Dungeons & Dragons is all about getting together with your friends and telling an epic tale of adventure. But what if you can't get together in person? Over the past couple of years, playing D&D online has become easier than ever and can allow you to join your friends for a quest wherever they may be. Whether you're a newcomer to D&D or a veteran looking to transition their game to a virtual setting, our guide will cover the basics to take your D&D game online, some ways to enhance your virtual game, and tips for making online D&D fun for everyone!
- Why Play D&D Online?
- How to Play Dungeons & Dragons Online
- Ways to Enhance Online D&D
- Tips for Online Play
Why Play D&D Online?
Modern-day technology has made playing D&D online a nearly seamless experience. Between high-quality video chat, virtual tabletops, and digital tools, you may be so enthralled by the game that you forget you're not in the same room as your party members! In the past, when your D&D friends moved from your hometown, it usually meant the sad ending of a campaign. But, with access to the internet, you and your friends can hop online and play no matter the distance between you.
Online D&D play can also help defeat Dungeons & Dragons' greatest enemy: scheduling conflicts. With the ability to play from home, you can avoid travel times, making your D&D nights more streamlined and easier to fit into your busy schedule. The multitude of digital tools available also benefits players who don't have the time to scan through books to create or level up their characters. Instead, they can let the tools handle the busy work while they focus on having fun with friends.
How to Play Dungeons & Dragons Online
Have the upsides of online D&D play intrigued you? Here are essential things you need to get your D&D game online.
Internet Connection
All you truly need to play D&D online is an internet connection or some other way to connect to your friends. While D&D is at its best when you and your friends can see each other, you can play using just voice chat software. Worst comes to worst, and your internet is inaccessible or unable to even handle audio during a session, some video chat software allows you to phone in so you can join in the game as long as you have cell service.
Microphone
Most laptop computers have a built-in mic and webcam, and even though they aren't professional quality, they're more than enough to get the job done. If you want to go one step further, a dedicated table microphone and webcam will give you better sound and video quality to make your online game easier to watch and listen to. If you don't have access to a computer, most cell phones have a perfectly fine built-in camera and microphone. You can make a simple phone stand using a stack of books or use a pop-out grip, so you don't have to hold your phone the whole time.
Text, Video, or Voice Chat
There are lots of tools that you can use to create a group video call. Discord is a popular option because it's simple and supports advanced integrations. Skype and Facetime are other free options but have certain restrictions between Windows and Apple devices. Zoom and Google Hangouts are solid alternatives that easily handle high-quality video calls, but they come with a price tag if you want to use them for group calls.
People to Play With
Maybe you're looking for a new group or just a couple more players to round out your party. Good news! Finding players to join an online D&D campaign is usually easier than an in-person one. For tips on how to find a D&D group online, check out our article on how to find a D&D group to play with.
Ways to Enhance Online D&D
Though it's simple enough to get the essential tools you need to play D&D over an internet connection, some optional tools might make your game more fun and convenient.
Webcam
While joining a video call isn't necessary to play D&D online, it can help with social cues as other players can react to your body language and facial expressions. If your device doesn't have a webcam, there are plenty of affordable USB plug-and-play options. You could even use your phone to join the call while using your laptop, tablet, or paper to keep track of your character sheet, maps, and notes.
D&D Beyond
D&D Beyond is the official digital toolset for D&D. We host a wide variety of tools that can streamline D&D for Dungeon Masters and players, allowing them to focus on the fun. For players, we have digital character sheets that will enable them to create their character, manage their skills, abilities, and inventory, and roll dice at the click of a button. The character sheet even takes care of the math for you! To get started with your character, sign up for an account today!
If you're a DM running the game for your party, there's a lot of content available on D&D Beyond to get you started. You can access the Basic Rules and freely claim the Intro to Stormwreck Isle adventure. You can also build encounters and track combat with the Encounters tool and manage homebrew creations with our homebrew tool.
We recommend that DMs create a campaign and have players create characters in that campaign so you can see all of your players' character sheets in one place. This way, you can also use the Game Log to see what your players have rolled. Creating campaigns also allows Master-tier subscribers to share their content with their players, enabling them to create characters using options from all of the sourcebooks the DM owns on D&D Beyond.
Virtual Tabletop
Though not strictly necessary, a virtual tabletop is an excellent tool for playing online. It's particularly useful if you played using maps and miniatures in person since you can upload maps and create tokens for characters and monsters. You may not need a virtual tabletop if you're playing a game without a battle map (also known as Theater of the Mind), but they can be a lifesaver for online groups interested in tactical gameplay.
D&D Beyond's Maps tool is a gamespace where Dungeon Masters with a Master-tier subscription can quickly and easily provide a virtual 2D map for their players. All of the maps and creatures from the DM's D&D Beyond library are automatically integrated with the tool, allowing them to set up a battle map for their encounters in minutes!
Some other popular virtual tabletops include Roll20, Owlbear Rodeo, Foundry Virtual Tabletop, and Fantasy Grounds. Roll20 and Owlbear Rodeo both have free options, but we always recommend supporting the developers if you can!
A Player Community
Having people to talk to about D&D outside their gaming group is a luxury not everyone has. If you can't find enough players for your online game or want to find more people to talk about D&D with, the D&D Beyond Discord community is a great place to start.
Discord Bots
Avrae is a Discord bot that can help groups integrate Discord with D&D Beyond. It's full of automated features, like virtual dice, initiative tracking, and character sheet support. So if your group plays over Discord and you want to streamline gameplay, Avrae might be precisely what you're looking for.
Tips for Online Play
Now that you have all the tools you need, you should take a few minutes to learn some good habits for playing online. Of course, most of these tips apply to playing in person, but since playing online is a different experience than playing in person, they're more important than ever. Share these tips with your friends on game day to help make your session go smoothly.
