I had been out of DnD for a long time and the vast majority of my old games were around a table, so I am just getting used to internet gaming (with old friends). We had our first game and it was sluggish as hell, mostly because we were having trouble getting through the order and actions of battle rounds. A lot of the problems had to do with placement on the map. I send them a jpeg over FB and they can show placement but only with modifying the jpeg and sending it back. Hmmmmm How can we make that easier? After the game, we did a little searching and, in the end, ran across an app that works fine for iPad and computer. It is AwwApp (.com). It is an interesting graphics program that lets you have multiple pages to flick through and gives all participants the ability to make their own mark (including, to distinguish between players, a color bar with black, orange, green, blue, yellow, purple, red, and brown colors). You can call maps up onto the screen, or have a series of screens set with the different maps. For the adventure we will be working on, I have a set page to invite them to (http://awwapp.com/b/*********/ [ Just go to awwapp.com, create a page and it will add the rest so no strangers will run into one another. The asterisks will show as a random collection of letters and numbers when you create your page. To get your players to it, post the whole name in FB or which ever txt messages you are sharing]). My page has 5 graphics in it (and a little button at the bottom of the page to move from one to the next). The first 4 are maps to work from, and the 5th is just a 20X20 graph with a mark in the corner indicating that the squares are 5'X5'. This is a... generic fight page. I can quickly mark the area of the fight (for rooms or caves), mark the placement of the opps and the placement of the pcs. When initiative is determined, each player, in turn, can move their pc and indicate which opp to attack (or... draw the cone effect of the spell they will cast, or... what ever). If a player jumps his/her turn, you can have a brick fall from the sky and land on his/her foot (just my way of saying we use initiative order, dammit). There may be other graphic apps out there, they might be better, but for a quick find and a very usable site, I will recommend this one wholeheartedly.
I use Aww Whiteboard if I am showing something live because I think its easy to use and has good drawing tools. I write and draw anything with xp-pen drawing tablet, The drawing tablet works great for digital writing or drawing with whiteboards .
Awwapp is a great online whiteboard and collaboration tool. I recommend Google Jamboard, which is free and quite nice for collaboration. I used it quite a bit with others. It's easy to copy and paste stuff and draw freehand. In addition, the drawing tablet is my other most useful tool hands down. Just being able to draw on the screen so easily to illustrate points.
I had been out of DnD for a long time and the vast majority of my old games were around a table, so I am just getting used to internet gaming (with old friends). We had our first game and it was sluggish as hell, mostly because we were having trouble getting through the order and actions of battle rounds. A lot of the problems had to do with placement on the map. I send them a jpeg over FB and they can show placement but only with modifying the jpeg and sending it back. Hmmmmm How can we make that easier? After the game, we did a little searching and, in the end, ran across an app that works fine for iPad and computer. It is AwwApp (.com). It is an interesting graphics program that lets you have multiple pages to flick through and gives all participants the ability to make their own mark (including, to distinguish between players, a color bar with black, orange, green, blue, yellow, purple, red, and brown colors). You can call maps up onto the screen, or have a series of screens set with the different maps. For the adventure we will be working on, I have a set page to invite them to (http://awwapp.com/b/*********/ [ Just go to awwapp.com, create a page and it will add the rest so no strangers will run into one another. The asterisks will show as a random collection of letters and numbers when you create your page. To get your players to it, post the whole name in FB or which ever txt messages you are sharing]). My page has 5 graphics in it (and a little button at the bottom of the page to move from one to the next). The first 4 are maps to work from, and the 5th is just a 20X20 graph with a mark in the corner indicating that the squares are 5'X5'. This is a... generic fight page. I can quickly mark the area of the fight (for rooms or caves), mark the placement of the opps and the placement of the pcs. When initiative is determined, each player, in turn, can move their pc and indicate which opp to attack (or... draw the cone effect of the spell they will cast, or... what ever). If a player jumps his/her turn, you can have a brick fall from the sky and land on his/her foot (just my way of saying we use initiative order, dammit). There may be other graphic apps out there, they might be better, but for a quick find and a very usable site, I will recommend this one wholeheartedly.
I hope a DDB staff member sees this.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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I use Aww Whiteboard if I am showing something live because I think its easy to use and has good drawing tools. I write and draw anything with xp-pen drawing tablet, The drawing tablet works great for digital writing or drawing with whiteboards .
Awwapp is a great online whiteboard and collaboration tool.
I recommend Google Jamboard, which is free and quite nice for collaboration. I used it quite a bit with others. It's easy to copy and paste stuff and draw freehand.
In addition, the drawing tablet is my other most useful tool hands down. Just being able to draw on the screen so easily to illustrate points.
For those of us (me) that don’t know, what’s the benefit of this tool over a Virtual Tabletop such as Roll20, Owlbear Rodeo, or Foundry?