I realize there is a dedicated community on discord (and elsewhere) that loves Tabletop Simulator to play HeroQuest online and is willing to sit down patiently and teach newbies how to use it (which is great), and I appreciate the hard work these people put in, as well as the dedication of those who have created and maintain great HeroQuest themed mods for TTS (especially "HeroQuest: Master Edition"). I am trying here not to come across as a grumpy old curmudgeon who wants to put down the tools of choice for others (far from it!). I just want to be able to play the game and I enjoy playing people from the community that I otherwise might not be able to connect with, even introducing people to HeroQuest for the first time or just people I have never played before. I like the idea of continuing a quest, going through each expansion, even if we get different people, picking up where we left off, and not restarting the hero each time we get someone new (though the names can change and new character types can be swapped in easily enough). I've refined my own approach to streaming live HeroQuest games from the earliest attempts nearly 3 years ago now (when we were using Zoom with two cameras and everyone was trying to synchronize their physical board with each other on the fly).
So let's face it, tons of people love TTS for HeroQuest and promote it as the best thing ever. However, for my purposes as a Twitch Streamer (HeroQuestFans, streams semi-regularly on most Friday afternoons 2-4pm CST & Saturday evenings 7-9pm CST, shameless plug there), I find that this tool, while good for some things, is less than ideal for me for other legit reasons.
1) I find the interface has a rather high learning curve, and takes just as much time for Zargon to setup (let's say picking up mid-quest which we do often). Yes, TTS lets you save the positions of everything after you've done it, but I don't mind setting up my physical board game before the cameras start rolling anyway.
2) It limits the audience who can participate because people have to Create a Steam account AND purchase the TTS game ($25, less if there's a sale on), plus install the proper mod(s). Granted, they can also just follow along with my screen if they don't have it, but then what was the point, since they're still relying upon me to work the game for them, based on their verbal/text commands? No time is saved here. People don't need the physical game to play with me on Twitch, just eyes to see the screen (though talking on discord helps... and I've had people who have such a knowledge of the game and visual memory they can play by audio only!). People who have access to pencil and paper can keep track of their character sheets and even roll their own dice.
3) TTS doesn't work on smart phones (last I checked apparently, I don't own one to test). However discord and twitch DO. So more people can play if they are not using TTS. We've played using TTS with people who don't have it as well, of course (but again no point for them using TTS or not). My previous PC was pretty old, and TTS worked okay after it was patched (while Bluestacks was too slow to emulate the Companion App well, though that's no longer a problem once I upgraded my PC).
4) People say that sometimes due to my camera angles or lighting or the size of their screen, it's hard for them to see where things are in the game I'm playing. I can only make adjustments of course based on feedback at the time, so I try my best to show what's going on in the game and describe it audibly as well. To compensate for limitations like this I try to describe via audio and text where things are located, clarifying them, etc. It doesn't save any time if people are re-creating my game on their own TTS even if it might help them visually keep track of things themselves according to personal preference. The problem I run into with TTS is that the person presenting may not be zoomed in on the right spot, or I may not be focusing on what they are doing, so we run into the same issues with small screens not showing a bird's eye view and a closeup view of the entire board and the individual action. The person controlling TTS still has to present and curate the experience as much as someone using the physical board game.
5) While many fan-based mods are available in TTS (which is awesome, with more being added all the time), many are not (certainly none of the mods I've created are found there). With the physical game I use, I know all of my painstakingly created custom cards and minis are available at all times and I don't have to go hunting around for proxies within the program or spend time learning how to re-create them in digital format myself. Just as the Companion App is on the "Honor system" for a lot of things (you just write it down or follow Zargon's instructions, no need for there to be a scripted animation or something on screen for it to happen), so is TTS, but this doesn't really give it any advantage over the physical board game.
6) Yes, it's cheaper to buy TTS than to buy the physical board game. It's much easier to get HeroQuest now with the remake edition in retail (and sometimes sold below MSRP at friendly local game shops) than it was three years ago locating a vintage copy online, however Twitch, Discord, and the HQ Companion App are all FREE. I bought the physical game, so you don't have to (though HeroQuest is a great game, if you can, I suggest buying a copy!).
7) TTS isn't THAT hard to learn, but it does take time to get familiar with it to be able to do all the basic things you need in the game, especially if you're Zargon. Once you get the program working you have to learn how to navigate, how to zoom in, and angle the table, how to find things, how to manipulate objects. A person can learn to play HeroQuest in about 10 minutes, while TTS took me about an hour or two to get used to. We don't always have the same people joining to play week after week, so it would be a matter of training a lot of people, most of whom are not acquainted with the HQ mods on TTS already. I would not want to limit myself to only people who play TTS, otherwise I would probably just close my own discord and move over to the one that does have that dedicated focus. Yes, it's true that as Zargon I can control EVERYTHING if I want to in TTS. I can even roll dice for people. But if I'm doing that, what was the point in using TTS to begin with? I'm still controlling the whole game, based on the instructions given verbally or in text from the other players (if they were to sit back in either case to let me do everything, no time is saved, no extra depth of interactivity is added). If you want an automated Zargon of course, TTS won't do that for you, but the App will (but the App won't do custom quests).
8) If just playing the official Quests in unmodified form, the Companion App can be much easier to discern relative positions of things easily and quickly. Yes, it can take some getting used to identifying some of the character icons (the mercenaries for example), but I can zoom in a lot easier on these things using BlueStacks emulator on my pc, than with TTS where I may have to zoom in a lot or increase the characters in size to make them viewable (especially if using non-standard proxies... is that dark clad warrior with the flail supposed to be my barbarian?).
If there was a version of TTS that was free, that worked on phones, that could connect easily with discord and twitch, that would be a game changer. If the Companion App let you remix quests and let multiple users connect together to click on their own minis (you'd still have to point the camera at your own dice or go on the honor system) that would be great too. For me for now it seems that using my cameras and the game I already paid for, with occasional use of the Companion App (when I want to play a hero) is the best solution. I've played as a Hero before where Zargon used TTS, and it was fine. I didn't have to worry about much, but it still was a learning curve. It still required a lot of communication between the players to make sure everyone was on the "same page."
A lot of this comes down to personal preference. I appreciate the people who love TTS and think I could benefit from having it. If I were a whiz at the interface (and didn't have to worry about training people who were going to play with me on how to use it) it might be more useful to me at a Twitch streamer who plays HeroQuest with people each weekend. But for now it just isn't my best option.
PS: I have never tried using Vassal or Roll 20 to play HeroQuest. I have investigated these options in the past and found various reasons not to (poor graphics, or not setup properly for the game). Foundry was suggested to me, but it was double the price of TTS (though one person could theoretically buy a license and let others have access to their same account) and wasn't setup for HQ out of the box. We all would love to be able to play HeroQuest in person, but even after things have been opening up more after the pandemic, still this is the only way some of us can connect with each other across the distances to play.
