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.
My understanding of affordable commercial webcams is sadly inferior to my understanding of similar-grade microphones! I got a Logitech HD webcam from Best Buy as a starter webcam for about $50 a year or two ago, and it served me well. I'm currently using a Razer Kiyo gifted to me by Todd Kenreck, and it's a nice step up. Truly, though, audio is so much more important than video that any potato-quality webcam will serve just fine.
Any chance we could get this fast tracked as we are all seemingly on lockdown for the foreseeable?
or perhaps a word from Adam on the next Roadmap live stream? Really need this ASAP. 💕
My group is using Discord and Avrae but we are using MapTool for the map which we really like, well worth a look.
yeah i have other tips...
Don't use discord for 7+ player games, many of your players will have video problems and latency on their end.
Don't use facebook for the same reason, the video quality will go down by a lot.
So my tips to you... don't ever go online if you don't have a good internet connection. wE're talking 300 megas or more.
but... if you do have phone LTE... two of my players said the connection was better on their phones.
but that eats up your internet bandwidth.
i had no problems with my 300mb connections. which is pretty standard by todays standards.
so i don't understand those who wants very low cost internet in a world where internet is pretty much mandatory for everything.
never gonna pay a sub to play D&D.
Zoom, as mentionned, requires to pay a sub... thats not an option for me.
There Is an App Called Zoom. It's Free And Works Quite Well. You Can Mute Players And Mute Yourself If Needed.
I put this guide together for our FLGS gaming group. It is free to share. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JHtzIMQzMax_v0FRskTsLXBijqoIJhOzpbq7yDhzPlc
I'm currently running the continuation of a campaign I started with some friends I met in college. I use DnD beyond for tracking character sheets etc., Discord for chat, and I have a webcam I've Jimmy-rigged to sit above my coffee table.
I then do a 'video call' with my group via discord, but instead of seeing my face, they see the table!
This also allows me to use all my physical maps, figurines etc. In a setup not dissimilar to Critical Role's overhead camera. :)
Very nice and useful article, thank you!
One thing I want to point out is that online die rollers are not just useful for trust, it can also be important to see everyone's rolls to make sure they're rolling the right dice. D&D can get pretty complex sometimes and it's easy to forget to roll with advantage or to forget which dice you roll twice on a critical hit for example. Being able to see each other's rolls means you can help each other catch these little mistakes.
Zoom allows you to mute people while using it for video chats
Zoom allows you to mute them but they can also just unmute themselves. That’s on the free version though not sure if the paid version allows you to lock their ability to unmute.
Google Hangouts is free and has a built-in dice roller in chat window. (It definitely works in a web browser. I don't think it works in the iOS app.) That handles the voice and face-to-face plus the rolls that everyone can see. We do a "theater of the mind" game. But it can still be helpful to show pictures or give a rough map and sometimes even move tokens. We've been using Google Jamboard for that. It too is free. You get a shared whiteboard. You can set the background to a grid. Import images and use them as tokens. Use the marker to draw stuff. The laser pointer to point out things. If you're you looking for something simple that works, Jamboard is good. If you need dynamic lighting and fog of war or any of that, then you're better off with Roll20 or any of the other suggestions.
I usually use my DND books, DND beyond, and Hangouts texting to run a DND game which could help anyone who has no darn clue how to run a DND game online
Thanks this helped a lot
With discord you can 'server mute/unmute' players at will. Just make sure that only people that you trust can do it by using 'roles' and 'permissions'
Discord can if you set up the server to only allow players with role X to do so. You can even select priority chat so when you talk. The other players talk at volume 2 while you talk at 11.
Fast, cheap, easy improvised VTT! no learning curve...
OK , I am amazed....
I just stumbled over this on my Win10 machine and its amazing. The included simple Whiteboard app does everything you need.
You can easily insert any image and token from the web itself using the built in Insert Bing search
You can then move, resize, copy, paste it so one goblin can be copied and moved as often as desired.
I am using a seperate whiteboard as a 'library' of cool tokens, images
have graph paper as the background
You can sketch in rough trees. streams, walls, rocks, quickly (and in my case- badly)
You can insert a battlemap, set it as background and drag the images onto it
You can share the whiteboard with anyone so they can be involved in drawing and inserting items as well.
You can prep the whiteboards before hand or draw them on the fly
shrink way back or zoom way in
When I combine this with rolz.org and skype or hangouts... I think I have a rough but totally functional VTT
Great article for the most part, but one thing... Slight rant incoming.
"There’s a lot of free content on D&D Beyond, too—including all of the content in the D&D Basic Rules, which is enough to get your first campaign off the ground."
All? Nohohohoho. Subclasses, you can only choose one from Players Handbook ( D&D Basic Rules) not all, not for free.
That's why I have to homebrew legit stuff out of the book if I want to use it on here.
Sorry for the rant. :)
The D&D Basic Rules only include one subclass for each of the twelve classes. The Player's Handbook is a completely distinct source which includes those twelve subclasses, and then some. The Basic Rules are nevertheless a free demo of D&D, and all of the content within the Basic Rules are likewise provided for free on D&D Beyond.
Beyond20 is not attachable to Discord. That is Avrae job. Beyond20 is a VTT/DDBEYOND ambassador between the two programs.