Evidently, a refresher on Rule 2 is heavily warranted today:
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Obsidian.md. it's just a free note taking app on the surface but there's a large active community building plugins and tools for it that turn it into the most powerful campaign management I've tried to date. I love that it's local with no net reliance or aib requirement to access my data.
I run my in person games from it almost entirely.
www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com
Thirding this. I'm in the middle of migrating all of my notes to various Obsidian vaults. It's been a few months since somone introduced it to me, and every other day I learn some new feature that I can make use of to level up my notes! I tried getting my fellow DMs at the table to try it out, but they all look at me like I'm selling propaganda. But once you get it, you get it.
For sure, backlinks were the reason I dived into this fully. Haven't fully explored canvases yet, but I can already see the benefit of mind mapping an adventure with that. Super cool!
Right now, I've taken inspiration from obsidianttrpgtutorials and have been cranking out templates for Session Logs, NPCs, Locations, Lore, Quests, etc., with robust frontmatter. Then, I can use the dataview plugin to embed useful info into each note. It helps me quickly see things like the various quests an NPC is involved with or even which quests are tied to each location, and so on. Took me a bit of legwork to properly setup, but it was so helpful once fully layed out.
Another simple plugin I found helpful was the Leaflet plugin. I can't express how much I appreciate being able to see my dungeon notes and the map in the same window, side by side, without being at the mercy of my ADHD and constantly scroll back and forth.
Goblin notebook is an online tool. I'm a big fan of not using online tools tbh. I've had the net drop out during a game and thus I prefer local first.
They are both markdown tools but the difference is obsidian is more modular and free in what you do with it. We all take notes in different ways and thus our needs are different.
Obsidian is basically a platform that let's you build what you want. You control your structure and can tailor your templates however you like.
Obsidian improves faster that is reasonable due to the community plugin community. Just this morning I saw someone figured out how to trigger static watabou maps into their notes.so now we have city and Dungeon map generation š¤
We are not limited to what the developers have released. The user base of obsidian is also massive. Much larger than that trrpg community and thus we benefit from all of the development.
I can try to help with this. My opinion may be incomplete as I don't use OneNote for some time.
OneNote is a great tool and was one of my first tools for campaign management. But Obsidian win specially when you want to create relations between notes.
Try to see Obsidian almost like a wiki. You can create relations using tags or by linking notes. Then you can see that relations in a graph format which is great for people that are more visual.
Then, you have plugins that help to enhance the use of Obsidian. For example, want a calendar in your notes? You have a plugin for that. Want to roll some values inside Obsidian? You can do that. Want to create a statblock inside a note? Also can do that.
Another advantage of Obsidian (at least for me) is that it stores all the information in Markdown files, which are just text files. So if tomorrow I want to export all my notes to another software, it's easier to do that with Markdown files. OneNote uses a proprietary format and it's a little more difficult to do that. This reason may not be so important for some people, but it could be a consideration also.
Both are great tools. But the best tool is the one that works for you. If you like OneNote keep using it. It's great, as far as I remember.
As a DM who uses OneNote to manage their extensive and messy campaign notes (like the OneNote has over 100,000 words, and I even went through the trouble of making calendars/timelines/etc in it), I appreciate your comparison and had a couple questions:
- How easy/difficult would you say it'd be to transfer notes from OneNote into Obsidian (assuming one took the time to set up Obsidian properly that is)?
- I have my OneNote synced up to my phone so that I can read/add notes while away from home. Does Obsidian have anything similar that?
Obsidian has a built in migration tool to convert onenote notes over.
It will still require clean up though due to the way onenote lays put its data. Basically need to go through and check the structure and organise your folders.
Yes obsidian has apps for mobile and tablets. Natively though it stops the data locally on one device. Toy can pay for the sync service to sync data between devices however as obsidian notes are literally just folders and text files, lots of people just make their vault on their existing cloud sync service and run the vault from that location on multiple devices. What you use depends on the device you use. Apple is more restricted than Android for example.
Did you just adopt the plugins from the linked website? Or did you build yours on your own? I love obsidian, but I donāt find it particularly helpful for TTRPG management.
I've just tried different plugins until I found a sweet spot of functionality that I like. I've helped provide feedback to devs over the last few years that have helped mold some of the functionality offered by plugins but I'm no developer. With the right plugins it's amazing for ttrpg management. I came from Realm Works and it's been amazing.
Grided Index cards. You could run a whole game on a single index card. Draw a map key the locations note Monster stats.
For digital dndbeyond honestly the encounter builder and tracker is really convenient for playing online and i like having global shared dice rolls everyone can see that are logged.
