COVID hit at the height of the resurgence of the desktop role-playing game Dungeons and dragons, and while it is not the worse aspect of a global plague, which doesn’t allow nerds to gather at the local hobby shop and pretend to be elves. Luckily, though, with a little knowledge, you can bring fantasy online. Computers can’t replace the face-to-face joy of D&D, but if they remove some technological hurdles, it can get pretty close.
The technological side of bringing your paper game online can be a little daunting (especially if you’re playing with crunchy techno-phobes like me), because there’s no single app or website that gives you everything you need to play. a little creative. I first created this organized guide to the technologically simplest solutions.
Eessentially, there are three aspects of Dungeons and dragons:
- Ccommunication
- Roils and dice
- The table
… and you will have to replace each of these things face to face with an equivalent team. (If you are new to D&D in general, consult the official new player guide.)
First level: teleconferencing only
D&D can be played entirely as a theatrical game of the mind, so do all of you need to play there are a few friends, some agreed rules and a way to communicate. Damn, you can play with Morse code if you want, but teleconferencing programs like Zoom, Skype or Discord will probably work better, in addition to the addition of webcams to give the face-to-face sensation.
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To play this way, every player has to do their own “accounting,” data control, statistics maintenance, and rule search, so everyone will need a separate copy of the Player’s manual (basically the basic rules of Dungeons and dragons), a character sheet and a dice game. From here, it’s just a matter of jumping into Zoom and telling a story together, one with a lot of math.
Speaking of math: computers are really well, therefore, if you play D&D this way, you decide not to streamline the most annoying aspect (for me) of the game. Another negative aspect of this style of play is that the “desktop” part of the board role-playing game is missing, so the groups involved in the tactical and warlike aspect of D&D will have a bad time, as will the players who like handouts, props, miniatures, or really anything physical.
Also: if you’re playing with a guy who gets rid of things, you won’t be able to see his releases – “Sure, Noah, it was another natural 20”, So you have to trust your peeps.
Second level: D&D Beyond and teleconferencing
He took Dungeons and dragons editor Wizards of the Coast for over 20 years to do well, but the fifth D&D edition offers an elegant, fully integrated and easy-to-use online portal. D&D Beyond it greatly simplifies and automates the documentation and math part Dungeons and dragons, freeing players from imaginative things and making bad game accents.
You can use D&D Beyond to create characters, manage campaigns, roll dice, and even create homemade spells, classes, objects, and more. Online character sheets allow you to attack, cast spells, earn levels, and do basically everything you need just by clicking on your character sheet. It will add all your modifiers and what not, and spit out the numbers you need for the story to flow. Dungeon Masters can easily create campaigns, invite players, and share notes and brochures easily.
Perhaps best of all, D&D Beyond allows players to share books. As long as a player has a $ 5.99 Master Tier account, any official book posted 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 rules and that everyone can use it. In a move reminiscent of the neighborhood’s momentum in an anti-drug ad in the 1980s, Wizards of the Costa it even gives the first taste for free: The basic version of the D&D rules is available right now, for nothing. Go ahead, give it a try. You will not become addicted a game …
Level three: combination of a virtual desktop, D&D Beyond and teleconferencing
The top level of online D&D is to add a virtual desktop to your game. This allows players to move around a shared map, roll virtual dice that everyone can see, and provides the dungeon master with plenty of in-game options to spice things up. up.
There are several applications and websites dedicated to allowing players to use the same shared space (and millions of pages of geeky arguments about which is the best and why), but the most used virtual board is Roll20, a free web-based application that is relatively easy a use for players and include everything you need to carry out your shared fantasy adventure.
Players will need to have a basic understanding of how computers work, and at first it can be a bit tricky, so if you’re playing with noobs, you should probably start with an unexpected game to figure out how to run things. Also: I recommend the Beyond20 Chrome extensions that integrate D&DD Beyond with Roll20.
As in the pencil and paper role-playing game, the Dungeon Master has to do a lot more work on Roll20 than the players (the price of being God, I guess), so if you want to, you have to prepare. Fortunately, there are plenty of in-depth tutorials online to study. Start here.
Roll20 lets you use full Wizards of the Coast and independent developer campaigns, with ready-made maps, documentation, NPC tokens, and everything you need to get started, and even offers some one-shot campaigns and free mini-campaigns. To make the line transition as easy as possible, you should probably start with a prefabricated game.
Once you’ve climbed the initial Roll20 technology hill with one or two inclusive modules, you can roll your own, import your own maps, make your own encounters, and otherwise create your ideal fantasy world.
If fast enough, it is possible to use Roll20 to run an improv game on the fly and anything that might happen. You can even add custom sounds, music and effects, as well as delve into macro scripts and APIs if you want to be really geeky …and it’s D&D, so you probably want to be very geeky.