Board 8 > Hey Im DMing my first remote dnd sesh p help me

Topic List
Page List: 1
SantaRPidgey
03/23/20 2:19:14 PM
#1:


I dont know know about your area but around here we have this flu going around called covid and it means we are inside a lot. So i decided to do remote dnd with my cousins so I was just looking for pointers. Theres some sort of board 8 group that plays, right? Is there a session I could sit in on?

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
MariaTaylor
03/23/20 3:26:16 PM
#2:


voice chat vs text chat

voice
+ game moves much more quickly and can be easier to run. people slow at typing won't slow the game down.

-- the fast pace of the game can also mean that the same amount of content will keep you entertained for a shorter period of time. players will also have more trouble keeping notes and catching every piece of information you relay to them. not only do they have to hear what you say, clearly, without any misunderstandings, but they also can't copy/paste the text you just posted. they have to type out your verbal explanations... while also trying to continue following the flow of conversation. this issue can be mitigated with digital 'handouts,' but it's not a perfect solution in every case.

+ has a more fun and upbeat feeling. you're verbally interacting with other real people and you can feel this.

-- this laid back chatting atmosphere can lead to a lot of joking around and off topic tangents, which is less productive if you're trying to run a more serious game. I've never found a good solution to this other than knowing what type of game I want to run and deciding which players are suitable for that game. you don't want to invite a clown to a serious game, or an overly serious player to a fast paced goofy oneshot.

-- you aren't speaking face to face and this can cause some weird social hiccups. people talk over each other less than you would expect, but it does happen. and there's a lot of cases where no one "knows" whose turn it is to speak, and you can't look around the room and see other people's faces. this tends to cause one player, the most outgoing one, dominating a lot of scenes. even moreso than in person games or with text chat. this issue can be mitigated by having the GM remain aware of player participation and 'call on' people who don't get as many chances to speak.

text
+ probably the ideal mode for running a serious game with lots of world building and lore. people have time to read your messages, let the information sink in, respond accordingly. everyone can participate in a scene without talking over each other, and everyone can easily take notes on the developments of the story.

+ very easy to keep logs of your sessions which can be re-read for nostalgia purposes, searched for information, and you can always Ctrl+F to go back and find out exactly what was said if two people remember things differently.

-- it's slower even in the best case scenario. I have never planned a text based session and actually covered all of the material I wanted to cover in that session. and this is after doing it for years. they still surprise me with how little material you can cover in a single session. in the worst case scenario? a single slow typing player can grind a scene down to a halt and leave everyone waiting as the chat comes to a dead standstill. the only way to mitigate this issue is to stay on top of the slow players and constantly keep nagging them, which is socially difficult to do and it can become a stress for you and the slow player over time.

-- if you are using battle maps you generally have to deal with a small chat window or tabbing back and forth between the chat and the maps. neither option is particularly good. you can play without battle maps, this is what I normally do, but this can lead to issues if you are using a system with more 'precise' combat. it works fine if your combat tends to be more flavor driven and less about how large of a radius sphere the player can create, how many enemies are in range, and how they are clustered together after moving exactly 35 yards.

roll 20 vs discord

if you're doing text based just run it on discord. there's no decent way to do text based with interactive maps, and the roll20 chat window is tiny and sucks. if you're doing voice it may still be worth it to use the discord voice chat. but roll20's voice is functional and it is built right into the same interface you'd be using for your map and tokens -- so it has that advantage.

don't go overboard with features like dynamic lighting. I've noticed some people with worse PC performance tend to be almost unable to play along, but the dynamic lighting features tend to be finnicky in general even for people with decent to good PCs at times. it's pure jank and not worth the hassle. if you really need to hide things from your players, just hide regions of the map and reveal them one at a time. and learn how to make tokens invisible so you can prepare stealth foes ahead of time and have them 'pop out' when needed.

also break your encounters up to separate maps whenever possible. this is an additional step that cuts down on the amount of lag.

chatting with friends while moving your tokens around an interactive map is a very strong experience that gives a good feel -- simulates the idea of playing in person very well. roll20 is a fantastic option for this, and it's probably what you'll end up doing if I had to guess. the text chat based tabletop roleplaying scene is pretty much dead at this point, but I wouldn't write off the specific advantages it has, either.


---
all the rest weren't so unfortunate
https://imgur.com/yv2eC4n
... Copied to Clipboard!
HanOfTheNekos
03/23/20 5:36:31 PM
#3:


With friends, going voice over Discord is the better option, I have found. Doing text-based is just slow slow city.