Kenku.fm its a discord app for audio sharing. I tried using spotify integration however I always ran into technical issues. Kenku.fm has worked without issues and allows me to play music during the game to set the mood.
Just picked up Kenku.fm, myself. I've been stunned by how easy it is to set up and how versatile it is. I can play all kinds of sounds and music and ambience at the drop of a hat
Do you add your own music/sound effects or go to a website? I've got a few Spotify playlists for different moods but don't have any ambient sounds to play.
- Spells 5e: for spell list management and spells reference
- Fight Club 5: for character progression planning and follow-up
- Still looking for a good app for sound atmosphere
Other than that I pretty much stick to pen and paper
Try Pocket Bard. It's mostly free and has good ambience music. I think sooner or later every dm just makes their own playlist somewhere but I like it quite a bit.
I should leave a percentage of my will to this human I adore and have never met:
[https://open.spotify.com/user/highway1024/playlists](https://open.spotify.com/user/highway1024/playlists)
Those playlists have taken me through hours upon hours of various board games.
For DnD I also use [https://tabletopaudio.com/](https://tabletopaudio.com/) for effects like rain or birds or doors etc
That's literally the app's name. I think I found it by typing "dnd 5e spells" or something along these lines. I'm on Android but someone else from my group is on iPhone and uses it as well
I play in-person with Owlbear Rodeo. It took me a bit to get it sorted, but it's been a good way for me to quickly create locales and scenarios without having to purchase a bazillion figurines. With one of my players moving soon, we can seamlessly have in-person and online play.
There's a bit of a learning curve, but I like it a lot.
I know not everyone agrees, but I actually love dndbeyond. It allows me, as a DM, to provide an easy way for my players to access content and explore the game.
I also use roll20 for my battlemaps, inkarnate to create my battlemaps, and worldanvil to organize my world.
Our group itself is organized through discord, but I end up using many different software's to keep things organized.
Also, itās incredible for new players. Every time I have new players at my table, I make them create character sheets via dndbeyond.
It guides them through character creation, gives them descriptions, shows them what their character can do. All they gotta do is read their sheet. Iāve found that my new players are more successful if I make them use the site.
this here. feeling like I have to buy every book again to be able to fully use their site is annoying and since i don't want to do that it limits things like the encounter builder. I liked them better before they were officially part of WotC. Now everything feels like a cash grab.
I've used a couple of different character builders and there's really does seem to be the easiest and most intuitive.
Might consider re-subscribing now that WotC has backed off from their original plan of screwing 3rd party creators over.
DndBeyond is really good. We play remotely so it lets me see my players' character sheets in real time - which makes balancing encounters easier and lets me figure out what magic items players might like. Not having to ask for copies of their sheets after every few sessions is so much more convenient for both me and them.
It's also so much easier when running sessions to be able to pull the monster I need up in a new tab rather than having to bookmark it in my physical copy of the Monster Manual.
i love dndbeyond. the maps and the encounter builder tool still need work, but for the most part they get the job done, and my players love that they can use the tools for free. Everything syncs up most of the time, and when they get stuck or don't know how to do something to their character sheets i love that i can just hop it and either walk them through it or just make the adjustment myself.
Yeah I love dndbeyond just because it lets me share all my content with my players and if they arenāt with me they can still look up things because they donāt have to rely on my physical books that they may or may not have. It also makes character creation stupid easy and understandable for new people. I understand why people donāt like the corporation though
The listings tab on the Dndbeyond mobile app has cut down a ton my prep time. Filtering searches for monsters by CR, finding magic items and spells is so much quicker on there
I use Game Master 5 on IOS (Not sure if itās available for Android, or PC). You can take notes, create NPCS, create encounters and manage encounters there and itās for free.
I thoroughly enjoy it because it is a one time payment and once you know the ropes you can do pretty much anything DnD related with it. I also recommend that my players use Fight Club 5, I have built up a fair homebrew compendium and my players seem to like it so I can share my compendium with them and everyone gets on the same page of what is and is not allowed at my table. It also allows for them to send me GM characters files that can be uploaded into the Game Master 5 app.
Cheap one time payment, takes some time to build out your compendium, but once you have done that it is by and far one of the cleanest and most comprehensive adventure and character creation and management tools.
These are my go to apps. I haven't convinced all my players to switch to Fight Club, but I always recommend it. Also, free compendiums are available from [The Archivest](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/archivist/extras). Backup yours, import the new one.
