I'm wanting to ask for some help on getting started. I have very little experience on playing and have played only paper and pen for i'd say 10 sessions tops. WIth that said I"m jumping ship into the world of DMing. I have a small group of friends who've never touched the game who's willing to try (but arent avid rule readers like myself) My goal is to run a hoard of the dragon campaign using digital tools. We have no mini's and only my assortment of books purchased. What's a good digital platform that can assist in character sheet management, initiative tracking, and for myself tools to preplan and set up encounters?
I've seen many posts but some are old or to specific and i'm getting overwhelmed searching through all the information. Any help is appreciated!
I have used Roll20 before as a player and it seemed to get all the things your looking for done. Although, i have also played a game just using discord and our imaginations linking pictures of monsters and such and it worked really well.
But Roll20 is good if you are looking to put minis on paper.
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I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. —Maya Angelou
The learning curve for Roll 20 isn't bad for players, it's mostly for GMs. But it's much better than the learning curve for Fantasy Grounds. And it's free. Roll 20's initiative tracker basically saves me when running combat encounters.
@BigKahuna . Yeah the intent is using a digital platform in a face to face session.
I'm coming from ground zero and have no mini's and only 1 real board for hexagon pieces. I can see your point with Roll20 being clunky. Since posting i've walked myself through the tutorial and even just putzing around with their tutorial I found things to be clunky and glitching inappropriately. I like the idea that Roll20 has modules that are official and supports WOTC (i'd hope anyway) so i can purchase that has scenarios prebuilt ready to play and modify only slightly. But it's just another tool. I'll take a look at fantasy Grounds tonight
I still use Game Master 5th Edition for iOS on my iPad. It's made by Lions Den, the same guys that developed Fight Club. I have yet to find a worthy replacement tool when I DM. Maybe DDB will make something better once they do more development on their mobile apps.
It's easy to create campaigns, encounters and add monsters into the battle on the fly. It will calculate all the XP too. You can also modify any monster stats, attacks, CR, xp... etc. or just make your own. It has all the auto initiative rolling too and easily keep track of their health etc...
I suggest creating a few maps with paper tokens done on your printer. New players will be very nervous rping and using their imagination. A paper map and tokens on a grid will help tremendously for some dungeon battles.
it will help with attack of opportunity. Flanking. Movement. Etc etc. You will have a very tough time as a new Dm and trying to teach these things to new players. Leave theatre of mind to interactions with npcs, world building and travel. But fights need maps for new players unless its very small fight
do yourself a favour and get a few gridded maps and tokens for monster and players. You can create them and print and cut.
you might want to run lost mines of phandelver if most of them are new. I suggest getting them to pick the default classes with that modules. Easier ones to pick up. Wizard is probably the hardest. You can also set up dnd beyond and buy the module on it. I find it much faster than the book to review spells. I even create all the party characters and print them for them. its perfect. I just have a laptop or ipad during the session and leave the book to core rules. The best part is the module has all the monsters for the sections easy to find. I wouldn’t go back to the module books now that I’ve used dnd belond..
Hey guys,
I'm wanting to ask for some help on getting started. I have very little experience on playing and have played only paper and pen for i'd say 10 sessions tops. WIth that said I"m jumping ship into the world of DMing. I have a small group of friends who've never touched the game who's willing to try (but arent avid rule readers like myself) My goal is to run a hoard of the dragon campaign using digital tools. We have no mini's and only my assortment of books purchased. What's a good digital platform that can assist in character sheet management, initiative tracking, and for myself tools to preplan and set up encounters?
I've seen many posts but some are old or to specific and i'm getting overwhelmed searching through all the information. Any help is appreciated!
I have used Roll20 before as a player and it seemed to get all the things your looking for done. Although, i have also played a game just using discord and our imaginations linking pictures of monsters and such and it worked really well.
But Roll20 is good if you are looking to put minis on paper.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. —Maya Angelou
I was taking a decent look at Roll 20. I just worry that the intensity and learning curve of it would turn away my friends.
The learning curve for Roll 20 isn't bad for players, it's mostly for GMs. But it's much better than the learning curve for Fantasy Grounds. And it's free. Roll 20's initiative tracker basically saves me when running combat encounters.
@BigKahuna . Yeah the intent is using a digital platform in a face to face session.
I'm coming from ground zero and have no mini's and only 1 real board for hexagon pieces. I can see your point with Roll20 being clunky. Since posting i've walked myself through the tutorial and even just putzing around with their tutorial I found things to be clunky and glitching inappropriately. I like the idea that Roll20 has modules that are official and supports WOTC (i'd hope anyway) so i can purchase that has scenarios prebuilt ready to play and modify only slightly. But it's just another tool. I'll take a look at fantasy Grounds tonight
Very helpful! Thanks dude.
I still use Game Master 5th Edition for iOS on my iPad. It's made by Lions Den, the same guys that developed Fight Club. I have yet to find a worthy replacement tool when I DM. Maybe DDB will make something better once they do more development on their mobile apps.
It's easy to create campaigns, encounters and add monsters into the battle on the fly. It will calculate all the XP too. You can also modify any monster stats, attacks, CR, xp... etc. or just make your own. It has all the auto initiative rolling too and easily keep track of their health etc...
Link to Game Master 5th Edtion on App Store
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/game-master-5th-edition/id908176026?mt=8
"Lawful Good does not always mean Lawful Nice."
I suggest creating a few maps with paper tokens done on your printer. New players will be very nervous rping and using their imagination. A paper map and tokens on a grid will help tremendously for some dungeon battles.
it will help with attack of opportunity. Flanking. Movement. Etc etc. You will have a very tough time as a new Dm and trying to teach these things to new players. Leave theatre of mind to interactions with npcs, world building and travel. But fights need maps for new players unless its very small fight
do yourself a favour and get a few gridded maps and tokens for monster and players. You can create them and print and cut.
you might want to run lost mines of phandelver if most of them are new. I suggest getting them to pick the default classes with that modules. Easier ones to pick up. Wizard is probably the hardest. You can also set up dnd beyond and buy the module on it. I find it much faster than the book to review spells. I even create all the party characters and print them for them. its perfect. I just have a laptop or ipad during the session and leave the book to core rules. The best part is the module has all the monsters for the sections easy to find. I wouldn’t go back to the module books now that I’ve used dnd belond..