Enter to win a Steam Gift card and more!

July is an exciting month here at the Tavern. We’ve got a lot in the works and wanted to give you a heads up on it all. Check what we have below. There’s something for everyone:

St. Jude Children’s Hospital Charity Event

BlueBoxRPG is hosting a charity streaming event with LordGosumba to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. We’ll be providing more details soon, but block out time on your calendar on Saturday, July 17th at 2 PM CST (Noon PST/3 PM EST). During this very special event you can see Demongund, Istallri, Jonny Ree and Jason (Dwarf) from Bouncy Rock, and myself, the Mad Wizard of Tales Tavern as we play D&D and support a very worthwhile charity. Come to watch the fun, or if just to see what kind of stupid crazy moves we make.

Tales Tavern Author Search

On the Tavern you’ve always been able to search for slabs and boards by creators by searching their names. To further simplify finding your favorite creator, there is an option to search for creator profiles, specifically. Just change the drop down to ‘search creators’ on the ‘results’ page or on the ‘browse by creator’ page. You can easily find your favorite creator by typing their name. It displays their four most liked submissions and you can click to their profile as well.

Need some Ko-fi? Coffee?

Ko-fi is another way to support your favorite creators. Besides the links to their twitch, youtube, and patreon pages, creators can now add a link to their Ko-fi page on their creator profile. Because any creator can use more Ko-fi !

Slab Asset Replacement Tool in Beta

Last month we rolled out our Slabalyzer tool that analyzes and optimizes (mostly removing duplicate) assets, but now we’ve got more cooking. Our Slab Asset Replacement Tool will allow you to remove or replace tiles and props in a slab. This tool also updates the slab format from V1 to V2 (it does not replace the actual deprecated assets at this point).

We’ve got a lot of plans for this tool with both a free version and an enhanced Patreon only version. For now we’re rolling out this in beta to our Patreons at any support level. If you want to check it out and help support this site in developing new tools, you can find our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/talestavern .

Note this is a very first blush and there are a lot of hiccups we’ll have to work through, but wanted to get it out so you can play with it and help us make sure we catch them all and we make this as useful as possible.

Badges! I do need stinking badges! And a chance at a Steam Gift Card

Well, enough serious work, we wanted to add some more fun interactivity on the site. So we’re rolling out new badges you can earn later this month. Post a slab, earn a badge. Post a lot of slabs, get another. Like something, comment, etc. now you’ll get rewarded (if only in a small way) for being active on the site.

Before we do that, we want your input. We could spend all our creative juices coming up with titles, images, etc. for the badges. But why do that when we can bribe you to do the work? Simply take the survey below, and let us know your creative ideas for what badges we should give out, what they should be named, and what images should be used. We’re using TaleSpire asset pics for the badges, so it will take some creativity. And come up with your best D&D or TTRPG names for the badges. Let’s have some fun with this.

Everyone who fills out the survey will get entered. And if we use any part of your idea (name, image, etc) we’ll give you extra entries into the drawing. Go crazy, have fun, we can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with.

The deadline to enter is July 16th so we can review and pick a winner and announce it the weekend of July 17-18. Thanks in advance for everyone who enters!

Click here for the Tales Tavern Badge Survey

July Creator of the Month – type_omega aka Workshop Panda

Welcome to July! And to our third creator of the month. This month, we decided to find someone who creates a lot of unique builds in that they create slabs that anyone can use to speed up their building game. Workshop Panda stuck out and so we wanted to make sure everyone could learn a little more about him. As a reward, as if the admiration and thanks of TaleSpire builders isn’t enough, we’ll also be sending him a Tales Tavern mug and t-shirt.

Panda is very active on the TaleSpire discord and already has 35 builds to his name. He’s built a number of interesting and fun builds and then a lot of showcase builds to display and help speed up your building. The most fun activity though is watching his “middle name” as it changes every few days depending on his mood. You better go check it out to find out what it is now.

We here at TalesTavern can’t wait to see more from him and we’re so glad he joined the collaborative build. And really proud to showcase him as our July 2021 creator of the month. Great job Panda.

Below you’ll find a few of his builds, and please follow him as there will be many more to come.

Featured Panda Slabs

New Tool: The Tales Tavern Slabalyzer!

