First of all, I value DDB very highly. I am excitedly waiting for some better encounter management tools in DDB, but this is BY NO MEANS a DDB-bashing thread. In fact, I like DDB so much that I insist all my players use it (and I have gotten some serious heat from a few who want to use options not available in my DDB library yet -- hey, they can always buy the content themselves, right?!).
That all being said, I use four online tools when running a game:
DnDBeyond
Improved Initiative (Combat Tracker for D&D) - I support the site via Patreon which allows me to import any creatures from DDB (and player characters too!) for combat management (you can enter new spells as well, though you have to enter them in by hand)
Owlbear.rodeo for my VTT -- this is an incredible browser-based FREE virtual tabletop (you can even import custom character/monster tokens -- I use Token Stamp 2 to create them)
Kassoon Treasure Generator -- another free tool that has some unique random treasure drops; I also use the site to randomly roll up spells for scrolls and spellbooks
I run a laptop with extra monitor, Run Zoom for gameplay and screen-sharing. Use DDB for reference and to manage my homebrew items/monsters/etc, a google doc for campaign notes, and Bluebeam for maps (I'm not comfortable running with a VTT, so I use bluebeam as a "dumb" VTT; I control all player tokens based on description from my players.)
I currently use DnDBeyond, Roll20, Chrome extension Beyond 20, discord, and One note. I use these as a player and as a DM. It has been working great for the past year. I do have two monitors which makes it easier.
As a player at tabletop, DndBeyond on a tablet for everything. I assist the DM a lot (whichever one it is) so I usually have a bunch of tabs set to certain pages so I can quickly look up rules, stats, races, magic, etc. I also bring a bunch of tokens since I'm very visual.
When playing online, i have my pc, so it gets easier and harder. I have all the same stuff, but i get distracted a lot easier. I use my tablet as a second screen to look up stuff..
We use roll20, with discord for voice due to all the issues we've had with chat on roll20. Most of us still use DndBeyond with the honor system. Some use digital dice, some use physical (with honor system) but will reroll digital at request of dm.
As a dm, same as above in both cases, except at tabletop I bring a dm screen and use paper strips as turn markers. In both cases I also have a notebook with pen so I can quickly right notes.
This is my DM setup - Since the dice roll log was released, I now have an iphone attached to the left side, above the tablet, that displays the dice log (not in this pic). The tablet shows the DM view of whatever map I happen to be using as a quick reference or whatever I need to access quickly in-game.
I use Zoom for voice/video, multiple DDB tabs on the screen lower left, Roll20 GM screen lower right and the top screen is Roll20 Player view that gets screen shared via Zoom. That way, my players just have to access DDB and Zoom and don't have to get bogged down with the technicalities of getting VTT's working.
This is beautiful. As a fairly new DM, I don’t use any digital tools- just notebooks, the DM screen, and some dice- not even close to anything like this.
Thanks! Yeah, the Yeti works great, picks up everything clearly plus I like having a fine control over my headphone volume. The yeti has a 3.5mm out on the bottom and works as an amplifier. This means my headphones run out of the yeti and both audio in and out use the same USB port. Since I've got it, my players haven't had any issues hearing me clearly, plus if I record audio, it's crystal clear
I've actually updated this setup to put the yeti above my monitors rather than below. This reduces keyboard noise and also improves my screen visibility.
Discord for roleplaying/communicating/sharing secret messages
Roll20 for grid-based combat and exploration (for areas that merit making a map). I also keep several notes on magic items, locations, monsters and such in roll 20 so I can open them in a separate tab.
Dungeon Studio for making maps / Token Advantage 2 for making tokens
Google Drive for keeping certain documents to share with the players
D&D beyond for certain support features, like encounter design.
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"This means my headphones run out of the yeti and both audio in and out use the same USB port"
That is awesome! I need to look into that then....I have entirely too many USB cords running everywhere....and amp is icing on the cake.
My brother got me a Yeti mic for my birthday and at the next session everyone was commenting how much more clear and crisp everything sounded (compared to the microphone built into my laptop from 2013 XD )
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Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
"This means my headphones run out of the yeti and both audio in and out use the same USB port"
That is awesome! I need to look into that then....I have entirely too many USB cords running everywhere....and amp is icing on the cake.