Rather than use roll20, I've stuck with google sheets when a map is needed. You can also broadcast your desktop screen over Discord if you want to control a different looking battlemap on your side of things.

---
"Bordate is a pretty shady place, what with the gangs, casinos, evil corporations and water park." - FAHtastic
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/23/20 6:03:25 PM
#4:


Damn maria that answered all my questions that I didnt know I had, yeah looks like I will be using roll20+discord voice chat. Its going to be with people with no experience and little interest so Im doubting we will see much lore

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
MariaTaylor
03/23/20 7:06:00 PM
#5:


glad to help!

I'll second the notion that google sheets is awesome. I make great use of it myself. it's really helpful to make a single sheet where you can reference all of the important player info on one screen, with a few free columns off to the side to leave space for taking notes.

important that you don't put the entire build for every player on this reference sheet. you won't be able to fit it all, and it'll be cluttered as hell. let them worry about their own abilities -- this is information they should know. but it helps if you have all of the players HP, AC, +Hit, and Damage all in one nice table when combat breaks out.


---
all the rest weren't so unfortunate
https://imgur.com/yv2eC4n
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/23/20 7:49:53 PM
#6:


Since this is my second time DMing overall, how all out do you guys go with maps? Should I make a map for towns? Should I describe small cavs and only have a map for where encounters will happen? When do you determine when a map is and isn't necessary?

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
HanOfTheNekos
03/23/20 8:06:58 PM
#7:


That's really a personal question that you'll have to find the answer for yourself.

Try it all ways and find out which way works the best for you.

---
"Bordate is a pretty shady place, what with the gangs, casinos, evil corporations and water park." - FAHtastic
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/23/20 10:25:57 PM
#8:


cool so there's no "classic bad way" to go is the vibe I'm getting

how do people do character sheets? My crew doesn't have printers, is editing a pdf while you play just as good?

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
HanOfTheNekos
03/24/20 1:02:28 AM
#9:


For maps, I've done it many number of ways. Done shorthand maps of cities that let me know what they look like. Little more detailed versions as well. I don't go big into full detail ever, but I might if I did a single city campaign?

Battlemaps I usually sketch out on paper then transmit to Google sheets or battlemap. Don't make them TOO detailed, but honestly, if your players are fine with theater of the mind, that's way easier.

And yeah, for sheets, either that or use DNDBeyond.

Roll20 has character sheets built in, tho.

There's also myth-weavers

---
"Bordate is a pretty shady place, what with the gangs, casinos, evil corporations and water park." - FAHtastic
... Copied to Clipboard!
SovietOmega
03/24/20 1:30:28 AM
#10:


I wish I could recommend myth-weavers more...but they really bummed me when they had a huge server issue that rolled things back a ton leading to a massive loss of character data. They do now enable saving of sheets, but an editable pdf or dnd beyond might easily be superior options depending on the kinds of characters being made.

There are tools that exist that can automatically generate cities (watabou) or dungeons (donjon) or even campaign worlds (azgaar)...I've seen a lot of different kinds of things recommended. A lot of it will be personal preference based, but if nothing else these kinds of procedurally generated content can serve to spark inspiration.

---
There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
... Copied to Clipboard!
Eddv
03/24/20 1:46:30 AM
#11:


No I refuse.

---
Board 8's Voice of Reason
https://imgur.com/AWY4xHy
... Copied to Clipboard!
ScareChan
03/24/20 2:07:26 AM
#12:


theres this for maps

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmaps/

---
*Fastbreak Intensifies*
PSN TehScurr Switch friend code SW-5264-0547-1806
... Copied to Clipboard!
MariaTaylor
03/24/20 3:19:56 AM
#13:


I have some experience with donjon and I can honestly say it produces pretty wonky, generic results. I never ran one myself but I was a player in a few donjons. The quality of the donjons became a bit of a running joke on the server. There's tons of hallways that loop endlessly, dead ends, monster packs showing up in sizes and varieties and in relation to each other than makes no sense. It's basically just a set of square rooms connected by overly complicated hallway systems that couldn't possibly exist unless you came up with the most contrived explanation possible (like some insane wizard put a bunch of things in a giant labyrinth for no reason other than to fuck with adventurers).

