Fans of tabletop RPGs have most likely heard of the services provided by OneBookShelf and Roll20. OneBookShelf is the company behind the most widely used digital distribution storefronts for TTRPG books and supplements including DrivethruRPG and DMs Guild. Roll20 is the most widely popular virtual tabletop platform in the world, allowing online groups to play TTRPG sessions with digital maps, tokens, character sheets, and dice rollers. Now, both of these services will be working closer together thanks to an official OneBookShelf and Roll20 joint partnership.
What Is The OneBookShelf Roll20 Joint Partnership?
According to an official press release, OneBookShelf's Roll20 joint partnership will allow both companies to pool their resources and tools to provide even more value and convenience for their users. The press release emphasizes this by citing Roll20's 10 million members.
In business terms, OneBookShelf's Roll20 joint partnership is just that. Both organizations are coming together to form a joint venture. With this deal in place, the President of Roll20, Ankit Lai, will continue as CEO of the company, his credentials of leading strategy, marketing, and analytics spanning several industries including Google. Furthermore, OneBookShelf CEO Steve Wieck will be joining the Roll20 Board of Directors and executive team. Wieck has over 35 years of experience within the tabletop industry. His work includes founding DrivethruRPG back in 2004 as well as co-founding White Wolf Publishing, the company that started Vampire: The Masquerade and the World of Darkness franchise.
As for what this will mean for users, the press release did provide a rough roadmap of features. That roadmap includes the following:
- PDF Support For Roll20: GMs and players can now freely share, read, and import material within the VTT
- Shared Libraries: Do you own a bunch of PDFs on your DrivethruRPG account? You will be able to access that library through your Roll20 account and pull from its material as you see fit.
- Single Purchase Support: Much like Roll20's official support of DMs Guild, if you buy something on DrivethruRPG, all of the assets will also be available on your Roll20 account; no need to buy twice or manually import assets yourself.
“Our mission from the get-go has always been to make it easier for publishers and creators to reach a wider audience of roleplaying fans,” said Wieck. “By combining forces with Roll20, we empower game makers to present content across a wider variety of formats, whether character creators, virtual tabletop, digital editions, or print. Customers will be able to support their favorite games, in any format they desire, with one economical purchase, and they will be able to use their content on roleplaying’s most trusted platform.”
When Will The OneBookShelf Roll20 Joint Partnership Benefits Go Into Effect?
The official press release does not give a concrete release date for these features or services. According to our press contacts, OneBookShelf's Roll20 joint partnership deal was just finalized, so all of these planned features are works in progress.