My brother got me a Yeti mic for my birthday and at the next session everyone was commenting how much more clear and crisp everything sounded (compared to the microphone built into my laptop from 2013 XD )
Yeah mine is a headset mic and it either picks up too much (my breathing) or not enough (drops at the beginning and ending of sentences)
I will have to look into that one as I was hoping to upgrade.
Discord for communication (voice and interactive gif gallery... cause we love to react to other player's actions)... and I too use a Yeti for voice... so good, especially if you need to lean in and add some gravitas or do a high pitched voice without as much strain.
DNDBeyond (multiple tabs on multiple windows) with Beyond20 in Chrome. Player sheets, campaign sheet, encounters, etc.
Roll20 Pro (cause I like to use line of sight and have light active in my maps). Several of us use video here so we can see each other and give hand signs or see someone laughing or whatever. Not all of the players (or alternate DM) use it, but more than half of us use video.
Obsidian Portal. Hyperlinked information and logging.
MacBook Pro with a cinema display and my Xbox's 24" monitor for 2-3 screens depending on how involved things get. Most of the time I only use the two larger screens and semi-dock the MBP... but every now and then I'll go for all the screens. I still need to get a mount for my Yeti, but the stand it comes with is ok if you position it right and it is far superior to my headset audio (which is still good as it's a Steel Series).
For background sounds in live sessions, I'll have a set of tabs for different scenarios... most of the time just YouTube videos that set the tone and I have no issues with copyright cause I'm not broadcasting. We have toned this down in the adjustment to virtual sessions and now I might give a brief tavern sound or a snippet of a song or some birds chirping or whatever.. but it is about tone and setting a mood now instead of hour long videos running low in the background. Some of the players just have trouble hearing or with bandwidth for it to be going all the time.
I have a huge bag of dice that I never roll anymore... one of these days they'll see the light of the table once again... I hope... but we have learned how much faster combat is with virtual dice and it will be hard to go back. Maybe we'll go old school and print out character sheets and roll real dice and not have any electronics at the table in a year or two... but we all really like the digital toolsets of today.
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First of all, I value DDB very highly. I am excitedly waiting for some better encounter management tools in DDB, but this is BY NO MEANS a DDB-bashing thread. In fact, I like DDB so much that I insist all my players use it (and I have gotten some serious heat from a few who want to use options not available in my DDB library yet -- hey, they can always buy the content themselves, right?!).
That all being said, I use four online tools when running a game:
So, what tools do you use?
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
As a player:
Beyond 20 browser extension to tie DnDBeyond char sheet to roll 20 and be able to roll via the character sheet. Then Discord.
Zoom for the gameplay, screen-sharing when necessary.
DDB for actual character creation and leveling.
Foundry VTT for almost everything else.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I run a laptop with extra monitor, Run Zoom for gameplay and screen-sharing. Use DDB for reference and to manage my homebrew items/monsters/etc, a google doc for campaign notes, and Bluebeam for maps (I'm not comfortable running with a VTT, so I use bluebeam as a "dumb" VTT; I control all player tokens based on description from my players.)
Might try Foundry...Ive not tried that one yet.
I currently use DnDBeyond, Roll20, Chrome extension Beyond 20, discord, and One note. I use these as a player and as a DM. It has been working great for the past year. I do have two monitors which makes it easier.
As a player at tabletop, DndBeyond on a tablet for everything. I assist the DM a lot (whichever one it is) so I usually have a bunch of tabs set to certain pages so I can quickly look up rules, stats, races, magic, etc. I also bring a bunch of tokens since I'm very visual.
When playing online, i have my pc, so it gets easier and harder. I have all the same stuff, but i get distracted a lot easier. I use my tablet as a second screen to look up stuff..
We use roll20, with discord for voice due to all the issues we've had with chat on roll20. Most of us still use DndBeyond with the honor system. Some use digital dice, some use physical (with honor system) but will reroll digital at request of dm.
