Hey all,

I'm relatively new to D&D (long-time lurker, recent player) and DMing. I DM'd my 12th or so session last night. It would be online anyway because my friends are all over, but our sessions are definitely taking place online because of COVID-19. 

D&D Beyond is a really good product, and I've been impressed by how many improvements have shipped in the few months I've been using it. But it doesn't seem to do everything yet, and I'm curious:  What are the go-to tools for DMing an online session that y'all use? 

Here are mine (so far): 

• Characters / Rolls: D&D Beyond. There are some kinks, to be sure, but it's pretty darn good. Especially with the newly-launched dice feature. You can get A LOT of the game done inside D&D Beyond.
• Audio / Video: Zoom. Pretty standard. The screen sharing feature helps with maps, monster images. The chat helps the team get me their initiative scores, or if they want to do something sneaky out of sight of their fellow PCs, or sidebar with one another if they don't want me or another PC to know something. 
• Maps: So far, I've been using Google Jamboard. It's pretty deep in their app suite, but it's a whiteboarding tool anybody with Google Mail should have access to. I'll search for an image of a cave, village, forest path, etc., plug it into Jamboard, and then import images of the characters and monsters and move them around, in real time, via Zoom's screen sharing. It's a blunt instrument -- and occasionally really frustrating -- but it's been a godsend to manage, like, AoE spells and movement without theater of the mind. If folks have better map tools, though, I'm all ears. 
• Initiative / Combat Tracking: For the longest time, I was doing this with pencil and paper---but that was pretty labor-intensive and mistake prone, I'm not going to lie. I've recently started using D&D Beyond's Encounter Developer and Combat Tracker. While there's some serious kinks to work out, they've been a huge help. One huge thing I think can / should be improved is this:  ostensibly, D&D Beyond has access to ALL of the characters' HP, AC, conditions, buffs, etc. All that should be added into the combat tracker automatically. Like, if a Spirits of the Ancestors Barbarian is raging... D&D Beyond knows how many rounds the rage lasts ... and knows what the Adv/DisAdv dynamics are, etc... That could all populate in the the Combat Tracker (which, to be fair, is only in Alpha now). And that'd be awesome. Running a fast-paced game with a bunch of PCs, it's a huge pain to remember who all has what going on. And if they don't remember, it'll sometimes break the game or slow it down. I'm sure y'all have experienced this before. This is to say, the D&D Beyond Combat Tracker is not perfect but it's the best I've found so far. And it's been a big help.
• NPC / Encounter Generation: I just do this myself. But I could see value in a tool for it. 
• Loot Generation: I tend to do this myself, too. But I've used this one and it's pretty good.

In the end, I'd love for D&D Beyond to be a seamless, integrated, one-stop-shop for all this. But it doesn't seem to be quite there yet. Anyway, I'm curious what y'all use. I want to make my session experience as smooth and painless as possible, for my players and for me. 

Thanks!!

Here's what we are now using

• Character building - D&D Beyond
• In-game Character referencing/die rolls - Foundry VTT
• Audio/Video - Google Meet
• Maps - Made with DungeonDraft or Dungeon Painter Studio, imported into Foundry, used in Foundry (line-of-sight tracking, etc).
• Initiative/Combat Tracking - Foundry
• Encounter Building - Kobold Fight Club (for future fights when the characters will be higher level), or Foundry's encounter builder (if it's for an encounter of the current level). Main reason for this is, the Foundry one requires me to drag-and-drop character tokens onto it, and I can't (easily) make the character token a higher level than the character currently is. So I just manually type the levels and numbers of characters into KFC.
• NPC creation - Foundry
• Loot generation - I use the DMG random tables or just make up stuff myself (or more commonly a combo -- random for how many GP something has, my choice for magic items).

I've moved away from DDB to Foundry for nearly all DMing activity, because Foundry is both a one-stop-shop (which DDB definitely is not), and also I find Foundry's UI to be much more fluid and intuitive than DDB's... especially for things like making up new homebrew monsters or tracking initiative/combat.

