About 3 years ago I stopped using VTTs entirely and switched to a hybrid model using physical dice, terrain, maps , etc combined with OBS and Zoom. Since OBS allows for multiple cameras (usually!), my original setup had three cameras: a ‘main’ camera, a ‘table’ camera, and a ‘dice’ camera. However, this setup requires having two identical setups, each with its own microphone and monitor (one at my computer and one at the table).

When I re designed the cockpit last month after the shelfquake, I was able to streamline things to the point where I can now use a single microphone for both the main and table setups, as now I just need to turn to my right instead of turning 180 degrees.

Yesterday it dawned on me that for Theater of the Mind games, I don’t need to go all the way to the side table for die rolls, I can bring that camera to my desk and then create a scene where both my Face Cam and the dice cam are shown at the same time.

From the outside, it looks like this:

It’s a little tight at the desk, but it worked just fine during the test run at last night’s Call of Cthulhu session.

In OBS/Zoom, the scene now looks like this:

For anyone interested in the technical details, the connections look like this: