DnDBeyond Maps vs AboveVTT - Full Tutorial and Review! 

We used Above and love it. It does just about everything our group needs. And... I did not know about the concentration marker putting up a reminder when the caster takes damage. We will definitely use that. Cheers.

What do you think of Maps? And what virtual tabletops do you play on? ⚃ Timestamps ⚃ 00:00 Intro 00:31 Maps - Tutorial & Review 03:04 AboveVTT - Tutorial & Review 03:15 AboveVTT - Downloading the Extension 03:55 AboveVTT - Uploading Maps 05:02 AboveVTT - Features 08:22 AboveVTT - Character Sheets & Combat 11:51 Review & Final Thoughts

Oh man, I remember back when we used to use Google Slides for our maps!! So fun to see all the different options we have to use now. Awesome content as always Brandon👌

AboveVTT is extremely fucking good

Super helpful, great video

The question I have is what might be the easiest way to stream abovevtt to a service and have the world AND your players see the player map, while only you can see the DM map? create a proxy player that is open in a different tab?

I cannot believe that more people DON'T know about AboveVTT. I've been using it since I got back into D&D (Feb '23) and it has been doing everything that the posters in the MAPS forums are wanting. "HELLO? Do you KNOW about AboveVTT? I'm talking to YOU WotC!" Meanwhile, those posters are like, "Aw. I wish I could import custom tokens." (AboveVTT does that.) "Will MAPS be able to have audio files, one day next year?" (AboveVTT does that.) "I wish MAPS had the initiative order on it." (AboveVTT does that.) "Wow! This is so NEW and Cutting Edge!" (AboveVTT has been out for more than TWO YEARS!) "Will MAPS be available to peeps without a Master-Tier subscription?" (AboveVTT is completely FREE) I guess WotC is more content to re-invent the wheel - poorly. They could just throw a mimic chest of cash and some Mountain Dew at the programmers of AboveVTT and just annex it. Well, I'll take the more fully-featured FREE version of what they're tying to do. "Hey WotC! How's it going on that OTHER VTT you were making?" Awesome comparison, Brandon. Get the word out.

I tried the maps briefly yesterday and quickly realized it's still unusable atm. ABOVE VTT is great been using it for a year or so, keeps getting better.

I love it but how to does it transfer to players who use their phones? I have a player that plays while he is at work so he doesn't have a computer on hand. Is AboveVTT something that could work for him?

First time seeing Above VTT. Surprised you wouldn't use a DDB map in your tutorial and instead use a custom map, since the whole point of AboveVTT seems to be the DDB integration, so you aren't showing off the main reason to use it over anything else. Depending on who is developing it and how it connects and works though, it might get targeted and removed for copyright violations unless they were very careful with their integration like Beyond20 is with their DDB Integration. Maps being extremely early Alpha is a pretty big let down as surely by now they could at least have something as good as AboveVTT. That said, AboveVTT looks like a bare bones, lightweight version of Foundry VTT, which also has DDB options that lets you do- well pretty much all of this and more, with a bit more complexity that allows for a lot more customization and feature options. You can play FVTT in much the same way you do with AboveVTT or you can dive into the abyss of full automation modding where your DM eventually can get to a point where they can just click a few buttons, drop in a map, and have fully functioning tokens that can attack, check to hit, roll saving throws, trigger traps- the whole 9 yards- and focus on role playing while the system helps put on a show and streamline combat.

3 minutes into a 13 minute video: “And that’s all you can do in DNDBeyond Maps…” lol AboveVTT is amazing. I want Maps to be successful, but AboveVTT is far far ahead of it. I’ve used it for years and the fact it connects with dndbeyond makes it my fave VTT