I’ve gotta say, I’m just moving things over to Foundry VTT too like Biowizard. It’s so much slicker than Roll20. I’m also new to DMing 5e and the whole virtual thing, so it’s been a journey. The one thing I haven’t just figured out is how to port the character sheets over yet. Hello YouTube...

Quote from Shihan >>

I’ve gotta say, I’m just moving things over to Foundry VTT too like Biowizard. It’s so much slicker than Roll20. I’m also new to DMing 5e and the whole virtual thing, so it’s been a journey. The one thing I haven’t just figured out is how to port the character sheets over yet. Hello YouTube...

There is a mod for Foundry that does it. It's pretty much point and click. The only thing I don't like is that it will over-write icon choices I've made when it re-imports spells.

You can also import monsters. But I don't bother with that. I just do them by hand. It's just once, and the abilities can be dragged-and-dropped. It takes like 5 minutes unless the monster has tons of custom abilities.

Here's what I run for a couple of games a week (different groups).

• Characters/rolls -  DnD Beyond,  for rolls we also just roll our physical dice at times (depending on the daily superstition of what's rolling well)
• Audio/Video - Zoom
• Maps - roll20    I normally take a map or make one and then upload it to roll20, then add a few items around.  My maps tend to be more sparse/functional than detailed.
• Initiative/Combat Tracking - DnD Beyond
• NPC creation - I have some text files on a laptop that contain npc names and a feature or two.  As I improv I may add to that over time.   I keep files for locations (citys), dungeons, and npcs
• Loot generation - I use published items, but often just make them up homebrew style as I like adding quirks to items and am not a fan of the generic +1 dagger.   I would like a list of tables I could customize and roll against (like the old ADnD  DMG had.

I started using Fantasy Grounds. What I did was just purchase the upper tier of the program. This allows the players to access it wit the free/demo version. There is also a subscription option but I figured as much as I will be using it is will pay for itself quickly. My group uses discord for voice chat, but other then that everything is done over Fantasy Grounds. Worth checking out and worth the price if you will be using it often. It can handle everything you are asking except for audio/video. It lets you input everything and anything you need for your game. My players do use D&D beyond for their characters but they did input their characters into FG as well. This speeds things up a bit.

Here's what I use ...

NPCs/Character Sheets/Rolls : Roll20

Maps: Roll20

Initiative/Combat Tracking: Roll20

Audio (and Video when desired): Discord

The main reason I have for using Roll20 is convenience. I bought the WoTC modules that I am running and they include maps/monsters/storline information (pretty much everything from the hardcover book). I purchased the monster manual/PHB/XGtE. This makes prep and running games relatively easy and time (for me) is a significant consideration.

I haven't tried the other VTT out there and although I would like to since (in my opinion) roll20 isn't perfect and there is a lot that could be done to improve it ... I don't have the time.

Here's what we are now using

• Character building - D&D Beyond
• In-game Character referencing/die rolls - MapTools 1.7.0 VTT
• Audio/Video - Whereby.com
• Maps - Made with Paint/GIMP/PS or pulled from D&D Beyond, imported into and used in MapTools (LoS, AoE, dynamic vision, etc...).
• Initiative/Combat All tracked in MapTools
• Encounter Building - I actually use D&D Beyond's Encounter Builder to form the framework of my encounters, and I will often use Kobold Fight Club for inspiration or fine tweaking if necessary (the current CR system is a bit too iffy for me, so, relying solely on rules from DMG and XGtE tends to make for lopsided encounters).  Then build NPC/enemies in MapTools using my own custom framework - tedious for many, but I like coding macros.
• NPC creation - MapTools
• Loot generation - DMG and XGtE tables, maybe a little AngryGM and Matt Coleville recommendations, but a lot of just making stuff up.