I play D&D with a group of friends and we usually meet at my house to play, but due to COVID19 we are moving to discord to play. I have a dice roller bot and a music bot so everyone can still be immersed with the ambient sounds and music. My current issue is we use encounter maps and minis and i want to still transfer that over into the online version. Also if it is possible for those who run online sessions could you give me some tips so I can learn how to better run it for my players?
Last week we did a video chat session. We originally planned to use Discord, had a dice roller set up, but ended up doing a video chat through Facebook Messenger because one of our players had issues with Discord. We trusted each other's dice rolls and only I ever used my camera to show my dice when I rolled two 20s for my Eldritch Blast because it was epic. We didn't do anything with music and we ditched the maps. If we REALLY needed to know where something was our DM drew a basic illustration and sent us all a picture. It was very much a theater of the mind and it worked fairly well. There were a few hiccups without maps but that was partially due to a poor explanation of the area by our DM. We're having another session this Sunday the same way.
If you want to include your maps and minis you'll likely need to take pictures and send them to the Discord chat. If you can set up a video chat you may be able to position a camera to show the map.
Another option is to use a virtual tabletop like roll20 all my online games hve used discord for voice and roll20 for rolling and maps. Beyond 20 is also great to enable you to use characters sheets created on DnD Beyond.
There's a lot of info about this kind of thing in the General Discussion forum. My group is using roll20, which gives you a virtual tabletop with tokens and has built in video and chat (although it is not Discord-level quality, it's nice to have it all in one place). There is a bit of a learning curve for the DM, but there are a lot of cool features if you take some time to learn how to use them.
Discord has a lot of functionality! If you don't want to use the video call features and stick to audio and text, I recommend having your phone nearby to be able to snap pictures to post to the chat. That way everyone can see the minis/map and you can get really nice closeups.
Thank you all for the tips and it means a lot to me you guys helping me out. I will definitely take a look at roll20 and the other forum on how to play dnd online. Thank you again.
Roll20 is a great tool for online play with maps and tokens, in light of COVID-19 myself and my partner have been running seminars and answering questions on Discord for over a week now to help people learn Roll20 and move their games online for this time of hardship. Please let me know if you'd be interested in any help with the system, we are happy to help. :)
I used Zoom the other day and it worked rather well. I was able to post maps and pictures using the screen share function and overall the players enjoyed the experience. I do not think that you can really replicate the feeling of all being at a table together, but I would suggest using, or at least looking into using, Zoom. That being said, I have not used Discord or R20 or anything else, so they might be better options. I was just using what I had on hand and already setup.
Gonna pop in here to recommend the Avrae Discord bot which can be linked to DiceCloud, Google Sheet, and D&D Beyond character sheets. It can register characters from those sites, and from that use commands to instantly do things like skill checks and attack rolls while taking all relevant modifiers into account. Commands are a little unintuitive at first compared to something like the Sidekick Discord bot, but its functionality is more ingrained to playing 5e.
I play D&D with a group of friends and we usually meet at my house to play, but due to COVID19 we are moving to discord to play. I have a dice roller bot and a music bot so everyone can still be immersed with the ambient sounds and music. My current issue is we use encounter maps and minis and i want to still transfer that over into the online version. Also if it is possible for those who run online sessions could you give me some tips so I can learn how to better run it for my players?
Last week we did a video chat session. We originally planned to use Discord, had a dice roller set up, but ended up doing a video chat through Facebook Messenger because one of our players had issues with Discord. We trusted each other's dice rolls and only I ever used my camera to show my dice when I rolled two 20s for my Eldritch Blast because it was epic. We didn't do anything with music and we ditched the maps. If we REALLY needed to know where something was our DM drew a basic illustration and sent us all a picture. It was very much a theater of the mind and it worked fairly well. There were a few hiccups without maps but that was partially due to a poor explanation of the area by our DM. We're having another session this Sunday the same way.
If you want to include your maps and minis you'll likely need to take pictures and send them to the Discord chat. If you can set up a video chat you may be able to position a camera to show the map.
Another option is to use a virtual tabletop like roll20 all my online games hve used discord for voice and roll20 for rolling and maps. Beyond 20 is also great to enable you to use characters sheets created on DnD Beyond.
There's a lot of info about this kind of thing in the General Discussion forum. My group is using roll20, which gives you a virtual tabletop with tokens and has built in video and chat (although it is not Discord-level quality, it's nice to have it all in one place). There is a bit of a learning curve for the DM, but there are a lot of cool features if you take some time to learn how to use them.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Take a loo at the article how to play DnD online. It really helps
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
InsiderDiscord has a lot of functionality! If you don't want to use the video call features and stick to audio and text, I recommend having your phone nearby to be able to snap pictures to post to the chat. That way everyone can see the minis/map and you can get really nice closeups.
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Thank you all for the tips and it means a lot to me you guys helping me out. I will definitely take a look at roll20 and the other forum on how to play dnd online. Thank you again.
Roll20 is a great tool for online play with maps and tokens, in light of COVID-19 myself and my partner have been running seminars and answering questions on Discord for over a week now to help people learn Roll20 and move their games online for this time of hardship. Please let me know if you'd be interested in any help with the system, we are happy to help. :)
Subscribe to our channel for character builds, roleplay and DM tips: www.youtube.com/c/dorkforge
Interested in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything? Check out our playlist on Youtube
Please feel free to message us with any requests or build challenges!
We used discord and R20. It worked pretty well after the initial technical errors.
I used Zoom the other day and it worked rather well. I was able to post maps and pictures using the screen share function and overall the players enjoyed the experience. I do not think that you can really replicate the feeling of all being at a table together, but I would suggest using, or at least looking into using, Zoom. That being said, I have not used Discord or R20 or anything else, so they might be better options. I was just using what I had on hand and already setup.
Gonna pop in here to recommend the Avrae Discord bot which can be linked to DiceCloud, Google Sheet, and D&D Beyond character sheets. It can register characters from those sites, and from that use commands to instantly do things like skill checks and attack rolls while taking all relevant modifiers into account. Commands are a little unintuitive at first compared to something like the Sidekick Discord bot, but its functionality is more ingrained to playing 5e.