I am going to be running LMoP, for entirely new players soon, and I wondered if you could all give me your thoughts on using Microsodt Teams instead of Discord.
Microsoft Teams will be used as video conferencing and text chat software. All video chat during game, private text chat between me and individual players, and player group chat (after/before each session) will take place on Microsoft Teams.
I plan to do the following.
1. GROUP TEXT CHAT
I will create a group chat in Microsoft Teams. The players will be able to use it to chat with each other (sort of like a chat room).
2. ANY PRIVATE CHAT
If I need to private chat with a player (like to give them secret info I don't want the others to have), I will start a private text chat with that player in Microsoft Teams.
Players can also start private text chat with me, if they need to.
3. VIDEO MEETINGS / CONFERENCING
I will use Microsoft Outlook to schedule the weekly video meetings for our weekly sessions via Microsoft Teams video conferencing.
4. ON DDB
All dice rolls, inventory and resource management will be digital and take place online, using the digital character sheets on DDB.
I will also set up each encounter using the "Encounter Builder" on DDB.
===
If LMoP goes well, and the players want to continue. I plan on running HoTDQ, followed by DiA, using the same set up described above.
Have any of you ever done this, and used Teams/DDB instead of Roll20/Discord?
How did it go? How easy was it to set up as the DM and how easy was it for your players to understand?
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I use teams al lthe time at work (though for much more boring stuff than D&D), it should work fine by my reckoning. You can also share your screen, and people can ask to take control, so if you set things up right, you could use a Powerpoint or Excel to work as a battlemap (set the map as the background image so it can't get moved by mistake, then people can take control on their turns to move images as their characters).
That is interesting. I actually was unaware of that. I had thought of using Micrsooft Teams, because that seemed like something that lots of people had, so my players wouldn't need to download or signup for anything else.
It was also something that I had.
Also, Teams can do video conferences, so I thought I could use it for everything - video chat during the game, and then text chat before and after, and private chat if needed.
It is interesting about the screen sharing though.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I use Teams daily since I work remotely. However, when I play TTRPG online I never use that tool. And really, unless there was no other alternative, I would not. There are many video conferencing platforms that I use to play online: Jitsi, Wheraby or Streamyard (for example). I hardly ever use Discord for this as it is very heavy and gives some players problems. And never the videoconferencing tools that most VTTs include, since they are lousy.
By the way, all video conferencing platforms have sharing options. In fact, Teams sharing doesn't seem particularly good to me, and I use it a lot.
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Hi,
I am going to be running LMoP, for entirely new players soon, and I wondered if you could all give me your thoughts on using Microsodt Teams instead of Discord.
Microsoft Teams will be used as video conferencing and text chat software. All video chat during game, private text chat between me and individual players, and player group chat (after/before each session) will take place on Microsoft Teams.
I plan to do the following.
1. GROUP TEXT CHAT
I will create a group chat in Microsoft Teams. The players will be able to use it to chat with each other (sort of like a chat room).
2. ANY PRIVATE CHAT
If I need to private chat with a player (like to give them secret info I don't want the others to have), I will start a private text chat with that player in Microsoft Teams.
Players can also start private text chat with me, if they need to.
3. VIDEO MEETINGS / CONFERENCING
I will use Microsoft Outlook to schedule the weekly video meetings for our weekly sessions via Microsoft Teams video conferencing.
4. ON DDB
All dice rolls, inventory and resource management will be digital and take place online, using the digital character sheets on DDB.
I will also set up each encounter using the "Encounter Builder" on DDB.
===
If LMoP goes well, and the players want to continue. I plan on running HoTDQ, followed by DiA, using the same set up described above.
Have any of you ever done this, and used Teams/DDB instead of Roll20/Discord?
How did it go? How easy was it to set up as the DM and how easy was it for your players to understand?
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I use teams al lthe time at work (though for much more boring stuff than D&D), it should work fine by my reckoning. You can also share your screen, and people can ask to take control, so if you set things up right, you could use a Powerpoint or Excel to work as a battlemap (set the map as the background image so it can't get moved by mistake, then people can take control on their turns to move images as their characters).
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That is interesting. I actually was unaware of that. I had thought of using Micrsooft Teams, because that seemed like something that lots of people had, so my players wouldn't need to download or signup for anything else.
It was also something that I had.
Also, Teams can do video conferences, so I thought I could use it for everything - video chat during the game, and then text chat before and after, and private chat if needed.
It is interesting about the screen sharing though.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I use Teams daily since I work remotely. However, when I play TTRPG online I never use that tool. And really, unless there was no other alternative, I would not. There are many video conferencing platforms that I use to play online: Jitsi, Wheraby or Streamyard (for example). I hardly ever use Discord for this as it is very heavy and gives some players problems. And never the videoconferencing tools that most VTTs include, since they are lousy.
By the way, all video conferencing platforms have sharing options. In fact, Teams sharing doesn't seem particularly good to me, and I use it a lot.