I truly hate Facebook but to date, I haven't found any platform that allows me to replicate it's functionality sufficiently enough to warrant leaving it. My primary interest is in creating and managing groups. All my players have FB accounts and I can easily create a group, invite them, store files, documents, organise events and send out RSVP invites, etc. The players can also do most of this as well so it's as much a social outlet for sharing various news and posts that interest us as a group as it is for just organising.
I've tried platforms like Obsidian Portal but that was an immense disappointment and turned out to be far more hassle than it's worth. As much as I dislike FB and find it's interface and functionality to be limited, annoying and clumsy, it's still leagues better than OP was. I know that DDB has something in the works but a) I not going to rely on something that may come out in some possible future when I need something right now, and b) I'm fairly confident it won't handle all the things I will require of a complete organisational tool and social gathering space.
So does anyone have any alternatives that cover everything I can do to organise and maintain a D&D group through Facebook, only better?
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"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
Discord/Slack+Google Drive seems to be the best combo, imho.
Granted, youdy need 2 "things", but pretty much everyone has a Gmail account and both messaging tools are super simple to use, I even think you can make a sticky message that is always there to point to the gdrive for the group (you definitely can on Slack).
As for sharing interesting stuff not necessarily related to the group itself, it's just as easy and less messy, since you can create a general chat and a separate one for each group, imho.
In terms of organising events, I am not 100% sure but I think there might be some mod+add-on on both to help you do that.
Just my 2c.
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Yeah, Discord + Slack + Google Drive would be one of those clunky, awkward alternatives that isn't even near close to what FB offers so isn't something I'd downgrade to.
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"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
Just to be clear, I meant either Discord OR Slack, not the two together, since they would basically do the same thing.
I can see that for you it would be a downgrade, sorry I can't be of more help (I never used FB for organizing a roleplay group, so I cannot really gauge the loss between that and anything else, tbh). In my group we use Facebook Messenger to chat, Skype for video-sessions (I am in Spain, they are in different parts of England), Drive for files we might need to share and DDB for characters, it works pretty well and doesn't really bulks up things (I have to suggest to move away from Facebook Messenger+Skype and try to do both things via Discord).
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I tried using Facebook originally to keep the group organized, but switched to Discord and Google. Facebook let me put everything up, but it's an isolated environment, so it won't talk to Google Calendar for example. Discord is convenient for us since we use it for VOIP for those who are remote and google just has all the apps to facilitate things. I'll leave links to group documents in the Discord chat or in the D&D campaign notes sections. Since we use Roll20 I've started experimenting with the handouts tab a bit for things like a dossier. I don't think there's one best fit solution for this unfortunately.
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I truly hate Facebook but to date, I haven't found any platform that allows me to replicate it's functionality sufficiently enough to warrant leaving it. My primary interest is in creating and managing groups. All my players have FB accounts and I can easily create a group, invite them, store files, documents, organise events and send out RSVP invites, etc. The players can also do most of this as well so it's as much a social outlet for sharing various news and posts that interest us as a group as it is for just organising.
I've tried platforms like Obsidian Portal but that was an immense disappointment and turned out to be far more hassle than it's worth. As much as I dislike FB and find it's interface and functionality to be limited, annoying and clumsy, it's still leagues better than OP was. I know that DDB has something in the works but a) I not going to rely on something that may come out in some possible future when I need something right now, and b) I'm fairly confident it won't handle all the things I will require of a complete organisational tool and social gathering space.
So does anyone have any alternatives that cover everything I can do to organise and maintain a D&D group through Facebook, only better?
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
Discord/Slack+Google Drive seems to be the best combo, imho.
Granted, youdy need 2 "things", but pretty much everyone has a Gmail account and both messaging tools are super simple to use, I even think you can make a sticky message that is always there to point to the gdrive for the group (you definitely can on Slack).
As for sharing interesting stuff not necessarily related to the group itself, it's just as easy and less messy, since you can create a general chat and a separate one for each group, imho.
In terms of organising events, I am not 100% sure but I think there might be some mod+add-on on both to help you do that.
Just my 2c.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Yeah, Discord + Slack + Google Drive would be one of those clunky, awkward alternatives that isn't even near close to what FB offers so isn't something I'd downgrade to.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
Just to be clear, I meant either Discord OR Slack, not the two together, since they would basically do the same thing.
I can see that for you it would be a downgrade, sorry I can't be of more help (I never used FB for organizing a roleplay group, so I cannot really gauge the loss between that and anything else, tbh).
In my group we use Facebook Messenger to chat, Skype for video-sessions (I am in Spain, they are in different parts of England), Drive for files we might need to share and DDB for characters, it works pretty well and doesn't really bulks up things (I have to suggest to move away from Facebook Messenger+Skype and try to do both things via Discord).
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I tried using Facebook originally to keep the group organized, but switched to Discord and Google. Facebook let me put everything up, but it's an isolated environment, so it won't talk to Google Calendar for example. Discord is convenient for us since we use it for VOIP for those who are remote and google just has all the apps to facilitate things. I'll leave links to group documents in the Discord chat or in the D&D campaign notes sections. Since we use Roll20 I've started experimenting with the handouts tab a bit for things like a dossier. I don't think there's one best fit solution for this unfortunately.