My Virtual DMing Toolbox

Ever since the pandemic, there has been an increase in virtual games being run. The ability to run a game from your computer in the comfort of your own home not only allowed for TTRPGs to continue during the worst of COVID but also allowed for increased flexibility a lot of participants had not experienced before. Playing virtually can allow for a more frequent play session as well. Since you do not have to worry about commuting to a central location or the tasks associated with hosting players at someone’s house. It also allows for a table to have participants in vastly different physical locations, since distance is no longer a concern. Virtual play, however, requires a slightly different toolset than an in person game.

When playing Dnd, you want to make sure you have the proper tools in your DMing Toolbox to make preparing and running sessions as easy as possible. Something to run your sessions, something to interact with players outside of sessions, and something for you to plan and organize your sessions. Some tools out there can fit into multiple categories, while others really only serve a single purpose. In my time DMing, which was mostly virtual even before the pandemic, I have used a variety of tools for each case and feel that for now I have found the ones that best fit my needs.

Something to Run Your Sessions

Over the years, I have used a variety of programs for running my game sessions, and currently have settled on using two separate programs. I use one program for handling communication, and another program for handling a Virtual Tabletop, or VTT. At the minimum, you want something that will allow you to do audio and video, also known as Voice over IP (VoIP) with your party. There are a lot of programs out there, and they have all become fairly stable since Remote Work has become more popular. Programs such as Zoom, Skype, Discord, and even Google Chat can handle VoIP for your sessions. 

Some groups will opt to play virtually without video. Players can find it hard to isolate completely, and some just worry about the messy room that will show in the background, so it makes the lack of video appealing. However, I have found that without video it is hard to pick up on body language, something that is hard to get already on an online game. Players will end up talking over one another, and it becomes more difficult to detect audio issues.

After being able to see and interact with one another, you will want some way to share images with the party. Theater of the mind can go a long way, but I have found providing resources can help improve immersion. Resources such as battle maps, NPC portraits, and landscape images really enhance the immersion that the party will feel while playing. The good thing about the programs that I mentioned above is that most of them at the very least allow for a basic screen sharing function. If you have a spare monitor available you can use share that, using it as the table for your party. That will work, but I prefer to use a Virtual Tabletop program, or VTT.

VTTs combine the shared space capabilities that VoIP programs often have with some RPG specific tools. Built in dice rollers, token support, and integrated character sheets just scratch the surface of what some of these programs can do. The level of complexity varies from one system to another. You have setups like Owlbear Rodeo, which is fairly barebones, all the way to Foundry, which can be customized based on your needs and technical skills. It all depends on what you think you need (and don’t need) from a Virtual Tabletop. I tend to lean more towards the technical and customizable side of things, so Foundry was my system of choice.

In addition, many of these VTTs, such as Roll20 and Foundry, are able to run VoIP services, providing voice and often video as well. This can allow a table to have most of their tools run in one program, limiting the clutter. In my experience, however, I have run into issues where the VTT will function, but the voice and video will not. When that would happen it would almost certainly mean a game delay or even cancellation. I found that separating out both options lead to a game with less technical issues.

I should also note that VTTs come at a variety of price ranges. Owlbear Rodeo and Roll20 have free options that allow for basic functionality. Some of these functionalities can be enhanced with different levels of memberships, providing more technical access or better cloud storage. Foundry, on the other hand, requires a single license to be purchased for the table, which is normally 49.99 USD. Once a license is purchased, its up to the user to figure out how to host their server.

I have used a variety, but my current two that I use are Discord for VoIP, and Foundry for the VTT itself. I use Discord in other aspects of DMing, and I have found that it is a robust option. Discord has a ton of bots that add additional functionality to your sessions. You can add in music or even record audio of your sessions to make note taking easier. I am still new to Foundry, coming from years of experience with Roll20. I enjoy the technical aspect that Foundry brings, and the unparalleled level of customization that is offered through how it is set up.

Something to Interact and Share with Your Players

Being able to interact with your party outside of the session is as important as interacting with them during the session. It is also nice to have this space in case you want to give information to the group that they can use in the game. Lists of quests, shop prices, and pictures of important NPCs can live in this repository to help keep the minds of the players (as well as yours) fresh. Additionally, this space is useful for tasks related to running the game, such as planning your next session and taking attendance. Having something that allows you to communicate with your group and store that information will make this much easier.

I have seen many people just do this entirely through text messaging applications, and personally, I do not agree with this approach. If you do more than play with any of your players, for example, these channels can easily become full of other, non-game related information, which will make it hard to communicate effectively. It can tie a lot of your communication to your cellular device and mobile number. It's hard to step away from a game if you are regularly receiving texts from your players. Some might not mind this, but it can make it difficult to focus on other things, such as work.

The first approach I used utilized a website called Myth Weavers. Myth Weavers is a Play by Post TTRPG Forum, where individuals can slowly play a game over the course through a message board. Once registered with an account, you can set up your own game, and create a forum style setup with many individual sections. You can control who can access each section, either creating individual player threads or repositories for information that only you can edit. Sites like this also have specific code formatting that allows you to perform functions in your post. Dice rollers are the big one here, but you can also control post formatting in order to differentiate in character and out of character text.