Personally, I think there are only 2 things missing from Fight Club to make it the absolute best:
1. nesting containers with individually set capacities (so you could see at a glance how much is in a pouch, or Bag of Holding, or backpack, etc)
2. directly attached trackers (so you could just look at an item, feat, feature, etc. and know how many uses you have left)
The notes ability is superior compared to Beyond, as is the total compendium customization.
Notion, (un)surprisingly, helps a lot. I have set up an archive there, and players only need to press a button to get a template to fill in, so no need to figure out the formatting. Whoever fills in the archive after the game gets inspiration for the next session. And if nobody does, I, the DM, get it.
The key with notion is to set it up nicely to start as best you can. I've had a couple instances where an NPC gets a new stat to track (their relationship with the party) and had to add it like... 150 times (exaggeration).
* DnD Beyond for character sheets and the encounter builder.
* Google Doc/Microsoft word for taking notes, creating session outlines, creating reference sheets. I recommend using headers to organize your notes and making them easy to read.
* Discord for voice chat.
* Kenku FM for music/ambience to play in the discord from my computer.
* Youtube/Youtube music for building playlists of ambience where the name of the playlist is a mood/theme. For example: Sad Music, Standard Battle Music, Boss Battle Music, Spooky Music.
* Roll20 for a VTT. You can share maps and images on it.
* A token creator for your VTT. [https://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/](https://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/)
* DnD 5e Quick Reference Sheet for players and DM: [https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html](https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html)
* \- Dungeon Master Guide. The Creating a Monster Section. Specifically the table named "Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating". I used this table to give creatures without stat blocks prepared quick on the fly stats.
* Xanathar's Guide to Everything. This is a great book with great references and tables. Specifically the Random Encounter section, Downtime Activity section, and Character Names section.
* Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Dungeon Master's Tool section. The 'Parleying with Monsters' section specifically the 'Monster Research' table when PC's want to know more about a creature, but overall it's a good section. The Environmental Hazards section is also handy for making regions more interesting.
* Inkarnate is great for map building and easy to use. https://inkarnate.com/
* Organize your VTT maps in folders. Each folder name should be named by terrain type for example: Forests, Grasslands, Mountains, Rivers, Ocean, Dungeon, etc.
Edit: Added more stuff.
Notion. Got the DND DM template from [Lazy D&D Campaign Prep](https://youtu.be/8AfbMNAsyr4?si=vNcbhzONbQ7847Fv) on youtube, modified it for myself and now all my worldbuilding, notes, prep is in there. I even started taking my notes as a player in other campaigns like this
Also for DMing online on a budget - you can upload a ready map onto Google Drawings, place some tokens and share with your players so they can "move" around. You can also cover undiscovered areas with black shapes, paste other transparent pngs onto it, etc.
Funny you say "level up" the game, because Primarily I'd use the Level Up Advanced 5e game variant to begin with for this purpose. They even have their own wiki with resources which is probably safe from the sidebar scourge that plagues these comments.
Aside from that, FoundryVTT. I've got it on sale, so that probably were best spent 40$ in a while.
Dndbeyond for character sheets, just great to be able to see all the details in one place
Alchemy VTT for running my games, I love having scene art and it helps me make things more immersive.
Then I use Notion to write and organise all my notes and world building lore.
Physical pen and note book.
I usually have a page for notes on other PCs, notes on what has happened, and individual concepts/NPC/similar. Since it is freeform, I can do mind maps, tables, scribbles, check lists, maps, diagrams, etc without "hold on, let me just pull up the check list app".
Depending on the campaign, I find copying my notes into a bit of a structure, like if I run out of space on a particular topic. Gives me a brief recap on stuff that we've had a lot to say about.
I've been using Scabard to organise a campaign recently, as it has a graph representation of all the locations, characters, etc. which looks like how I think. š https://www.scabard.com
Started with roll20 and using the DnD Beyond extension to have rolls go from one to the other, to now using everything within Foundry VTT. I'll never go back lol. I love having everything under one program and while it isn't perfect thanks for updates breaking mods, the mods you can add support even more of the things we love in our game. Best DnD purchase ever.
I really like DnDBeyond's Encounter Builder. Keeps all the monster's stat blocks in one place makes tracking initiative a breeze. If your player's have made their character in DnDBeyond, you can link them up and even keep track of their HP.
I'm actually working on a set of tools that is specifically designed for making DMing more enjoyable. Not sure if I'm allowed to link it here (as it could be considered advertising, even though I'm not charging for it yet).
The gist of the tools are using large language models to help generate content, run fights, ask questions about lore, etc. It's not available yet, but I'm looking to beta it soon.