They can make for a fun dungeon crawl if you're willing to turn your brain off, but a hand-crafted version of this will yield MUCH better results even with relatively low effort. We ended up doing the donjons more than a few times because the DM who ran them was entertaining, having frequent games was better than having no games, and honestly it ended up being so funny how bad they were that it actually made the situation more enjoyable. I'm not sure if I'd just use it if I was running a game for a group of new players. I'd want their first experience to be a little bit less silly.

roll20 has built in sheets, and a map interface, and if you understand how to set up your sheets correctly you can roll right in the chat by clicking on your character sheet. New players are very likely to have a difficult time setting all of this up, but if you're willing to set things up ahead of time it will be worth the hassle. and, even if not, just having your map and dice rolling chat in the same place is valuable enough on its own.

---
all the rest weren't so unfortunate
https://imgur.com/yv2eC4n
... Copied to Clipboard!
SovietOmega
03/24/20 3:44:12 AM
#14:


I'm no master with donjon, but it does have considerable settings that can be tweaked that can mitigate a lot of the nonsense aspects to the dungeon being generated. The enemy encounters I've seen it spawn are a little wonky to be sure, but any competent DM could substitute them for more appropriate encounters (or use other tools that are better at encounter building). But I do agree, hand crafting will win out any day of the week, it is just a matter of how much time an aspiring DM has to devote to crafting adventures for the party. The rest of the site has a number of other generators too, although none I'd particularly rave about.

You might also find the dnd reddit's resource list useful. There are a number of character sheets/encounter builders/loot generation/etc that could potentially streamline some aspects of the DM's job. I'd never depend on them wholesale, but sometimes you're just not able to give it 100% but still need to run a session.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/wiki/resourcelist


---
There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/24/20 9:49:42 AM
#15:


My stuff is grossly story based so I don't really need to worry too much about dungeon creation. I usually do small areas with large amounts of npcs with choices and puzzles so I'll probably be fine without any sort of generator.

I did sit in on some roll20 sessions and I was also blown away by how boring dnd could actually be if you have a dungeon with monsters and no narrative stakes.

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/24/20 8:39:19 PM
#16:


so uh

roll20 is janky as hell huh

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/24/20 11:37:46 PM
#17:


after spending a lifetime in roll20 trying to just get it to goddamn work

I decided to just do zoom with a camera facing a gameboard

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
PerfectChaosZ
03/25/20 12:25:51 AM
#18:


Ive suddenly got all this free time thanks to my job being shut down so sounds pretty great. So if yall wanted to do an open Board 8 game sounds great.
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/26/20 11:43:57 PM
#19:


Just finished my session! It worked out pretty good I have to say, zoom was a little annoying at times and a lot of people got dropped here and there, but ultimately I think it was enjoyed.

It's such a satisfying feeling when people are so into your world that they're trying to figure out how to play longer after beating the dungeon and completely solving the scenario

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/30/20 7:52:53 PM
#20:


HanOfTheNekos posted...
Rather than use roll20, I've stuck with google sheets when a map is needed. You can also broadcast your desktop screen over Discord if you want to control a different looking battlemap on your side of things.

Is there any way to get moveable characters over google sheets? I'd like to keep track of the players positions (but not have me be the one moving all six of them every time)
edit: @HanOfTheNekos I guess I'll tag you since its an old topic

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
ScareChan
03/30/20 9:53:53 PM
#21:


I think you just need to set the sheet to be editable by anyone which should be located near the share button. That should be enough

---
*Fastbreak Intensifies*
PSN TehScurr Switch friend code SW-5264-0547-1806
... Copied to Clipboard!
SantaRPidgey
03/30/20 10:28:03 PM
#22:


wont that make them able to just see all the encounters in rooms ahead of time?

---
wird
... Copied to Clipboard!
HanOfTheNekos
03/30/20 10:33:56 PM
#23:


I kinda think what Scare says?

I just move the players positions myself.

---
"Bordate is a pretty shady place, what with the gangs, casinos, evil corporations and water park." - FAHtastic
... Copied to Clipboard!
ScareChan
03/30/20 11:23:27 PM
#24:


SantaRPidgey posted...
wont that make them able to just see all the encounters in rooms ahead of time?

I think you want like a master sheet where you have all the info and then a blank copy that you just show them for the map and then you bring over the key things as they matter from the master

---
*Fastbreak Intensifies*
PSN TehScurr Switch friend code SW-5264-0547-1806
... Copied to Clipboard!
Topic List
Page List: 1