The days of wondering about the size of map files in BouncyRock’s digital tabletop simulator are over! As of today, TalesTavern will now show detailed statistics attached to every slab posted on the site. Each thumbnail will accurately display the number of assets used in a particular slab, as well as their overall dimensions:

Thumbnail view.

A more detailed breakdown is available when viewing an individual slab. This breakdown shows how many assets are used, as well as the number of unique assets in its composition. Most importantly, the site shows how much data is contained within each slab, shown in the example below:

Slab page.

This functionality goes beyond a posted slab however. Any user can access this information by using the Slabalyzer, which is located under the Slabs and Boards tab from the home page here: https://talestavern.com/talespire-slab-analyzer-optimizer/

This fantastic tab displays the details on a slab string, while removing duplicate assets and minimizing the overall codelength. This is helpful for understanding how large a single slab is before it gets posted to the archive. Consider running kitbashed assets through the Slabalyzer before mass producing the object, as they may take up more space than expected.

As of this moment, there is no way for the site’s tools to reveal the same data sets for posted boards. A board uses an in-game URL instead of a string of characters, so for now the site automatically optimizes every posted slab as though it was run through the Slabalyzer. There’s more exciting work coming around the corner, so stay tuned for all things TalesTavern!

June Creator of the Month – Squid

Welcome to June! And to our second creator of the month. This month, you the community, picked our winner. We looked at all the new creators since Early Access began and you voted. Squid was voted as our creator of the month and besides getting accolades from the community, we’ll also be sending him a Tales Tavern mug and t-shirt.

Squid is 29 year old from the UK and has been playing D&D for only 3 years. Despite this he has already turned out to be a great creator and supporter of the community. He’s active in the TaleSpire discord as well as part of our collaborative Rime of the Frost Maiden build team. You can see many of his builds as part of the full Rime of the Frost Maiden TaleSpire Campaign build and he’s been a huge asset there.

Squid uses TaleSpire as his wind down after work, and also preparation for his weekend campaign he runs. Squid truly is a community asset and in his own words, “Sharing creations and building together is what truly makes TaleSpire special and I look forward to seeing more from everyone.”

We here at TalesTavern can’t wait to see more from him and we’re so glad he joined the collaborative build. And really proud to showcase him as our June 2021 creator of the month. Great job Squid.

Below you’ll find a few of his builds, and please follow him as there will be many more to come.

Featured Squid Slabs

Help us pick the June Creator of the Month

TaleSpire has many great creators that have been building since Alpha or early Beta. But this month we want to look at the new creators. Those who have only had the software since Early Access release are the ones we want to to focus on this month.

So help us out, and simply go visit our list of new TaleSpire creators and vote on who you want to win. Help them earn the accolades of their peers, and a little recognition and a gifts from us here at Tales Tavern. It’s as simple as that. You must be logged in to vote. Click here to go and start voting.

The voting will stop on May 31st so we can announce the winner on June 1st.

TaleSpire Campaigns are Live!

Tales Tavern is proud to announce our latest addition. Our new TaleSpire Campaign Library is officially launched. We wanted to start a place to start showing off full campaigns created that can be run in TaleSpire. These can be either published campaigns such as Rime of the Frostmaiden, or homebrew campaigns created by some of the amazing creators in the community.

So now, as you want to play your TaleSpire game, if you don’t have time to build out everything, and if pulling together slabs and boards aren’t fast enough, simply come and find the campaign you want to run and download the needed assets, slabs, boards, PDFs, and whatever else to make your TaleSpire game amazing.

May Creator of the Month – Gengus4

We’re kicking off the celebration of TaleSpire Early Access with our first featured creator of the month. For May 2021, our creator of choice is Gengus4.

Gengus has been a prolific digital creator with 79 slabs published on this website since November 2020 and growing. At this point he’s created more slabs than any other member, but quality isn’t lost with the sheer quantity of content. His slabs have incredible complexity and are simply beautiful while also quite useful to game runners. In the TaleSpire beta they’ve been used consistently for live games and it’s always an incredible experience.

You can see all his slabs and boards on his Tales Tavern Profile Page, or by simply searching for Gengus4.

Gengus, besides being an amazing content creator, is also a dad. He shares his TaleSpire passion with his son which is always fantastic to see. He’s been playing adventure games and designing boards for approximately 25 years with friends and family, and has played Heroquest and Warhammer for 35 years.