As a dm, same as above in both cases, except at tabletop I bring a dm screen and use paper strips as turn markers. In both cases I also have a notebook with pen so I can quickly right notes.
As a player:
As a DM
Hardware wise
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Gilli, what do you use for your VTT?
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
This is my DM setup - Since the dice roll log was released, I now have an iphone attached to the left side, above the tablet, that displays the dice log (not in this pic). The tablet shows the DM view of whatever map I happen to be using as a quick reference or whatever I need to access quickly in-game.
I use Zoom for voice/video, multiple DDB tabs on the screen lower left, Roll20 GM screen lower right and the top screen is Roll20 Player view that gets screen shared via Zoom. That way, my players just have to access DDB and Zoom and don't have to get bogged down with the technicalities of getting VTT's working.
This is my portable Player setup
This is my portable DM setup
Wow thats a nice set-up! Does the Yeti work well?
This is beautiful. As a fairly new DM, I don’t use any digital tools- just notebooks, the DM screen, and some dice- not even close to anything like this.
Thanks! Yeah, the Yeti works great, picks up everything clearly plus I like having a fine control over my headphone volume. The yeti has a 3.5mm out on the bottom and works as an amplifier. This means my headphones run out of the yeti and both audio in and out use the same USB port. Since I've got it, my players haven't had any issues hearing me clearly, plus if I record audio, it's crystal clear
I've actually updated this setup to put the yeti above my monitors rather than below. This reduces keyboard noise and also improves my screen visibility.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
"This means my headphones run out of the yeti and both audio in and out use the same USB port"
That is awesome! I need to look into that then....I have entirely too many USB cords running everywhere....and amp is icing on the cake.
Discord for roleplaying/communicating/sharing secret messages
Roll20 for grid-based combat and exploration (for areas that merit making a map). I also keep several notes on magic items, locations, monsters and such in roll 20 so I can open them in a separate tab.
Dungeon Studio for making maps / Token Advantage 2 for making tokens
Google Drive for keeping certain documents to share with the players
D&D beyond for certain support features, like encounter design.
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
My brother got me a Yeti mic for my birthday and at the next session everyone was commenting how much more clear and crisp everything sounded (compared to the microphone built into my laptop from 2013 XD )
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Yeah mine is a headset mic and it either picks up too much (my breathing) or not enough (drops at the beginning and ending of sentences)
I will have to look into that one as I was hoping to upgrade.
Discord for communication (voice and interactive gif gallery... cause we love to react to other player's actions)... and I too use a Yeti for voice... so good, especially if you need to lean in and add some gravitas or do a high pitched voice without as much strain.
DNDBeyond (multiple tabs on multiple windows) with Beyond20 in Chrome. Player sheets, campaign sheet, encounters, etc.
Roll20 Pro (cause I like to use line of sight and have light active in my maps). Several of us use video here so we can see each other and give hand signs or see someone laughing or whatever. Not all of the players (or alternate DM) use it, but more than half of us use video.
Obsidian Portal. Hyperlinked information and logging.
MacBook Pro with a cinema display and my Xbox's 24" monitor for 2-3 screens depending on how involved things get. Most of the time I only use the two larger screens and semi-dock the MBP... but every now and then I'll go for all the screens. I still need to get a mount for my Yeti, but the stand it comes with is ok if you position it right and it is far superior to my headset audio (which is still good as it's a Steel Series).
For background sounds in live sessions, I'll have a set of tabs for different scenarios... most of the time just YouTube videos that set the tone and I have no issues with copyright cause I'm not broadcasting. We have toned this down in the adjustment to virtual sessions and now I might give a brief tavern sound or a snippet of a song or some birds chirping or whatever.. but it is about tone and setting a mood now instead of hour long videos running low in the background. Some of the players just have trouble hearing or with bandwidth for it to be going all the time.
I have a huge bag of dice that I never roll anymore... one of these days they'll see the light of the table once again... I hope... but we have learned how much faster combat is with virtual dice and it will be hard to go back. Maybe we'll go old school and print out character sheets and roll real dice and not have any electronics at the table in a year or two... but we all really like the digital toolsets of today.