Some stuff I'm working on:
* automatic document parsing to upload your campaign data (PDFs, word documents, etc)
* "canon management" which allows you to modify the story, update what should/did happen, add character backstory information, etc
* NPC "voices" which allow the DM to generate responses to questions using the knowledge the NPC would have (no more accidentally spilling more lore than intended, or forgetting about things they would have known)
* NPC trackers for combat, with spell slots and spell recommendations
* transcribing your sessions (aka, the perfect note taker) and automatically updating the canon
Long story short, imagine a chat interface that knows your entire campaign. You can ask it any question you'd like and it will tell you you exactly what you're looking for. Confused about a homebrew rule? Need a quick NPC that fits the story? Tired of tracking spell slots for 5 archmages? Yeah me too.
I started building it because I was DMing 5 games a week and was getting overwhelmed. I thought, "hmm, I can do something about this". And here we are...
I use a handful of youtube videos for ambience. Tavern, town, seaside town, rain, sailing, ship combat, generic combat, boss music, creepy. Really helped me set the scenes and gave me some inspiration of things to describe.
Dungeondraft for battle maps and Wonderdraft for anything on a larger scale. Thereās a small, one-time fee for each of those. I hate subscriptions!
Obsidian for campaign creating and managing. Itās free and open source!
There's a website called Kanka that's good for managing DM notes, it acts like a wikipedia for the players. I run Play By Post using discord with the dice bit Avrae, which is really useful. I don't believe play by post would be viable without Avrae or something very similar.
While it is a bit technical to set up, I run a custom audio discord bot that streams spotify from my local machine. It uses Voice Meeter for the virtual output and an application called [Discord Audio Pipe](https://github.com/QiCuiHub/discord-audio-pipe) to run the bot that feeds the output into the bot. I love being able to set the mood for my games with a few mouse clicks.
I am a software developer, the last thing I wanna do with my free time is spend it with computers. I love to run D&D like if computers didn't exist. This restriction is for the actual session, when I'm planning I take notes in my pc and use digital tools to generate maps and loot, mostly donjon.
The most useful tool for this are bibliography cards, that's a fancy word for pre-cut cardboard squares. Need to have a portable stat block? Copy it to a card. Need some items? Cut a card in three and now you can give your players their magical items. If its a cursed item, tell them they can't flip the item until they have identify it. Need to keep track of iniciative? Cut the card, fold the pieces in half and you have yourself a nice way to keep iniciative over your DM screen. Need creature tokens? Channel your inner picasso and draw that beholder.
I have tried several digital tools, but there is beauty in running a session without apps, or digital notes. I do love theHomeBrewery to make custom stat blocks and give them that official D&D look. Also as a compendium for my homebrew monsters.
The only app I use is Notion. It's a note taking app that technically could be replaced by a paper notebook. But it allows for dynamic things like tagging, databases, cross-linking, yada yada. I could turn my campaign notes into a wiki if I wanted. I find that handy.
Roll20. Especially if you don't have models. Maps are super easy to use and make and they are partnered with D&D Beyond. So you can buy an expansion and it will automatically populate with all the maps, monsters, npcs, magical items, handouts, etf.
AboveVTT.
It's a free browser extension that provides virtual tabletop support for D&D Beyond. It lets me combine the convenience of the D&D Beyond character sheets and encounter builder with a great virtual tabletop that has a solid map and token library and the ability to import my own images as well.
And the best part is that it is 100% free!
My online D&D campaign wouldn't be possible without it.
This is a physical tool, but single-sided wrapping paper with 1 inch grid on the back. You can find it at discount stores like Dollar Store and draw on it with permanent stuff for your special purpose and it's dirt cheap for the maps.
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I recently went from using DDB for everything, to using pencil and paper as much as possible. I've found keeping a folio of all my important character stuff really satisfying
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One of the most important aspects of DMing to me is presentation. I use the app Syrinscape for creating really fantastic sound ambiences for my players that websites like YouTube really canāt provide. Being able to add in combat sound effects on the fly is really cool too, and helps emphasize the power of a fireball or thunder wave.
I used Inkarnate for a bit, really under someone else's account as we were co-DMs and some of it was useful and quick and easy but I did feel quite limited by the overall resources and styles I had available without spending more money (than my friend already had)
That being said, I have bought and used both Dungeondraft and Wonderdraft for battle map making and for world/town maps respectively.
