COVID strikes at the height of the revival of the table role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and although it is not the worst aspect of a global plague, nerds were not allowed to gather at the local hobby shop and pretend to be elves. Fortunately, with a little knowledge, however, you can take the fantasy online. Computers can not replace the face-to-face joy of D&D, but if you remove some technological barriers, you can get pretty close.
The technological side of taking your paper game online can be a bit daunting (especially if you play with crusty technophobes like me), because there is no one-stop app or website that offers everything you need to play, so you need to get a little creative. I first organized this guide according to the most technologically simple solutions.
Ecentral is there three aspects of Dungeons & Dragons:
- Ccommunication
- Rules and dice
- The table top
… and you have to replace each of these things face to face with a computer equivalent. (If your D&D in general is not new yet, consult the official new player guide.)
Level one: teleconferencing only
D&D can be played entirely as a theater-of-the-mind game, so anything you want need to play is some friends, some agreed rules and a way to communicate. Hell, you can play with Morse code if you want, but teleconferencing programs like Zoom, Skype or Discord will probably work better, plus the addition of webcams give the face to face feeling.
G / O Media can get a commission
To play this way, each player has to do their own ‘bookkeeping’, to roll, to keep stat and to look for rules, so that everyone has a separate copy of the Player Manual (essentially the basic rules of Dungeons & Dragons), a character sheet and a set of dice. From there, it’s just a matter of jumping on Zoom and telling a story together – one with a lot of math.
Speaking of math: computers are really good at it, so if you play D&D this way, you choose not to streamline the most annoying (to me) aspect of the game. Another disadvantage of this style of play is that the “table top” part of the table top RPG is missing, so groups will play poorly in terms of the tactical war aspect of D&D, as well as players who like handouts, props, miniatures, or really anything physically.
Also: if you’re playing with a guy who’s ruining things, you’ll not be able to see their dice – ‘Of course, Noah, it was another natural 20”- so you have to trust your pee.
Level Two: D&D Beyond and Teleconferencing
It took Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast in 20 years to get it right, but the fifth edition of D&D offers a free, fully integrated, easy and simple online portal. D&D Beyond simplifies and automates the sharing of paperwork and mathematics Dungeons & Dragons, to free players from the imaginary things and bad accents of the game.
You can use D&D Beyond to create characters, run campaigns, roll dice, and even cast home-made spells, classes, items, and more. With the online character sheets, you can attack, enchant, raise levels and basically do everything you ever need by just clicking on your character sheet. It will pick up all your modifiers and whatever, and spit out the numbers you need to make the story flow. Dungeon Masters can create campaigns, invite players, and easily share notes and handouts.
Maybe this is the best of all: D&D Beyond lets players share books. As long as one player has a $ 5.99 “Master Tier” account, any official book published on the site can be shared with players in a campaign. This means that only one person needs to buy a module or an extension of the rule, and everyone can use it. In a move reminiscent of the neighborhood push in a 1980s drug ad, Wizards or Coast even gives the first taste for free: The basic version of the D&D rules is currently available, for nothing. Go ahead, give it a try. You will not become addicted one game …
Level three: the combination of a virtual tabletop, D&D Beyond and teleconferencing
The top level of online D&D is to add a virtual tabletop to your game. Allows players to move around on a shared card, throw virtual dice that everyone can see, and give the dungeon a bunch of options in the game to spice things up on.
There is a number of programs and websites aimed at allowing players to use the same shared space (and millions of pages of geek arguments about what’s best and why), but the most used virtual tabletop is Rol20, a free, relatively easy-to-use web-based app on used for players, and contains everything you need to get started on your shared fantasy adventure.
Players need to have a basic understanding of how computers work, and this can be a bit tricky at first, so if you’re playing with noobs, you should probably start with a game without expectation to figure out how to manage things. Also: I highly recommend the Beyond20 Chrome extensions that integrate D &D Beyond with Roll20.
As in the role-playing game of pen and paper, the Dungeon Master has to do a lot more work in Roll20 than the players – the price of being God, I think – so if you DMing, you have to prepare. Fortunately, there are many in-depth tutorials you can study. Start here.
With Roll20 you can use full campaigns from Wizards of the Coast and indie developers, complete with pre-made maps, documentation, NPC tokens and everything you need to get started, and even offer free one-shots and mini-campaigns. To make it online as easy as possible transition, you should probably start with a pre-made game.
After climbing the initial technological hill of Roll20 with an inclusive module or two, you can create your own role, import your own maps, make your own encounters and otherwise create your ideal fantasy world.
If you’re fast enough, it’s possible to use Roll20 to run a style game with an improvisational heavy, anything that might happen. You can even add sounds, music and custom effects, as well as deepen Macros and API scripts if you really want to go crazy …and it’s D&D, so you probably want to get really geeky.