We here at Tales Tavern are proud to feature him as our first creator of the month and look forward to his many more creations to come! It’s so hard with so many slabs to pick a favorite, but below is linked a splendid selection so you can get a feel for the impressive quality of work.

If you want to support him further, he has a Patreon Page where you can help sponsor his “hobby” and a Youtube Channel with his growing library of videos.

Featured Gengus4 Slabs

TaleSpire Guide to Sharing/Using Slabs and Boards (Maps)

So here you are, about to create your first build in TaleSpire but you’re staring at a blank board and unsure where to start. Maybe you’ve got a game you’re going to be running in an hour for your players, and there’s no way you can build something that will make you or them happy in time. Well, you’ve found the right place to solve that problem, and with this guide you can put together an amazing adventure in Talespire in minutes!

FYI, this guide is also helpful if you’ve created an amazing creation in TaleSpire and you want to give back to the community by sharing your slab (creation) or board (map).

What is so great about sharing in TaleSpire?

TaleSpire is a fantastic piece of software for playing online D&D or any other tabletop roleplaying game. Its ability to create fully immersive locations and encounters makes the game an entirely new experience, but what really makes it amazing is the community and their willingness to share wonderful creations with each other.

The community has created thousands of builds as of this writing and this is only the beginning. Whether you’re looking for a map for the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Rime of the Frostmaiden, or even Dragon of Icespire Peak, the community has a lot to start with. There are so many locations to explore and adventures to be had that you can find with nothing but a simple click by browsing our TaleSpire Library to get started.

What do all these terms mean? What’s a board vs a slab?

Well, to get you really well versed if you aren’t sure of all the terminology we highly recommend reading up on our TaleSpire Terminology Guide. Here’s a quick rundown of these first two key terms you need to know for sharing and reusing the community creations.

Slabs

Slabs are the term you probably haven’t heard before. Slabs are the term that has been accepted in the community for describing the pieces that are constructed from the assets, props and minis in TaleSpire. Just like those building blocks we all grew up with, that were used to build buildings or cars or amusement parks, slabs are built with assets just the same. They can be as small as a simple garden, or as large as a mountainside with a dungeon inside. They can be copied out and shared here and if you browse our TaleSpire Slab Library you can find things for just about any campaign you could run. 

Boards

Boards are what they sound like, digital bases on which you place the assets and for TaleSpire sharing purposes. They are similar to what you’d expect if you were sharing maps. Boards share the entire build data, compared to slabs that share only what you selected and copied. Boards can contain much more than a slab including minis, but they also aren’t as easy to use if you’re trying to mix and match together pieces to create your own environment.

What are the rules for using, or uploading slabs or boards?

Luckily, there are not a lot of rules for using and uploading, here are a few to follow.

First of all, the whole reason for this site and all its creations is to share and let them be reused. Mostly everything here is fair game for you to use in your private home games as you want. But if you decide to either turn a profit off these creations, or want to upload something you created that is based on or using pieces from another build, then you’ll need to make sure to follow a couple of simple rules.

  1. If the slab or board creator that you are copying from has added a Creative Commons License selection on their board or slab, it will be listed on the details page of that board or slab (as shown below). Make sure to click the link and understand what you are allowed, and not allowed, to do with their creation.
Make sure to know if the creator has limited what they want done

2. Even if the slab or board creator has not listed a Creative Commons License, you should give them credit in the description of your upload if you share your new creation. A mention, link, or such is not only respectful of their work but gives them proper credit for the work they put in.

What tips do you have for uploading boards and slabs?

There are a number of things you can do when uploading that will both help your creation be found but also make it more usable.

  • Board or Slab?: First decide if it should be a slab or board you upload. Slabs are more limited in size (30k clipboard limitation) and will not contain minis. On the flip side they have the benefit of being easily duplicated multiple times, or fitting into an existing layout or board. Boards can be much larger and contain minis, so for large complex areas or full campaigns they make a good choice.
  • Screenshots: Make sure to get good screen shots, the more the better! You can use TaleSpire’s photo options (F6 for Camera Mode, F12 for Steam Screenshots, Windows Key-Shift-S for Windows built-in screen shots, etc.). Istallri has a great TaleSpire screenshot guide on YouTube
  • Categorize: It takes a bit more work to do, but if you can properly assign any proper types, terrains or locations when uploading your creation this will help users out. It not only improves search results but also lets users filter down for even better targeting. Freeform additional tags also help, so feel free to use these tags for anything you think users may search for.
Add categorized tags to improve search and filtering to find your creation
  • Credit: As mentioned before, if your creation uses parts from other published works, make sure to give them credit or a mention in your description. This community is all about building together but don’t take credit for things you didn’t create.

