I am starting up my D&D game that used to be in person but now will be remote. What video client and document sharing tools do you use? Discord? Zoom and then a site for people to keep documents? A tool like Roll20?
I use Foundry (hosted on Amazon Lightsail) for actually playing the game - maps, die rolls, character sheets, etc. LegendKeeper for my GM notes, since it fits my style and is nicer to work with for this than Google Docs, OneNotes, etc. And Discord for voice/video during the game.
Since our group switched to on-line last year, we've been using Roll20, linked to our DNDBeyond character sheets, with Discord for voice and face time.
I'd highly recommend Discord for communication as you've got the endless possibilities of music/ambience with the Groovy Bot in your calls. I convinced my group to recently switch over to it from Zoom calls and it's been a massive hit.
I've been using Discord for voice and Roll20 for the virtual table top (I have a subscription on Roll20 and have purchased some content there). I also play in a game that uses Zoom for voice/video, D&D beyond for characters and recently added Roll20 (free account) as the virtual table top.
They work ok but nothing is perfect. Usually we leave video turned off on Discord to save bandwidth. Sometimes folks need to restart Discord or Firefox/Chrome to clear an issue or occasionally need to reboot the entire computer. The capability of each player's home network is a factor though the game can be playable even for slow connections but there may be audio/video issues from time to time.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to isolate where the problem is. One group I play with rarely has issues (but they are mostly in the same metropolitan area) while another group has some players spread over much larger geographic regions, some in small towns and rural areas with lower network capability and problems (mostly audio being garbled/lost and Roll20 taing a long time to load or lagging when rolling something) there can be more frequent.
However, some of the aspects like dynamic lighting or even basic fog of war available on Roll20 significantly simplifies the entire exercise of mapping where characters go as long as the DM takes the time to load the map and properly size it.
Finally, Roll20 does have a learning curve. If you plan to use it, I strongly recommend watching some of the video tutorials available out there so you can understand how tokens and character sheets work in the game. The Beyond20 plug in for firefox does allow you to make die rolls on your D&D Beyond character sheet and have them show up in Roll20 which means you won't need to use the Roll20 built in charactermancer. However, you will still need tokens and other content in Roll20 to represent the characters and using those effectively is worth learning if you plan to use Roll20.
P.S. There are several alternatives for virtual table tops - some advantages and disadvantages to each - from what I understand none is a perfect solution. Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, Tabletop Simulator, Foundry ... and others.
Discord is your main tool for discussion (voice and chat). DNDBeyond is great for all of your character sheets... and rolling to other locations (Roll20 and Discord with Beyond20). The biggest choice is going to be the VTT (Virtual TableTop) you choose. There are lots of opinion on Foundry, Roll20 and others. I would recommend trying each of the VTTs out and see which one fits your needs and means and could work well for your group. We don't use Zoom (though several of us have enterprise licenses) because if we need video we could open it up in Roll20... but the connection is poor at two of our player's houses so only a couple of us do that now.
I am starting up my D&D game that used to be in person but now will be remote. What video client and document sharing tools do you use? Discord? Zoom and then a site for people to keep documents? A tool like Roll20?
Thanks for any advice.
I am using D&D Beyond of course, along with draw.chart for map (i havent invested time into roll20 yet, but plan to)
There is also a shared excel file with player's exp and some other sharing info (like prices for consumables and some homebrew stuff)
But mainly it is voice chat (we use zoom, but any will do) and D&DB.
I use Foundry (hosted on Amazon Lightsail) for actually playing the game - maps, die rolls, character sheets, etc. LegendKeeper for my GM notes, since it fits my style and is nicer to work with for this than Google Docs, OneNotes, etc. And Discord for voice/video during the game.
Since our group switched to on-line last year, we've been using Roll20, linked to our DNDBeyond character sheets, with Discord for voice and face time.
It's been working out great.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
I'd highly recommend Discord for communication as you've got the endless possibilities of music/ambience with the Groovy Bot in your calls. I convinced my group to recently switch over to it from Zoom calls and it's been a massive hit.
We've been using Roll20 for our virtual tabletop.
For the past year, I've been using Zoom along with Roll20 (Free Access level) with great success.
While not asked, I use DungeonDraft to create the battle maps which I import into Roll20.
I've been using Discord for voice and Roll20 for the virtual table top (I have a subscription on Roll20 and have purchased some content there). I also play in a game that uses Zoom for voice/video, D&D beyond for characters and recently added Roll20 (free account) as the virtual table top.
They work ok but nothing is perfect. Usually we leave video turned off on Discord to save bandwidth. Sometimes folks need to restart Discord or Firefox/Chrome to clear an issue or occasionally need to reboot the entire computer. The capability of each player's home network is a factor though the game can be playable even for slow connections but there may be audio/video issues from time to time.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to isolate where the problem is. One group I play with rarely has issues (but they are mostly in the same metropolitan area) while another group has some players spread over much larger geographic regions, some in small towns and rural areas with lower network capability and problems (mostly audio being garbled/lost and Roll20 taing a long time to load or lagging when rolling something) there can be more frequent.
However, some of the aspects like dynamic lighting or even basic fog of war available on Roll20 significantly simplifies the entire exercise of mapping where characters go as long as the DM takes the time to load the map and properly size it.
Finally, Roll20 does have a learning curve. If you plan to use it, I strongly recommend watching some of the video tutorials available out there so you can understand how tokens and character sheets work in the game. The Beyond20 plug in for firefox does allow you to make die rolls on your D&D Beyond character sheet and have them show up in Roll20 which means you won't need to use the Roll20 built in charactermancer. However, you will still need tokens and other content in Roll20 to represent the characters and using those effectively is worth learning if you plan to use Roll20.
P.S. There are several alternatives for virtual table tops - some advantages and disadvantages to each - from what I understand none is a perfect solution. Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, Tabletop Simulator, Foundry ... and others.
Discord is your main tool for discussion (voice and chat).
DNDBeyond is great for all of your character sheets... and rolling to other locations (Roll20 and Discord with Beyond20).
The biggest choice is going to be the VTT (Virtual TableTop) you choose. There are lots of opinion on Foundry, Roll20 and others. I would recommend trying each of the VTTs out and see which one fits your needs and means and could work well for your group.
We don't use Zoom (though several of us have enterprise licenses) because if we need video we could open it up in Roll20... but the connection is poor at two of our player's houses so only a couple of us do that now.
There is a chrome plugin called Beyond20 that allows you to use dndbeyond sheets for roll20. Makes my games great and easy to run.
It is available for both Chrome and Firefox browsers :)