Playing Tabletop D&D Online

[Baptor]

I've always played D&D old school and in person.

But now I'm in a position where I won't likely get to do that for some time. My friends all live fairly far away and I am now homebound while I recover.

I know these days lots of people are playing D&D over the Internet. I'd love to try this but I am not sure where to start or where to go. I know a lot of people use Fantasy Grounds but that is a large investment for me at the moment. Does anyone have any suggestions of a place I can go and jump into a game?

[Avonar]

I've always played D&D old school and in person.

But now I'm in a position where I won't likely get to do that for some time. My friends all live fairly far away and I am now homebound while I recover.

I know these days lots of people are playing D&D over the Internet. I'd love to try this but I am not sure where to start or where to go. I know a lot of people use Fantasy Grounds but that is a large investment for me at the moment. Does anyone have any suggestions of a place I can go and jump into a game?

Try Roll20. I've recently started using it and it is extremely easy to find a game to play in.

[Demidos]

I can vouch that Roll20 is pretty awesome, at least as a platform (I haven't played in any games except with friends on it). Mythweavers is a great site to store character sheets, if you don't already use it.

[Knaight]

Skype+Maptools can work pretty well, particularly if you're fine with just having audio and not video of people.

[Sigreid]

Really, all you need is a voice over internet program like teamspeak, discord or others. Any die roller site works if you want everyone to be able to see all the rolls. We used to use Rollz before we moved to Fantasy grounds.

A chat program, dice roller and maybe an internet whiteboard are plenty. All the other stuff you get with things like Fantasy Grounds and Roll20 are nice to haves, but not necessary in the least.

[Gryndle]

one of our players recently moved a quarter of the way across the country. He still plays with us via skype. it works pretty well, if you have a decent camera. when we use a grid map, he cant always see the lines, but it really hasn't been much of an issue.

we are all adults, so we trust him to roll his own dice. so we dotn need to mess with a dice roller

[PhantomSoul]

We have a player who's in a different city and use Roll20. It works quite well (barring audio/mics being dropped now and then), and we want to have grids for battle anyway, so that satisfies that goal in addition to storing character sheets and being able to communicate. We also use the discussion section for planning sessions, for in-character journals about previous sessions, and things like that.

[Baptor]

Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are all suggesting tools to play D&D online with, which is great.

One thing I am missing is a way to find games/players to play with. Is there a forum or website where people meet up to start online games?

[Sigreid]

Last time I needed to do that I found a gaming news group. There's got to be something similar now.

[PhantomSoul]

One thing I am missing is a way to find games/players to play with. Is there a forum or website where people meet up to start online games?

I play with people I know so I can't guarantee quality for anything, but this forum (GitP) has exactly that: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?51-Finding-Players-(Recruitment)

[MrStabby]

Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are all suggesting tools to play D&D online with, which is great.

One thing I am missing is a way to find games/players to play with. Is there a forum or website where people meet up to start online games?

If you want roll20 look at a page like:

https://app.roll20.net/lfg/search//?page=1&days=&dayhours=&frequency=&timeofday=&timeofday_seconds=&language=Any&avpref=Any&gametype=Any&newplayer=true&yesmaturecontent=true&nopaytoplay=true&playingstructured=dnd_next&sortby=relevance&for_event=&roll20con=

[Knaight]

One thing I am missing is a way to find games/players to play with. Is there a forum or website where people meet up to start online games?

There's a bunch, although if you had an existing group I'd probably start with some emails asking about interest. A secondary option would be trying to set something up here or at other RPG boards.

There's also various RPG IRC channels that break into games every so often, but my knowledge on the specifics there is very rooted in 2010-2013 and thus probably completely obsolete by now.

[UrielAwakened]

Roll20 is the best bet. It's got great dynamic lighting and fog of war mechanics now, which lets you basically walk around with realistic vision and memory of where you've been on the map.

[Baptor]

There's a bunch, although if you had an existing group I'd probably start with some emails asking about interest. A secondary option would be trying to set something up here or at other RPG boards.

There's also various RPG IRC channels that break into games every so often, but my knowledge on the specifics there is very rooted in 2010-2013 and thus probably completely obsolete by now.

My old group is completely opposed to online D&D. They say that they play for the personal, interactive experience and they are convinced that even with video it would not be the same. Of course I've already argued that reasoning means no gaming at all and IMO some gaming is better than no gaming, but they disagree.

Sadly, I've got to consider that group dead. That band ain't coming back together unless we all meet up physically again someday. :(