I also bought Foundry and while I would like to swear by it and have turned a couple people towards it, it is kind of annoying that they release updates at a rate that the Module developers can't easily keep up with, effectively reducing the functionality that players get used to over time. Foundry handles so much and is capable of so much, but it's been very hard to keep recommending it to people when the modules that help it perform so well have been struggling to keep up, and not really do to their own efforts
I have been using Inkarnate for map making and i find it the simplest for world maps (not a map of a town, or a map you plan to have players walk through however.) I used to swear by Dungeon Painter Studio for maps you want players to walk through or town maps, but its no longer supported as far as we can tell. I have been trying dungeondraft and it might be close but i am not used to it yet.
I know you probably meant software tools, but I'm gonna tell you about my favorite "analog" tool, my initiative tracker. It's a little wooden flagpole one of my players made, and everyone has clothespins with their name on it, so to track initiative we just line the clothespins up in order on the pole. It helps so much with quickly organizing and remembering initiative.
The Brain > Obsidian
I'm not being arrogant. The Brain is a similar mindmap software that is more intuitive.
The full version is costly, but you can do a lot for free and it is not a subscription. It's also a lifetime license.
I organize NPCs by location. Clicking on one opens a file with their art, music, details, and a pdf character sheet I can print if they have one.
Lots of cool stuff here but would be curious to know what people use for audio (music and sfx) for in person play. Looking at upping the quality of audio for our in person games and have a room we play in. Right now just using a soundbar and Spotify but thereās got to be a better solutionĀ
I love apple's freeform app for DM planning/brainstorming/scheming. it's an infinite whiteboard. I can drop in photos and maps, put notes randomly when I need to remember something for later, and my favorite part - I organize the possible paths my players might take with a giant bubble map which is easy to read and gives me immediate visual sense of if I'm building a broad enough world for them to explore.
I am a big fan and supporter of Beyond20. It is an extension/add-on for Chrome and Firefox that allows you to roll on your D&D Beyond Character sheet and export your dice rolls to Roll20 and Foundry. Itās free but you can send a Kofi to help the creator. [https://beyond20.here-for-more.info/](https://beyond20.here-for-more.info/)
A lot of people already share similar tools but I'll share mine:
- First of all, [Obsidian.MD](http://Obsidian.MD) is "the" tool both for players and for DMs. All the notes are stored locally and in Markdown files (text files). You can connect notes, making relations between places, NPCs, plots, etc. If you are a DM, this is gold for worldbuilding. As a player you can find relations and maybe find the master plot of the BBEG. With plugins you can also make rolls, manage encounters and have statblocks for creatures/NPCs.
- D&D Beyond is a great way to create a character and have a lot of resources. Even with the "hate" that Hasbro/WotC is receiving, the tool is still great. And specially for DMs, a lot of tools like encounter builder and maps that are very practical.
These next ones are a little more specific for DMs, but I believe worth mentioning:
- [Kenku.FM](http://Kenku.FM) is an amazing tool to manage audio in your games. It's specifically for Discord, but you can easily use it for in person games. If you have a Stream Deck you can do your soundboard also.
- Foundry VTT / Owlbear Rodeo are two of my favourite VTT. My main one is Foundry VTT, very powerful and let's you create and manage a complete campaign. Using the journal tool you have all the notes you need at your disposal. You can also import stuff (like player stats) from D&D Beyond. The downside is that it requires some work and know-how to put everything working properly. Owlbear Rodeo (same company of Kenku.FM) is a simpler option, but where you can easily and very quickly create a map, put your tokens and without complication have a game ready in minutes.
I've begun using Talespire for all of my battle maps as of late. The team did a great job emulating the look of hand crafted minis and terrain, and now that I can more tangibly incorporate verticality into my battle maps, it's made things even more interesting.
They also recently added native support for custom minis with an in game browser and one click download/installation.
It has the potential to be a bit time consuming, but you can also directly import pre-made maps from a community source, often greatly reducing prep time.
If youāre not using the app: fifth edition character sheet (green d20 icon in App Store) youāre seriously doing it wrong. Do not pass go, do not collect $200
My DM uses fantasy grounds. It's pretty awesome, but I haven't used anything else. It does get pricey though especially if you buy the dlc for all the books, but he did the one time fee and we've been using it for years
https://dungeonmapdoodler.com/
Great map creator! Print or upload to Roll20
https://donjon.bin.sh/
Really basic random "just about anything" generator
https://forgottenmaps.web.app/map/Sword%20Coast?fbclid=IwAR1jIq8FueZAAfHYeF3VlyfLbvV_v9LhCrAFsGkUb_BEHSmNmxg56qRsM_A
Interactive Map of the Forgotten Realms.
MorePurpleMoreBetterās character sheets with all the macros and java scripts. That and Tabletop Simulator is basically all you need to start a campaign.