How do I find slabs or boards to reuse in TaleSpire?

If you want to find a slab or board to use from the community, there are a few ways to go about it.

  • Search: You can use the search box in the top right of the Tales Tavern site. This will automatically search the TaleSpire Slab and Board library for whatever you search for. This can include standard names, locations, or even creator names on the site.

Quick Tip: Once you’ve searched or are browsing, you can use the filtering options to further slim down the results if you’ve found too many matches.

Filter your results to help nail down what you’re searching for
  • Browse: You can browse the entire TaleSpire Slab/Board Library. If you have no idea what you are looking for you can simply browse through and see what you can find.
  • Browse by Category: If you are looking for a particular category or type of creation, you can use our browse by category page. This lets you look for particular creations based on the location, type, or terrain.

Quick Tip: Another option, if you find a slab or creation you like, is to see other creations by that creator by clicking on their name, or browse similarly tagged creations by clicking the tag in the info box on the page.

Click a link to see more creations like what you’re looking at

How do I use a TaleSpire slab uploaded to Tales Tavern?

Well I’ve got good news for you, using a community-created TaleSpire slab in your game couldn’t be much easier. If you know how to copy and paste, you can use a slab very easily. Just follow these quick steps: the TL;DR is click the copy code button, and paste (ctrl-V) it into TaleSpire.

  • Find a slab on Tales Tavern. Make sure it’s a slab as it will be denoted above the thumbnail (make sure it says slab not board), or on the top right of the details page.
  • Click the button to copy the code for the slab, which can be in one of two locations. If you are viewing the slab thumbnail while browsing/searching it’s under the thumbnail picture and looks like two pieces of paper overlaying each other. If you are viewing the slab details page click the Copy Code button.
Under the slab thumbnail simply click the copy code icon
On the slab detail page, simply click the Copy Code button
  • Start up TaleSpire and open a campaign, then a board you want to place the slab in.
  • Now press Ctrl-V and your slab will appear in the board and you can move it and place it with the mouse. Yes, it’s that easy.

How do I share a slab I’ve created in TaleSpire?

You’ve created something in TaleSpire and you’re looking to share with the community your build. Let’s give you props right now, you’re awesome! This is how TaleSpire grows and becomes even better. Okay, props done, lets get down to business, albeit quite easy.

  • Before uploading your slab, you’ll want to save a few screenshots. We’ve got some tips if you need help on how to take screenshots in TaleSpire.
  • Now go to the Slab/Board Upload page
  • Go ahead and fill out the name, and then get the slab code.
  • In order to get the slab code, you’ll need to first select your entire built slab. You can select it all by going into build mode with B, then holding X (or pressing the Slab selection button in the building toolbar) before dragging the height/width of your slab. Then let go and lift the mouse to complete the selection and left-clicking so your slab is highlighted, and press Ctrl-C to copy the slab. When you do this, the selection box will disappear and your mouse will hold a copy of your slab.
The slab selection button lets you select your slab
  • You can press escape or right-click to remove that duplicate in your build, the code will still be stored in the Windows clipboard
  • Now return to the Tales Tavern upload page and in the code box simply press Ctrl-V. This will dump the code in for you easily.
  • Now go through and fill out the rest, adding locations, types, and terrains that are appropriate. Don’t forget free form tags, descriptions, uploading your images and checking off that you created the slab.
  • Make sure to give anyone credit who you used pieces from.
  • Now click Save and you’re done. Congratulations, you’ve shared your slab with the world.

Quick Tip: When selecting slabs, if your creation is too large you can break it into multiple slabs and post them separately. Try to find good breaking points so if users want to put them back together it’s easier to do.

How do I use a TaleSpire board uploaded to Tales Tavern?

Reusing a board that the community created in TaleSpire is very, very easy. TL;DR is open a TaleSpire campaign, find a board, click the button to view in TaleSpire, answer yes for importing.

