Revision as of 06:11, 2 December 2016

Compendiums are "books" of indexed and categorized series of webpages devoted to a particular RPG rule system. It behaves and is designed similarly to a mini wiki. A Compendium can be browsed outside the VTT, but it also can be used within it for quick rule searches and populating fields on your character sheets like equipment and spells via drag and drop capability.

There are Compendiums that are freely available to use due to their OGL status (I.e. D&D 5th Edition SRD and Pathfinder SRD), but we also offer unlockable licensed material via our Marketplace like Wizards of the Coast's Volo's Guide to Monsters.

Knowledgeable of a certain OGL ruleset? Are you familiar with HTML text editing? Interested in building your own Compendium for the Roll20 community? Read here to learn how to become a volunteer!

The Compendium Tool

You can access the available Compendiums by going to the website's main navigation bar and selecting Tools -> Compendium. This brings you to the Compendium Page where you can choose the Compendium you wish to browse.

Browsing a Compendium

Once you've selected a Compendium to browse, you'll first have a search bar available followed with an index of categories. Depending on the game ruleset in question, the available categories may be different, but what you will likely see are ones such as: Rules, Races, Classes, Items, Equipment, Spells, and Monsters. Underneath these categories are subpages and in some instances those subpages may be broken down into even further subpages. For instance, in the D&D 5th Edition SRD Compendium, the Spells category has subpages for each Class and each one of these pages is a list of spells which have their own dedicated page.

No matter which page of a Compendium you're on, there is a search bar directly above that allows you to look up for more entries at any time. The search looks for keywords used in the headers and subheaders of the entry.

"Why isn't there an entry for (Spell, Rule, Monster, Etc.) in here?"

While it is possible that a Compendium could be missing content, especially in the case of newly built Compendiums. It's important to note that an OGL version of a rule system does not necessarily have to cover the entirety of the published game it's based from. For instance, the D&D 5th Edition OGL SRD does NOT have entries on Displacer Beasts or Mindflayers, nor do they cover any other feats beyond Grappler. That is because they were purposely not included in the SRD (System Reference Document) when the publisher designed it. If something is missing from a Compendium, you should first check to see if that entry is actually part of the OGL SRD. If something is missing, contact the volunteers of that Compendium via the Character Sheets & Compendium forum.

Adding a Campaign to your Game

Where the versatility of Compendiums truly shines is when one is attached to a game so that it can be utilized within the VTT. GMs and players can look up rules on the fly during their game and the GM can take whole entries from the Compendium and drag them to the tabletop to create a handout with the information contained within. While editing a character journal, the GM and players can drag items, spells, and other abilities from the Compendium into their character sheet to auto-complete elements on it. Monster entries will even create and populate entire NPC journals automatically and come with a linked token (when available) when the GM drags its entry to the Tabletop.

Compendiums are tied to Character Sheets. A community sheet must be designed by its author to point to a particular Compendium first before VTT/Compendium functionality is available. For instance, choosing a D&D 5th Edition character sheet will automatically assign and enable the 5th Edition Compendium to be used in your game. Pathfinder sheets will link to the Pathfinder Compendium. You can choose a character sheet at game creation or by going to the Game Settings page.

Once added, a new tab will be added on the Sidebar placed between the Journal tab and the Jukebox tab. This is the Compendium tag. Browsing and searching for entries within the Compendium behave exactly as the webpage version. The only difference here is that the entries will pop up in their separate window when you select them from the Compendium tab.

Drag and Drop Functionality

Non-Monster Entries

Monster Entries

Character Sheet

Building A Compendium

As of December 1st, 2016, Roll20 has opened the ability for community members to build their own Compendiums for available OGL systems outside of D&D 5th Edition SRD and the Pathfinder SRD. A volunteership program is now available for potential members to volunteer to become a Compendium Editor. These new Compendiums will have all of the features of the original two Compendiums, including Character Sheet integration and drag and drop functionality. Editors will be working to help push content to our users and are expected to respect the rules of the site and the game they are working on - any violation or vandalism of the Compendium will result in removal from the project team.

Editors should have a firm grasp of the rule system they would like to prepare and ideally have some familiarity with HTML, wiki writing, and/or authoring Structured Data. Structured data is strongly required to begin a Compendium, however we will consider manual submissions if the data is not available.

At present, Roll20 will be limiting one Editor per game system Compendium. After an initial Compendium project is completed, an Editor may be considered to help contribute towards other future Compendiums in collaborative projects.

How to Become a Volunteer

If you are interested in volunteering to help, please email team@roll20.net and provide the following information:

Subject: New Compendium Volunteer

   Do you have experience with basic html text editors?
   What game would you like to bring to the Compendium?
   Does the game have an OGL? (Please share a link to the OGL)
   In 2 to 3 sentences, please describe your experience with these games.
   Are you familiar with Structured Data?
   Do you know how to obtain the Structured Data for the game you are considering?
   Please share your Roll20 account email.

Upon approval, editors will be connected to their Compendium teams & the Roll20 staff via email to help facilitate organization and discuss any roadblocks. All approved volunteers will receive a special account badge.

The Character Sheet & Compendium Forum

How to Create Compendium Entries

Page Creation

Editing a Page

Creating Category List Pages

Attributes