I'm looking at starting an online DnD campaign soon and before I do I wanted to get some things in order; namely the VTT and communication options. I have zero knowledge in the areas since I've never DMd online, but have been DMing for about 10 years now. I know of fantasy grounds and roll20 as far as VTTs go. Are there any others that people recommend? At this moment I'm leaning towards using fantasy grounds as I prefer the aesthetics a lot more. I also see that they have a lot of the DnD books and source material there. As far as communication goes. I've seen a lot of talk about discord, but am not really familiar with it. What exactly is it? And what makes it different than using Skype? Which is better?
Any input from other DMs of online campaigns and what they think works best would be appreciated and I'm open to suggestions. Thank you.
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It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
I use roll20 and Discord for my online campaign(s).
I haven't looked into Fantasy Grounds at all, as I was introduced to roll20 first and played in a campaign with it, then started my own after a while. Some things I like about roll20:
With the Pro-tier subscription, you get dynamic lighting for your maps, which is kind of pain to set up, but once your maps are made, they're pretty awesome.
No idea if FG has this, but you can map fields on the character sheets to bars/bubbles on the characters' tokens. (HP, AC, Spell Save DC, etc)
The Marketplace seems to have a pretty good selection of assets (tokens, maps, doodads, etc) for just about any kind of campaign (I've spent almost $200 there :p )
If you don't want to spend, you can upload your own assets.
Clickable attacks and spells that automatically roll to hit and damage! You can either manually input them, or find scripts to help.
Discord:
Voice and chat channels, easy to set up. I haven't used Skype in a few years, but Discord today is certainly easier and cleaner to use than Skype was in 2012/13, not sure how much it's changed. Last time I used Skype you had to set up group conversations / calls every time you wanted to get started, and microphones were always on. Discord has both push to talk and voice activation settings.
Discord can also be run in a browser, but I find the app to be a better experience.
Hey, thanks for responding. I'm actually taking a much deeper look at both roll20 and discord. Being a neophyte with any VTT I'm definitely looking for ease of use.
Hey xguild, thanks for the response, as I put in my opening post I am leaning towards fantasy grounds. I do not mind taking the time to learn it, but at the moment I'm simply waiting for a price decrease before I potentially commit. I'm still going back and forth on and trying to do some more research on my own, but the posts so far have been nice, thanks.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
Hello readers of this post and fellow DMs,
I'm looking at starting an online DnD campaign soon and before I do I wanted to get some things in order; namely the VTT and communication options. I have zero knowledge in the areas since I've never DMd online, but have been DMing for about 10 years now. I know of fantasy grounds and roll20 as far as VTTs go. Are there any others that people recommend? At this moment I'm leaning towards using fantasy grounds as I prefer the aesthetics a lot more. I also see that they have a lot of the DnD books and source material there. As far as communication goes. I've seen a lot of talk about discord, but am not really familiar with it. What exactly is it? And what makes it different than using Skype? Which is better?
Any input from other DMs of online campaigns and what they think works best would be appreciated and I'm open to suggestions. Thank you.
It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
Follow my Campaign!
Ardanian Calendar
I use roll20 and Discord for my online campaign(s).
I haven't looked into Fantasy Grounds at all, as I was introduced to roll20 first and played in a campaign with it, then started my own after a while. Some things I like about roll20:
Discord:
Voice and chat channels, easy to set up. I haven't used Skype in a few years, but Discord today is certainly easier and cleaner to use than Skype was in 2012/13, not sure how much it's changed. Last time I used Skype you had to set up group conversations / calls every time you wanted to get started, and microphones were always on. Discord has both push to talk and voice activation settings.
Discord can also be run in a browser, but I find the app to be a better experience.
Hey, thanks for responding. I'm actually taking a much deeper look at both roll20 and discord. Being a neophyte with any VTT I'm definitely looking for ease of use.
It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
Follow my Campaign!
Ardanian Calendar
Hey xguild, thanks for the response, as I put in my opening post I am leaning towards fantasy grounds. I do not mind taking the time to learn it, but at the moment I'm simply waiting for a price decrease before I potentially commit. I'm still going back and forth on and trying to do some more research on my own, but the posts so far have been nice, thanks.
It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
Follow my Campaign!
Ardanian Calendar