  • First, start TaleSpire and then open your campaign you want to put the board in.
  • Find a board on Tales Tavern. Make sure it’s a board as it will be denoted above the thumbnail, or on the top right of the details page.
  • Click the button to “Open in TaleSpire”. This can be in one of two locations. If you are viewing the board thumbnail while browsing/searching it is under the thumbnail picture and looks like a square with a small arrow. If you are viewing the slab details page click the Open in TaleSpire button.
Click Open in TaleSpire and voila!
Click Open in TaleSpire and the board imports

Quick Tip: When you click the link the browser may ask permission to open TaleSpire. You must click the open button to bring it in. Also, you can click the checkbox to have the browser not ask again for quicker imports in the future.

  • TaleSpire will pop up and show a message about importing the board. If you click OK the board will import and be put in your board list for that campaign.
Click OK and then it will show in your board list

Quick Tip: Once the board is imported it will show in your board list, but it will not automatically move to the board, so you won’t see a visible change on your current board.

How do I share a board I’ve created in TaleSpire?

You’ve created something in TaleSpire and you’re looking to share with the community your build. We said that before with slabs but you still get props. You’re stupendous! Now let;s get down to business.

  • Before uploading your board, you’ll want to save a few screenshots. We’ve got some tips if you need help on how to take screenshots in TaleSpire.
  • Now go to the Slab/Board Upload page
  • Go ahead and fill out the name, and then we’ll need to get the board url.
  • To get the board url, open your board and then go to the board menu. Once there you’ll see a publish copy button that look like a bunch of concentric circles (see below). Simply click that to open the board copy tab.
Share your TaleSpire Boards
  • Now once inside the board simply click the big “Publish Copy of Current Board” button. This will add a new item under the campaign name you are in. If the campaign isn’t in the list, it will add it.
  • Click on the campaign name and now you’ll see the board copies available. The lower copies are the most recent.
  • Now simply click the copy icon (looks like two pieces of paper) on the right side of the board copy you want to use. This will copy the board URL into your Windows clipboard.
  • Now return to the Tales Tavern upload page and in the code/url box simply press Ctrl-V which will then dump the url in. It will look something like talespire://published-board/UmltZSAtIFdlbGNvbWU=/191f643642e27f19ae99e996db8b7dac
  • Go through and fill out the rest, adding locations, types and terrains that are appropriate, free form tags, descriptions, upload your images and check off that you created the board.
  • Make sure to give anyone credit who you used pieces from.
  • Now click Save and you’re done. Congratulations, you’ve shared your board with the world!

We hope this guide was helpful whether you’re just starting out with TaleSpire or are about to begin sharing a completely library of creations with the world. We’re glad to have you along.

If you find any problems with this article, think something more needs to be added, or simply have ideas that will help make this a better resource, let us know. We want this guide to be a community resource for every TaleSpire fan.

Welcome to the World of TaleSpire!

As we’ve reached Early Access for TaleSpire, we wanted to welcome all the new users to both TaleSpire and Tales Tavern. So come and gather round, we’re glad to have you here as a new member of this fantastic, creative community that grows with every update. TaleSpire, in our opinion, is the best way to play a tabletop game remotely with its ability to create beautiful, immersive experiences and the commitment the developers have to expanding the software for many years to come.

Those who’ve been playing and building throughout the beta proclaim TaleSpire has forever changed how we play D&D with its detailed maps and miniatures and the flexible atmosphere and ambience options which really add to a gaming experience. Of course the rules-agnostic system can be used for Pathfinder, Warhammer and other tabletop RPGs. We’ve even seen some traditional tabletop board games recreated in TaleSpire like chess and monopoly!

So in order to help you get started we wanted to give you a few quick tips on how to use Tales Tavern as well as some other valuable resources as you acquaint yourself with this new way to experience and enjoy virtual creative gaming.

Getting Started

Since this is new to many of you, you’ll have a lot of questions. In order to help out, we’ve created a few guides that can help you understand the TaleSpire software and its versatility as well as limitations better. We’ve got more on the way but here’s the basics you need to get started.

