Would like to start this thread discussing options for your favourite online platforms for playing/DM'ng DnD. Feel free to post here on your opinions on this topic:
things like how easy was the interface to use, see or implement would be useful to know for example.
For myself my player group uses Fantasy grounds and its solid for me to use as a player, while a bit tricky to grasp at first, I've been looking to DM myself recently and as a result of Covid have been considering online DnD as an option.
I am particularly interested on if any of you have used DnD Beyond as your chosed platform and how any of you have found it, as I have already purchased many source books already here.
Me personally, discord for video and voice, then we get onto the subject of VTTs.
I started with Fantasy Grounds and if you're willing to spend a little bit of time getting to grips with the interface then it's absolutely brilliant and handles so much of the automation. We then moved on to using DND beyond for our character sheets and playing around with how to handle maps, currently using AboveVTT and loving it!
Reasons we moved from fantasy grounds to beyond:
the players were getting more experienced so didn't need the automation
rolling dms, so with fantasy grounds every person who wanted to DM had to buy all the books, with beyond, I have legendary bundle so a master tier sub sorted all that.
Already had legendary and several players were already character building in beyond and then importing into FG
One of our players had a PC breakdown which meant that we had to cancel with FG whereas with DDB we can play off a phone
With FG I had to keep all my files backed up on the cloud so when I wasn't home I could host from my laptop
Anytime a player wanted to handle character creation, the DM had to ensure their computer was on and logged into the campaign.
Love FG, but honestly DDB and AboveVTT make it just so much easier!
My regular games use Roll20, which is fairly user friendly and has plenty of features. I've also played a few one shots on Foundry, which generally feels like Roll20 turned up to eleven with more in depth [interactive] character sheets and other features including integration with D&D Beyond for those character sheets. I get the impression that Foundry requires a bit more time investment on the DM's part for them to learn and make use of those extra features, but as a player I found it quite user friendly and intuitive (worth noting that the DM had clearly put some effort into fully prepping in depth modules).
Any VTT is going to require some degree of prep work on the DM's part to set up maps, tokens, monsters, etc, but that isn't really any different from building maps for physical minis and terrain with printed/longhand notes for anything else. When I eventually get around to DMing an online game myself I plan to use Roll20 as it's generally user friendly and has a good built in resource/reference system with the compendium feature. If you've already invested a good bit into D&D Beyond I would recommend looking into Foundry; from what I understand it has a one time (non-subscription) fee to get full DM tool access and integrates well with your D&D Beyond (I think I was told that requires a third party app or something like that but it's freely available and not difficult to set up; as a player everything that was on the D&D Beyond character sheet I rolled up automatically appeared on my sheet in Foundry ready to go).
Roll20 is my personal favorite. It is very far from new-user friendly, but the sheet quantity of tools available to you and the level of immersion it can achieve for a session when used right are phenomenal. Though there is a pro subscription available, it isn't necessary to make great use of the tool, which I appreciate. I do have the pro subscription though and really like it. The additional tools (Dynamic Lighting mostly) are a blast and it's relatively inexpensive compared to a lot of other subscriptions. It's also pretty convenient in that it has built in voice chat, information sharing, and customization for any homebrew you may need to incorporate.
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Hi All, I'm David,
Would like to start this thread discussing options for your favourite online platforms for playing/DM'ng DnD. Feel free to post here on your opinions on this topic:
things like how easy was the interface to use, see or implement would be useful to know for example.
For myself my player group uses Fantasy grounds and its solid for me to use as a player, while a bit tricky to grasp at first, I've been looking to DM myself recently and as a result of Covid have been considering online DnD as an option.
I am particularly interested on if any of you have used DnD Beyond as your chosed platform and how any of you have found it, as I have already purchased many source books already here.
<3
Me personally, discord for video and voice, then we get onto the subject of VTTs.
I started with Fantasy Grounds and if you're willing to spend a little bit of time getting to grips with the interface then it's absolutely brilliant and handles so much of the automation. We then moved on to using DND beyond for our character sheets and playing around with how to handle maps, currently using AboveVTT and loving it!
Reasons we moved from fantasy grounds to beyond:
the players were getting more experienced so didn't need the automation
rolling dms, so with fantasy grounds every person who wanted to DM had to buy all the books, with beyond, I have legendary bundle so a master tier sub sorted all that.
Already had legendary and several players were already character building in beyond and then importing into FG
One of our players had a PC breakdown which meant that we had to cancel with FG whereas with DDB we can play off a phone
With FG I had to keep all my files backed up on the cloud so when I wasn't home I could host from my laptop
Anytime a player wanted to handle character creation, the DM had to ensure their computer was on and logged into the campaign.
Love FG, but honestly DDB and AboveVTT make it just so much easier!
Discord for voice/video, Beyond and AboveVTT for D&D, Owlbear Rodeo for other games.
And like Calexus I can't praise AboveVTT enough, it's simply amazing!
AboveVTT + DnDBeyond is above and beyond anything else i need to run DnD
My regular games use Roll20, which is fairly user friendly and has plenty of features. I've also played a few one shots on Foundry, which generally feels like Roll20 turned up to eleven with more in depth [interactive] character sheets and other features including integration with D&D Beyond for those character sheets. I get the impression that Foundry requires a bit more time investment on the DM's part for them to learn and make use of those extra features, but as a player I found it quite user friendly and intuitive (worth noting that the DM had clearly put some effort into fully prepping in depth modules).
Any VTT is going to require some degree of prep work on the DM's part to set up maps, tokens, monsters, etc, but that isn't really any different from building maps for physical minis and terrain with printed/longhand notes for anything else. When I eventually get around to DMing an online game myself I plan to use Roll20 as it's generally user friendly and has a good built in resource/reference system with the compendium feature. If you've already invested a good bit into D&D Beyond I would recommend looking into Foundry; from what I understand it has a one time (non-subscription) fee to get full DM tool access and integrates well with your D&D Beyond (I think I was told that requires a third party app or something like that but it's freely available and not difficult to set up; as a player everything that was on the D&D Beyond character sheet I rolled up automatically appeared on my sheet in Foundry ready to go).
DnDBeyond for content and character management, Discords for voice chat and Foundry VTT for playing the game.
Our entire group are very pleased with the setup.
Info, Inflow, Overload. Knowledge Black Hole Imminent!
Roll20 is my personal favorite. It is very far from new-user friendly, but the sheet quantity of tools available to you and the level of immersion it can achieve for a session when used right are phenomenal. Though there is a pro subscription available, it isn't necessary to make great use of the tool, which I appreciate. I do have the pro subscription though and really like it. The additional tools (Dynamic Lighting mostly) are a blast and it's relatively inexpensive compared to a lot of other subscriptions. It's also pretty convenient in that it has built in voice chat, information sharing, and customization for any homebrew you may need to incorporate.