So, you’ve just created a game-ready one-shot on World Anvil and now you’re looking to run it with your players? Or perhaps you’ve created an adventure that the entire world should experience, and you’d like to monetize it? In this post, we’ll learn how to create a Roll20 one-shot from your World Anvil content.

How to Create a Roll20 One-Shot

World Anvil has all the tools you need to run a campaign, especially if you use theatre of the mind. However, for those who want a more expansive virtual experience (like battle maps with tokens), you’ll probably want to use something like Roll20! There’s a variety of ways you can use both World Anvil and Roll20, and it ultimately comes down to your own workflow. But here are the main three:

  1. Basic integration: you keep everything on World Anvil and only use Roll20 for battle maps, tokens, and virtual dice.
  2. Medium integration: you move all RPG elements to Roll20 but keep worldbuilding on World Anvil.
  3. Full integration: you move absolutely everything to Roll20. This one’s great if you want to offer your one-shot in the marketplace!

All of these have their pros and cons, which we’ll talk about in the next sections! However, none of these options are objectively better than the others—so look at your current workflow and figure out which of these three points will work best for you.

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1. Basic Integration

  • Who it’s for: GMs who want light VTT (Virtual Table Top) functionality
  • Why: quickest version, saves valuable game time!

This is the best option if you don’t want to spend a lot of time transferring content from World Anvil to Roll20. Simply create a campaign on Roll20 (it’s a catch-all term for any kind of RPG adventure) and invite your players. And that’s it! The players will probably want their sheets on Roll20, but you don’t have to worry about that. You’ll only have to create battle maps and tokens for your NPCs and monster. The pro of this workflow is that it’s quick to set up. But it has a caveat: NPCs and monsters won’t integrate with the VTT.

While running the game, remember to keep World Anvil open with the session plan and any other relevant worldbuilding elements. And if you have any combat encounters, make sure you have the statblocks too—remember that you can roll their dice from the statblock itself! To access everything quickly from a single tab, use World Anvil’s digital storyteller screen.

Basic Roll20 one-shot set-up

This is what a basic Roll20 set-up might look like. (map: City of Glass by Caeora)

2. Medium Integration

  • Who it’s for: GMs who want more VTT functionality
  • Why: takes a bit longer, but yields great results

For a stronger integration, move your NPC and monster statblocks to Roll20. This means that you’ll get a tighter integration between your one-shot and the VTT, but of course, it comes at a cost. If you’ve been working on World Anvil for a while, you might have to move a lot of statblocks manually.

But if you do it, you’ll get the best of both worlds! World Anvil will still have all of your worldbuilding (it’s what we do best!), while Roll20 will hold everything you actually need to run the game.

roll20 campaign with NPC and monster statblocks

Move your statblocks for a tighter integration and workflow (tokens and creature art: TheChosenOne)

3. Full Integration with the Roll20 One-Shot

  • Who it’s for: GMs who want to sell their content, or FULL VTT
  • Why: gives access to the Roll20 marketplace; gives the ultimate VTT functionality

With this one, you’ll end with an extremely tight integration to the point where there will be no difference between the one-shot and its worldbuilding. So you’ll need to have fewer tabs open! What’s the catch? Well, moving everything from World Anvil to Roll20 can be very time-consuming if you have an enormous world. Plus, Roll20 is not a worldbuilding platform, so it’s missing some of the writing and organization tools we offer, which are specifically designed for worldbuilding.

Usually, you won’t need to move everything to Roll20, as having the worldbuilding content on the VTT provides little benefits compared to keeping it on World Anvil. However, if you intend to sell the one-shot in the Roll20 Marketplace, you’ll have to move at least the essential world building and adventure plan to Roll20.

roll20 marketplace

Go to the Roll20 Marketplace and see it for yourself!

Roll20 also has a looking for group list, where you can recruit players for your games! This is great if you don’t have a stable group or if you want to playtest your oneshot with other people.

Check out the official Roll20 documentation

Roll20 has so many options we couldn’t possibly cover all of them here! Check out the official Roll20 documentation to get started. And for more information on how to manage your Roll20 marketplace content, check out the Marketplace Creator HQ documentation!

Create your Roll20 account and your World Anvil GM account to prepare your one-shot!

Want a handy checklist for creating a one-shot? Download this free printable worksheet!

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