  • TaleSpire Terminology Guide – There are a lot of terms in TaleSpire that are common to most TTRPGs. Some have slightly different meanings in TaleSpire, so we created this guide to help you get started understanding the lingo.
  • The Ultimate Player’s Guide to TaleSpire – If you plan on playing a game in TaleSpire, this guide will help you understand a bit more on what you can and can’t do and how it all works, from choosing a mini to rolling spell dice.
  • The Ultimate GM’s Guide to TaleSpire – Coming soon
  • The Ultimate Builder’s Guide to TaleSpire – Coming soon

Slab & Board Sharing

Well, in order to experience a game in TaleSpire someone has build out a board for you to play on, or often multiple boards collected in a campaign. You can build your own, one piece at a time, but sometimes you just don’t have time for that. After all, why spend hours learning how to build in Talespire if you can simply copy and paste? Both the software and this website and map repository, help you do just that.

First, if you simply want to browse the latest slabs and boards you can find them in our Slab & Board Repository where you can simply browse all you want, or you can also use the search feature as well. You can then filter it down further to really find what you’re looking for. And if you have a particular search you like you can bookmark it and save that URL for later. For example if you want to see all Wildemount or Curse of Strahd slabs, it’s easy to find.

Now that you’ve found a board or slab, you have a couple of options on how to bring these in. You can do this either from the search listing itself or by clicking on the single page view. So let’s go over quickly how to bring them into TaleSpire.

First is the thumbnail view and what the buttons do.

Right off the bat we can tell the one on the left is a board, while the one on the right is a slab. Boards contain an entire board to be used in TaleSpire where slabs are just portions of a board (structures, hills, areas, etc.).

You can like a board or slab by clicking the heart on the left, or use the plus icon to save it/bookmark it to a collection. But for now, bring the board into TaleSpire. Just open TaleSpire, then a campaign that you have GM privileges to and click the view in TaleSpire button (shown below). Your browser will ask to confirm that you want to open the link, and once you do TaleSpire will ask if you want to import the board, and voila! You’ve got a brand new board in your TS campaign that you can edit, duplicate or just use as is.

Click the View in TaleSpire to immediately
open the board in TaleSpire.

If you want to use that another time you can click the copy button, which will copy to the windows clipboard the URL (which can be used in TaleSpire in the add board feature shown below), in the bottom of the boards menu. Or you can use the plus icon to save a bookmark to this in your collections. All your collections can be seen in your profile page once you log in via Steam.

Add a board by going to the board menu and paste the board url into the box with Ctrl-V

Now if you’ve found a slab, the process is a bit different. Slabs are copied and pasted as big blocks of code. They do have an upper limit in size but still can be quite sizeable depending on how they’re built. Simply click the copy code button (seen below) and then as you go into TaleSpire, you go into a board where you want to paste the slab and simply press Ctrl-V. You can then place your slab wherever you want. It’s that easy.

Simply click to copy, Ctrl-V to paste in TaleSpire
Ctrl-V and then put the slab where you want it. Just beware of scorpions!

There’s a ton more you can do in TaleSpire and much more on the Tales Tavern website through collections, resources, browsing assets and more to come. Before we wrap up, here’s a couple of other really useful resources.

Other Resources

TaleSpire Terminology Guide

Congratulations on joining the TaleSpire Community!  You’ve got the software, you’re excited to start building, playing or maybe GMing a few games.

Well, as with any community, there’s a bit of lingo that you need to learn.  You can get by without it, but if you know the terminology then you can communicate more clearly when talking about TaleSpire, D&D, or any tabletop role playing game.  So let’s get started.

Now before I go into specifics of each term, TaleSpire is software to build, and play, tabletop role playing games, and therefore it has a lot of terms that coincide, often on purpose, with terms in those games.  So if you play D&D, Pathfinder, or one of many others, many of these terms may seem familiar to you.  This guide will help clarify what parts are the same and what’s different.

TaleSpire Building Terminology

Let’s talk building!  In order to help make it a bit more concrete, many of these terms we’ll also explain in similarity to a very common building block system we all know and love.  We’ll start with the smallest piece and work our way up to help explain all the TaleSpire terminology a bit at a time.

Assets

Assets are in essence the pieces used to build your creations.  You find the blocks, place them on the board and start building.  You can move, copy and rotate them in order to build.  These assets can include tiles, props or minis.  New assets are currently provided by the software through updates. So in terms of our favorite building blocks, these are the individual blocks and pieces.

Tiles

Tiles are the general building blocks. These assets can include walls, doors, bushes, floors or any other piece you’d use to build your layout. Tiles will snap to the grid as compared to props (listed below) which are smaller and can be placed more freeform. Once again, in simpler terms, these are the actual building block pieces, 2×2, 4×2 or whatever shape and size.

