not online when their turn comes gets an email with a link to their turn.
So the group gets what a virtual tabletop is for, a board that everyone trusts, without one of you spending the week before each fight building it. To see how the rest of a shared campaign works, read D&D online with friends.
Questions
Do I need to know the D&D rules to play?
No, and you will not have to look anything up. You play in your own words, such as "I try to talk her down" or "I go through the desk", and ROWAN works out what that means. If it needs a roll, you roll your own die and Keystone Engine adds the modifiers from your sheet.
You can start from a ready-made character, so your first turn is two sentences rather than an hour of character creation. Everything underneath, such as your bonuses, your hit points and what your spells do, is applied for you as you play. Knowing fifth edition will get you more out of it. It is not a requirement, and this is a reasonable way to learn it.
Can the AI Game Master cheat on a dice roll?
Not on the number. ROWAN never touches the dice. Keystone hands you the die, adds up your bonuses off your sheet, and records the result before a single word of the reply is written.
ROWAN chooses how a result reads, gently or hard, as the story needs. It cannot turn a 4 into a 19, and it cannot decide after the fact that the lock was easier than it said.
Can I play Rolegend with friends?
Both. On the paid plan a host sends an invite link, and up to 6 players sit at one table, the host included. Friends on the free plan can join. Each player plays their own character and pays for their own turns. Friends who are online together play live, and the table is also async play-by-post, so each player can drop in whenever they want. In a fight each player acts on their character's turn, and an email says when the table waits for you.
Alone, one person does not mean one character. On the paid plan a run holds a party of up to 6: you play the ones you want to play and ROWAN runs the rest as companions. Keystone rolls their initiative, and each companion acts on its own turn. The free plan is a single character.
How long does a session take?
As long or as short as you want, because nobody is waiting on you. You take a turn, the world answers, and the game sits there until you come back. Fifteen minutes on a bus is a real session.
A session is a chapter you close when you feel like it, not a clock running down. There is no scheduling, no voice call and nobody held up while you think.
Why play on Rolegend
- When your character acts, the game hands you the die to roll, and Keystone Engine adds the modifiers from your sheet.
- On the battle map, Keystone Engine enforces movement, difficult terrain, cover, line of sight, opportunity attacks, flanking and weapon ranges, and every player at the table moves on the same map.
Start
Take a ready-made character and write one line, alone or with friends.
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