My second and current tool that I use is Discord. It provides all the same things that Myth Weavers does but is instead in real time instead of post based. As with Myth Weavers, Discord has a variety of functions. Basic Discord handles text customization, such as formatting and spoilers. Dice Rolling is available, but requires some sort of bot to be added to your server. The Discord Bots really set apart Discord from the other options and the one I use the most would be Avrae by Dndbeyond. Avrae provides a variety of tools, which are linked to your DnDBeyond Account. It provides dice rolling, as well as the ability to pull up spells, items, and monsters using various text commands. It also includes the ability to run combat, keeping track of turn order and HP, but I have not used this.

For me, I want a system that allows me to easily store and recall information, and Discord really does that for me. It's separate from text messaging, so I can either silence it or ignore notifications if I cannot respond. I organize channels as well, separating out information in order to make sure everything is organized in a way that makes it easy to reference when needed. As I mentioned before, I already use Discord for its VoIP capabilities when running my game. Here I find it beneficial to have some overlap between what I am using in Session and What I am using out session. I can easily add information or put notes into Discord while the game is functioning, or use Avrae to check spell wording on the fly.

Something to Organize Your Notes

To finish my trifecta of tools for DMing, I needed a digital tool to contain my notes and to reference resources I use while session planning and running my games. Some people prefer to use a physical notebook while running, but I keep everything digital for a few reasons. The first reason is accessibility. A proper digital “notebook” will be available wherever you have internet access and a device that can access it. When you lack internet access, offline copies can fill those gaps. This means that instead of a book that I have to find space for, I can instead rely on my PC, laptop, or even mobile device for referencing materials and making quick notes. I already access my books and character sheets through DnDbeyond, so having my notebook this way just made sense. I also use digital for readability. I find it much easier to read typed notes than handwritten notes. With digital tools, you can copy, paste, and reorganize with a few commands instead of having to rewrite. You can pull information from other sources as well. I have used a few different applications to fill this need, each varying slightly from one another.

When I started taking digital notes, I utilized the various Google Documents Applications, mainly Sheets and Docs. I have used both programs for a long time, so it was easy to create a folder through my google account that would hold my various documents. Besides being familiar, both applications were available wherever I had internet access, which was important for me. However, I found Google Docs did not exactly meet what I wanted in a digital notebook. Each “page” that I used would have to be a separate document, which would mean a separate tab. I could make one long Doc file, but this would end up being hard to manage. Ultimately, I left this setup for Microsoft OneNote.

If you are not familiar with Microsoft OneNote, it is effectively a digital notebook program. You create a notebook, then fill it with sections. Each Section can then have pages. Pages can have designated sub-pages as well, allowing you to nest them in one another. I had been familiar with OneNote from my days in college. It had been my program of choice for taking notes digitally in college classes. The value of OneNote comes from the fact that I have yet to find a free program that allows for this type of organization. Google Docs was close, but having all my pages available at the same time was very useful. OneNote supports the ability to put in hyperlinks, which can either link to a Webpage or a different page in the Notebook. Writing is done in blocks that can then be formatted, copied, pasted, and moved around with relative ease. Implementing OneDrive also allows me to sync my notebooks with local devices, mobile devices, and access from a webpage, if need be. This program ended up providing most everything that I needed.

I have tried to use Discord, as I have heard other people utilize it for that purpose. They create a private Discord thread, using channels and sections to organize. While I agree that this is very useful, it never really worked for me. I found it hard to recall information with any sort of speed, as well as do any serious session planning. I found it also difficult to use Discord for note taking while using it to run my game sessions. Flipping between channels on the Discord app is a bit trickier than I would want.

DnDBeyond?

One tool that I left out that is a large aspect of my gaming is DnDBeyond. I use it for both the official books for DnD 5e and for generating character sheets, campaigns, and encounters. I left this out for a few reasons, but mainly because in the realm of digital options I have not really explored anything else. When I started using DnDBeyond it immediately clicked for me and I have been using it ever since. I use bots and modules in both Discord and Foundry to bring some of the functionality over to my other tools, which I may talk about more at a later time.

Final Thoughts

Throughout my time DMing, coming up with a set of tools to put into my DMing Toolbox has always been important for me to succeed. I identified three specific types of tools that I needed in order to DM. A way to run my live sessions, comprising a way to share Voice and Video as well as have some sort of Virtual screen we could all interact with in real time. Discord and Foundry are currently what I am utilizing, their combined abilities providing me with everything I want when running a game live. I also needed a way to communicate with the party outside of the game. Text messaging applications were out of the question as I wanted to be able to have more organization as well as to avoid it overlapping with personal conversation. Again Discord came out as the most useful, its ability to run a private server that could be organized into channels allowing me to break up game talk, scheduling, and the occasional meme. Finally I needed a way to organize my personal notes and session planning so I could easy access while playing. I had tried many ways, but settled on using a tried and true option of Microsoft OneNote. The structure in which it organizes, mimicking a binder or notebook, provided the most utility out of any of the options I had tried.

Now these are the tools that work for me and my specific wants and needs. I think everyone runs their tables a little differently, so what works for me might not be the best fit for you. However, I wanted to highlight the tools that I use and hopefully give some people ideas for what to try next in their quest to perfect their DM Toolbox. 

What tools do you have in your DM toolbox? Do you use a different VTT, or prefer a different method to interact outside of the game besides Discord? I would love to hear about the products and experiences that you use in the comments below. I look forward to hearing what everyone has to say!