TaleSpire has tons of tiles of various styles to choose from

Props

Props are the term for individual objects in the TaleSpire software. These are what they sound like, they are distinct items that you drop in.  This could be a table, or a plate, lamps or crystals.  They also can be rotated and moved but generally are considered distinct items.  These, in building block terms, are the unique individual pieces that aren’t used to build out the structure but add a bit of pizzazz and style to your creations.

Props can be not only rotated but placed anywhere in your scene, completely free form.

Minis / Creatures

Minis are just what they sound like .  They are the creatures, the characters, the miniatures that you place on the board.  They can be player minis, monsters, NPCs, or any other place you’d want a dragon, a half-orc, a minstrel, or other creature.  These can be controlled by the GM but also assigned to players to control, assigned names, made unique or even be set to fly. And yes, these in building block terms are the mini figs we all love.

Monsters, heroes, NPCs and everything in between

Slabs

Slabs are the term you probably haven’t heard before.  Slabs are the term that has been accepted in the community for describing the pieces that are constructed from the assets, props and minis.  Just like those building blocks that can be used to build buildings or cars or amusement parks, slabs are built with assets just the same.  They can be as small as a simple garden, or as large as a mountainside with a dungeon inside.   They can be copied out and shared here and if you browse our repository of community created slabs you can find things for just about any campaign you would run.  There is a limit to the size you can copy in and out due to some technical requirements. This is the heart of the TaleSpire sharing community because as players build and share more, it makes the software easier for new GMs to set up new campaigns by mixing and matching slabs they create with creation from others.

Slabs can be shared between players by posting up to a talespire sharing site. Tales Tavern’s TaleSpire Slab Library can be browsed and searched and used to easily copy out a slab to reuse in your campaign. And it’s literally as easy as clicking copy on the site, and then pasting with Ctrl-V in TaleSpire.

TaleSpire Slabs can be simple to incredibly large and complex. Limited by your imagination and the Windows clipboard

Boards

Boards are what they sound like. They are the board on which you place the assets.  They are just like those flat green boards you’d get for building with that you’d put down and build on top of.  The main difference, and it’s a huge one, is that in TaleSpire you don’t have to click everything down on the ground.  In video game terms you can think of a board as a level. It contains a collection of slabs, assets, props, minis, to make up that place in your world for the players to explore.

Boards may now also be shared via a url. This is created in TaleSpire using the Publish Copy button on the Campaign Boards menu. These can then be shared in the TaleSpire Board and Slab Repository for others to use. If you want to use a board from another creator simply find the board on Tales Tavern, and then click the View in TaleSpire button. This will open pull the board into your open campaign. Or if you don’t want to instantly import you can use the copy code button and then in the boards screen you can paste in the board url to bring in manually whenever you want.

Players can navigate to different boards by being pulled by a GM, or may choose to change to a different board in game on their own with the board menu.

Quick Tip: If a player moves to a board and a GM is not present, they will not be able to move around or browse the board.

Pick a board and click the arrow to move there

Campaigns

Campaigns are often very similar to D&D or other TTRPG campaigns.  They are the largest collection in TaleSpire as they are a collection of boards.  In building block terms it’s the full set that you purchased but in reality it’s simply a collection of boards put together in one place.  So the campaign may be in a published D&D module and each board could be a separate location in that module.

Players can be members of and join multiple campaigns

Building TL;DR

So basically in order of size from largest to smallest.

A TaleSpire campaign contains one or more boards, each board contains slabs and those slabs are made up of assets. The assets can be tiles, props or minis.  And yes, boards can have free form tiles/props/minis that aren’t part of a larger creation.

TaleSpire specific terms

These are just a few terms that have specific meaning in TaleSpire that we figured we’d quickly mention.

Cutscene mode

This is a GM initiated mode that locks the players into a specific view. This way the GM can freeze the players and introduce something how they want with specific views, interactions, or atmosphere.

Cutscenes let a GM control what players view at a particular moment

Initiative mode aka Turnbased Mode

Yes, combat is the heart of many tabletop role playing games and TaleSpire has an initiative mode.  This mode lets the combat loop through the order of turns and allows the GM to add/remove creatures in that order at any time.  This is also initiated by the GM in their interface.