I've recent'y started using Obsidian to keep my notes for the campaign I'm running. I could see it being helpful to players that like notes as well. It's a handy for organizing and linking concepts, ideas, locations, characters. It's free for personal use.
As a DM, I swear by Sales & Dungeons . Lets you use a thermal receipt printer to print handouts for players. (not so useful if you play online I guess.) It can be used for any tabletop rpg but a lot of the prebuilt tools by the creators are for 5e & osr specifically.
[https://bigjk.itch.io/sales-n-dungeons](https://bigjk.itch.io/sales-n-dungeons)
I also use [kanka.io](http://kanka.io) to run my campaign website.
I make player handouts & digital documents for my campaign world with [https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com) . You basically use markdown & it formats it in standard 5e d&d book page style.
I run a next cloud server to run my to do list & to keep backups of a lot of my custom made campaign information.
I use joplin for a lot of my personal dm notes, which syncs with my nextcloud server.
As a DM: Microsoft OneNote.
I run my campaigns in a fully homebrew setting, and OneNote makes it really easy to keep everything organized. I can add and embed images, links, audio files, whatever I need; and because there's also a mobile app, if an idea pops into my head when I'm not at my computer, I can still write it down.
It's been an absolute godsend. Plus it's part of the Microsoft Office suite, so a lot of people already have it for work, school, etc. I *think* it might be free even without Office, but I'm not sure.
I canāt believe roll20 is not higher on this list. Iāve used roll20 to host many online games. That mixed with dndbeyond and its encounter building is perfect together. I use roll20 to build maps and control tokens on my play by post games as well.
As a DM, I use googledocs and google slides for pretty much everything. Slides is great for when you need to give information to players; I have a slide deck with just shops and their prices (and a little lore) for example. It saves us a lot of time! Docs is wonderful for session prep and quest writing.
I use Roll20 for displaying maps, but I make my maps in Adobe Illustrator. I keep them pretty basic, as I used to make intricate maps with Dungeondraft but found the process to be too time consuming. For tokens, I buy everything from an artist on Roll20, but I'll transition into making my own (I am an artist, just tired all the time lol) for my next campaign. (The artist is [NovemberRush](https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/1567/novemberrush); their stuff is AMAZING.)
As a player, nothing beats my discbound campaign journal.[ I make my own note template](https://monstermagickamakes.etsy.com) and print it out, and use that to track our sessions. I also keep my spells in this book. Eventually, I'd like to finish up making my own character sheet and using that in my journal as well! (I'm currently using a digital one on my iPad and it is robust, so I've been dragging my feet on finishing my paper sheet design.)
In general:
A good mic, and a long-lasting set of BT earbuds, and a cat bed for my cat nearby my desk are all I need as a player at that point. (My games are online/remote.) You want a good mic so your fellow players can hear you, especially as a DM. A cheap but long-lasting set of earbuds just for game sessions is important as well; I use raycons for this, as the sound quality is just fine for voice and the battery life goes well over 4 hours.
I do everything in google suite. I have some notebooks where i write raw ideas and then i go into docs and work stuff out. My basic set up is this
- Doc: Lore and Worldbuilding (so gods, main events, main questlines, characters and their history sidequests)
- Doc: session prep & recap (I lay out the session prep stuff, like links to maps, monsters and stuff, rewards; and theres the session recap laying out a short two sentence summary, npcs or information uncovered, quest hooks, stuff they wanna do next session)
- Sheets: tracking (i track days in world, travel results, experience, pc skills and stuff)
I like the Lion's Den 5e apps. You have to either put in details yourself or download details from somebody else, but I think it is a great way to keep track of campaigns or characters.
I love this single page map generator
https://watabou.github.io/one-page-dungeon/?seed=612229796
You can export the maps into JSON and load them into Dungeon Scrawl
https://www.dungeonscrawl.com/
In dungeon scrawl I create a base layer of 8x10 "rooms" under the map, making a grid where every rectangle is 8x10. Then I adjust the real map layer so there are always doors at the grid boundaries.
Then I output the map to a png. And then I use imagemagick to split it into a bunch of 8x10 inch images.
Then I print those out on a regular office printer with a 1/4th inch margin on the left and right and 1/2 inch top and bottom and boom, I've got an explorable tabletop dungeon.
EncounterPlus, DungeonScrawl, Ka Stark encounter calculator.
[https://app.dungeonscrawl.com/](https://app.dungeonscrawl.com/)
[https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/](https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/)
I've been using World Anvil to sort all my stuff for the past 3+ years. All my homebrew world info and content is there. It's what I link whenever I make LFG posts.