- Start simple: If you're just starting out with D&D, or even if you're a veteran and are making the move to online D&D, there can be a significant learning curve while everyone gets settled with the new technology. Before diving into all of the enhancements available, playing with a barebones video chat for the first couple of sessions might be best. Once everyone has that figured out, you can start adding in digital tools and virtual tabletops.
- Set guidelines and expectations: Transitioning your game to online can throw off the dynamic of a group. So if you're switching to online, it's best to go over what the expectations are for sessions using this new medium. This way, you can get on the same page with the rest of the group on important topics, such as when to join the call, how you want to handle dice rolling, what to do if you need to step away, etc.
- Avoid distractions: It's easy to get distracted while playing D&D, and while it's not a sin to let your attention wander, the online world can easily distract players when there's downtime for their character. Of course, each player will have their own way of dealing with this hurdle. So, if you find that it impacts your games, discussing it as a group never hurts.
Your Online D&D Session Awaits!
At the end of the day, playing D&D virtually can look and feel however works for your group. The best way to play D&D online is the way that allows your party to get together, have some laughs, and roll some (physical or virtual) dice. Hopefully, the advice we've shared in this article will enable you to hit your online D&D stride, so you can continue having adventures no matter the distance between your party members!
James Haeck (@jamesjhaeck) is the former lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and theCritical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, and is also a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and two wilderness defenders, Mei and Marzipan.
Mike Bernier contributed to the reporting of this article
This article was originally published on March 20, 2020, and was updated on March 6, 2023.
We used this same setup on Saturday and it worked really well! As always there was about 10-15 minutes of getting the tech to work, but once everyone was set up , Roll20 worked well for the map. Since everything was in DnDBeyond anyways I didn't want to port everything over and everyone likes to roll their own physical dice so using the multiple systems was easy. It is nice that you can do pretty much everything you need with Roll20 for free and then if you want a few of the nice to haves you can chose to pay for it.
There is a Chrome extension called Beyond20 that lets you integrate Roll20 and DNDBeyond :)
You don't need a camera and video - just software to make your maps in and discord. That's how I do it with my friends.
Nothing can beat IRL tho.
I see alot of people suggest using Discord AND roll20. What is the benefit of that, doesnt roll20 have voice and video built in?? (Like many around the world, I am looking into moving our game online). Thanks
For our part the built in Roll20 video doesn’t work very well...
Discord is a must for an online campaign, I’ve been playing for a year and a half online and it has worked perfectly. Roll20 and of course D&D Beyond are also essentials! Being someone who has played online in a few different campaigns I’m open for any questions if anyone wants to ask.
MapTool is another excellent VTT that is totally free and open source! It takes a bit more work since it is for all RPGs, not only DnD - but well worth the effort.
This article makes a lot of good points! Thanks for sharing it!
My advice for new online players is to be sure to use the text chat often to help avoid cross-talk, especially since you can't always see when someone is about to speak. And mute your microphone when not speaking. The group should prompt each other when it's their turn, and suggest that they might be muted if the group hears silence from a player.
You should also list Foundry VTT in the article. It's a feature rich virtual tabletop program that is very near release. It is currently available as a patreon backed beta and the stable beta releases are very stable.
https://www.foundryvtt.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f2QZh9siko
That's good to know! I had no idea
Check out Battle Matrix. It's a free to download virtual tabletop that works great for D&D sessions over Discord. https://brainjar.itch.io/battle-matrix
I've been playing with some friends who live overseas and we love doing combination homebrew with some flair from books. We normally use dndbeyond for character creation and roll20 for gameplay but there are some really cool map makers out there such as Azgaars (a map creator) and through that you can get to a fantasy city generator.
I know someone who has been trying to get into a group to game fo six months, and it has not worked - would be nice to have a forum where lone wolfs could find a pack!
Roll20
Would be so keen to join a game as I am in lockdown in NZ!
hey James, I think you guys should take over this very straightforward, simple but very usable 3dVtt service that seems to be abandoned now. It comes on a website or in app form and allows you to quickly set up maps, add tokens and move people around. It would work in conjunction with D&D Beyond and some sort of roll service like Avrae or Rolz. Check it out this sample:
https://web3dvtt.appspot.com/game/7psyL7oQtAfHNus1Nyta7k
Hey James, your link to Roll for Your Party is broken because it appears to be pointing to a specific room instead of the home page.
Thanks for the article! I’ve been DMing remotely Using DDB and Roll20 since last April (and since the quarantine set in we’ve increased from once every couple weeks to twice a week to stay sane), but seeing more tools and advice is helpful to step up my game.
Am I missing something or can you only use Avrae with new, randomly generated characters? Can we import any existing characters?
Hi. My name is Brendon Faulkner. Im a massive nerd. For the past two years ive run a sort of marathon d&d session. My game "Roanoke" is a 5 week long 24/7 on line role playing enviornement played entirely on Discord with multiple dms. Its largely play by post with weekly "voice events".
The premise is that the entire group (30 players the first year, 70 the second) are all colonists on an island having to try to deal with a horror based story line with multiple new races, a fairly fleshed out lore and the best part is that the number of players playing in a chat based system where people can have their own houses and buisness means that players get to roll play the mundane personal detail of their lives in touching, hilarious, virtuous, vilianous, and ultimately profoundly deep ways.
As a gift, I'd like to give it to everyone who wants it. Roanoke season 3 is set for july, but... I will teach any semi experienced dm to do the same. I think we could make a community of the format of game play.
Befaulkner@gmail.com
Thank you, I’d never heard of Avrae!