Build mode

This is where you’ll live if you enjoy building, or even as a GM you’ll be here a little as you set up and build out your boards in your campaign.  If you are a designated GM on the board you can simply hit B to enter build mode and start building.  This will automatically be initiated if you paste in a slab that you’ve copied.

Photo mode

In order to get your best screen shots, TaleSpire has a free form camera mode activated using F6.  There are a lot of settings to get the right shot and once you take the shot it is automatically stored on your computer for you.

Use Photo Mode in TaleSpire to get some awesomely creative shots

We hope this helps you understand the various terminology in TaleSpire. For more detailed uses we’re creating distinct guides. So check out our Ultimate TaleSpire Players guide and other guides coming soon.

If you find any problems with this article, think something more needs to be added, or simply have ideas that will help make this a better resource, let us know. We want this to be a community resource for every TaleSpire fan.

Talespire’s Chimera Update has Released!

Last week marked the release of Talespire’s last closed beta patch dubbed Chimera, an overhaul of the code and user interface for BouncyRock’s online tabletop simulator that redefines much of the board gaming experience. Backers have some time to acquaint themselves with the new design and options so they can provide feedback ahead of the Early Access release in two weeks’ time.

There are many important changes in this update to discuss. First and most visibly, the in-game layouts have been altered quite dramatically for both GMs and players- even more so for builders.

Campaigns that already existed need to be updated to Chimera which might be a crash-heavy process, though that was fixed quite quickly the day of release. The fourth button on the left is a tutorials window that details various things in Talespire for anyone to learn more about the software. The buttons on the right have been thinned out as the combination library has been moved to the bottom of the interface, and now they are just for unique minis and the chat/roll history – yes there is a miniature-based chat function and it is absolutely hilarious.

Checking out the new in-game chat function, very serious.

Beyond this flashy addition, there have been several major changes to how Talespire can be operated. For one, key bindings have been updated to allow for key mapping, and the very core of the software code has been reevaluated in terms of how miniature and dice physics work as well as how props and building blocks operate to make building in Talespire that much easier. You might notice that the game runs visibly smoother on all systems thanks to optimization of the graphical code; however these will take time to refine so that the foundations of Talespire are as sturdy as possible before release.

Down the line there are additional changes in the works: fog of war, line of sight, and the help/tutorial functionality being fleshed out before early access. As with any major overhaul there are and will be bugs in many segments of BouncyRock’s game program, some of which include persistent crashing in boards, miniatures floating when reloaded, and even being booted from a board if someone else is already present. These relatively-fatal errors can prevent you from using Talespire in sessions for a decent amount of time until they get ironed out but the team is working around the clock to analyze reported bugs and fix what they know are the urgent technical problems. We and the development team appreciate your patience as BouncyRock approaches their most critical juncture and public release begins this month!

TaleSpire Comes to Early Access on April 14th!

Mark your calendars, April 14th is the day that BouncyRock’s digital tabletop hits Steam’s Early Access catalog! Priced at 24.99$ USD, anyone who wants to experience the wonder of Talespire can get their hands on it in four weeks. With dozens of miniatures, countless building assets, and an adjusting lighting system, players and gamemasters alike will get to immerse themselves in whatever tabletop role-playing game they’re enjoying digitally in these socially-distant times.

TaleSpire’s Early Access Banner


However, they aren’t leaving their Kickstarter backers high and dry, as the beta build known as Chimera will be launched on March 31st. This will allow players and the developers of Talespire to work hand in hand to help find and report any major issues before Early Access begins. Not to mention BouncyRock plans to finish exclusive rewards for Kickstarter backers in the not-to-distant feature. 

The Chimera update will have a whole host of changes, including a brand new building menu, which the developers describe as “Sims-like”; spell effects, reworked lighting, and faster board syncing. You can learn all about the new building system in this video where one of the developer’s showcases and explains the system as a whole.

Four brave souls against a troll and his goons on a dark night

After Early Access is released updates won’t stop coming. BouncyRock plans to stay on schedule with asset bundles, miniature drops, and other features, and of course the occasional bug fixing hotfix. If you’re ever curious about updates or future features for Talespire, Tales Tavern will always have your back. So stay tuned in, we’ll be releasing a guide to Talespire for everyone at the table, players, gamemasters, and even builders!