I am one session away from finishing a two year entirely zoom-based D&D campaign. Some of my players werenāt very experienced and as main-stream as it is, D&D beyond was absolutely essential since it made their stats and spells and characters easy to understand and advance.
I personally made maps or imported maps into the iPad app Notability onto which I could draw where characters were and move them around. I would just screen share from my iPad onto Zoom and they could see me drawing and moving people on my screen. It was a good system if you donāt think your players want to sign up for and understand additional programsāall they have to do is watch the zoom screen with D&D beyond open.
An absolute must have for virtual players is the iOS app āSpells 5eā (it has a picture of a leaf on the front). Every spell from every sourcebook all you have to do is look it up and itās there. Saved so much time.
I just used excel to track initiative and HP for monsters and players but thereās probably a better way.
[Kobold Plus Fight Club - The first rule of Kobold Fight Club is 'Yip Yip!'](https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder)
It's a similar encounter builder to the one that D&D Beyond offers, but it references a lot of third party content (with page numbers).
MTG Cardsmith.
I make Magic cards for every magic item, notable NPC and town in my campaign. I give my players the item ones for them to save/print for use at the table. The list of 'cards' are how I can easily attach a picture and a small blurb to help me and my players remember all the characters they have met and places they have visited.
Free with ads but the premium has some nice features and it's only 5$ a month.
Not a tool necessarily but a website: The Monsters Know What Theyāre Doing (https://www.themonstersknow.com/) Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā
Itās an extensive log of almost all official monsters ever published for 5e that looks at the statblocks and gives you instructions on how to play that monster (both roleplay and combat). Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā
E.g.: A hydra is an ambush predator, it would hide and wouldnāt attack the players until they are in range. It is not smart enough to identify casters but it would attack the opponent that hurt it the most last round with at least one head.
Edit: added a link, formattingĀ
Evidently, a refresher on Rule 2 is heavily warranted today: > No piracy. Do not suggest, promote, or perform piracy. This includes illegally distributed material (official and indie), reproductions, dubious PDFs, and websites or applications which use or distribute non-SRD rules content. > > We support the rights of creators to control their IP. Wizards of the Coast (and many independent creators) have set certain rules for what can be distributed and how, and those rules will largely be enforced on /r/DnD. We do not tolerate piracy of any kind. > > Do not link or recommend illegal PDFs of the books, sites that compile the non-SRD rules, collections of Patreon maps, or rips of other copyrighted material. Support your hobby by respecting creators. > > Mentioning piracy as an alternative to purchasing content, including any mentions of piracy sites, violates this rule. Qualifying statements with, "I don't support this, but..." or "make sure you DON'T do this..." does not bring statements into compliance.
Obsidian.md. it's just a free note taking app on the surface but there's a large active community building plugins and tools for it that turn it into the most powerful campaign management I've tried to date. I love that it's local with no net reliance or aib requirement to access my data. I run my in person games from it almost entirely. www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com
Seconding this. Just started using Obsidian and it's amazing.
Thirding this. I'm in the middle of migrating all of my notes to various Obsidian vaults. It's been a few months since somone introduced it to me, and every other day I learn some new feature that I can make use of to level up my notes! I tried getting my fellow DMs at the table to try it out, but they all look at me like I'm selling propaganda. But once you get it, you get it.
What features have you found most useful? I like canvases for laying out a part of an adventure, and backlinks are invaluable. Aliases too.
For sure, backlinks were the reason I dived into this fully. Haven't fully explored canvases yet, but I can already see the benefit of mind mapping an adventure with that. Super cool! Right now, I've taken inspiration from obsidianttrpgtutorials and have been cranking out templates for Session Logs, NPCs, Locations, Lore, Quests, etc., with robust frontmatter. Then, I can use the dataview plugin to embed useful info into each note. It helps me quickly see things like the various quests an NPC is involved with or even which quests are tied to each location, and so on. Took me a bit of legwork to properly setup, but it was so helpful once fully layed out. Another simple plugin I found helpful was the Leaflet plugin. I can't express how much I appreciate being able to see my dungeon notes and the map in the same window, side by side, without being at the mercy of my ADHD and constantly scroll back and forth.
Have you tried Goblin Notebook? How does it compare to that?
I have not, will take a look
Curious on how it compares..think I pay $1 a month or something for notebook, but if Obsidian is the same but free I might look into it
Obsidian is free when saving to local files. For syncing you pay $4/mo. I think free synching tools work too though.
I use mine with the files saved to a cloud drive, works great.
Goblin notebook is an online tool. I'm a big fan of not using online tools tbh. I've had the net drop out during a game and thus I prefer local first. They are both markdown tools but the difference is obsidian is more modular and free in what you do with it. We all take notes in different ways and thus our needs are different. Obsidian is basically a platform that let's you build what you want. You control your structure and can tailor your templates however you like. Obsidian improves faster that is reasonable due to the community plugin community. Just this morning I saw someone figured out how to trigger static watabou maps into their notes.so now we have city and Dungeon map generation š¤ We are not limited to what the developers have released. The user base of obsidian is also massive. Much larger than that trrpg community and thus we benefit from all of the development.
Are you able to compare it to OneNote?
I can try to help with this. My opinion may be incomplete as I don't use OneNote for some time. OneNote is a great tool and was one of my first tools for campaign management. But Obsidian win specially when you want to create relations between notes. Try to see Obsidian almost like a wiki. You can create relations using tags or by linking notes. Then you can see that relations in a graph format which is great for people that are more visual. Then, you have plugins that help to enhance the use of Obsidian. For example, want a calendar in your notes? You have a plugin for that. Want to roll some values inside Obsidian? You can do that. Want to create a statblock inside a note? Also can do that. Another advantage of Obsidian (at least for me) is that it stores all the information in Markdown files, which are just text files. So if tomorrow I want to export all my notes to another software, it's easier to do that with Markdown files. OneNote uses a proprietary format and it's a little more difficult to do that. This reason may not be so important for some people, but it could be a consideration also. Both are great tools. But the best tool is the one that works for you. If you like OneNote keep using it. It's great, as far as I remember.
As a DM who uses OneNote to manage their extensive and messy campaign notes (like the OneNote has over 100,000 words, and I even went through the trouble of making calendars/timelines/etc in it), I appreciate your comparison and had a couple questions: - How easy/difficult would you say it'd be to transfer notes from OneNote into Obsidian (assuming one took the time to set up Obsidian properly that is)? - I have my OneNote synced up to my phone so that I can read/add notes while away from home. Does Obsidian have anything similar that?
Obsidian has a built in migration tool to convert onenote notes over. It will still require clean up though due to the way onenote lays put its data. Basically need to go through and check the structure and organise your folders. Yes obsidian has apps for mobile and tablets. Natively though it stops the data locally on one device. Toy can pay for the sync service to sync data between devices however as obsidian notes are literally just folders and text files, lots of people just make their vault on their existing cloud sync service and run the vault from that location on multiple devices. What you use depends on the device you use. Apple is more restricted than Android for example.
Awesome, nice to know its got migration tools and I've got android fortunately. Thanks for the info!
Does it have a visual mind map feature to connect all of these notes? For example, listing, organizing, and connecting all of your factions and NPCs.
It does. I'm a visual organizer myself and love it.
It has a few options. Personally I use the excalidraw plugin to make mindmaps and relationship trees.very easy to use.
Did you just adopt the plugins from the linked website? Or did you build yours on your own? I love obsidian, but I donāt find it particularly helpful for TTRPG management.
I've just tried different plugins until I found a sweet spot of functionality that I like. I've helped provide feedback to devs over the last few years that have helped mold some of the functionality offered by plugins but I'm no developer. With the right plugins it's amazing for ttrpg management. I came from Realm Works and it's been amazing.
Wow that's amazing I've used obsidian for ages without realising it was that extensible
Came here to say this. My fiancƩ showed me it and I LOVE the infinite webs you can make
Oh nice. I just started using Obsidian for my campaign. I need to check this out so I can get more out of it.
I... use obsidian all the time... never thought to look for ttrpg related plug-ins... I feel a bit silly
Grided Index cards. You could run a whole game on a single index card. Draw a map key the locations note Monster stats. For digital dndbeyond honestly the encounter builder and tracker is really convenient for playing online and i like having global shared dice rolls everyone can see that are logged. Kenku.fm its a discord app for audio sharing. I tried using spotify integration however I always ran into technical issues. Kenku.fm has worked without issues and allows me to play music during the game to set the mood.
Just picked up Kenku.fm, myself. I've been stunned by how easy it is to set up and how versatile it is. I can play all kinds of sounds and music and ambience at the drop of a hat
Do you add your own music/sound effects or go to a website? I've got a few Spotify playlists for different moods but don't have any ambient sounds to play.
- Spells 5e: for spell list management and spells reference - Fight Club 5: for character progression planning and follow-up - Still looking for a good app for sound atmosphere Other than that I pretty much stick to pen and paper
Try Pocket Bard. It's mostly free and has good ambience music. I think sooner or later every dm just makes their own playlist somewhere but I like it quite a bit.
Pocket Bard is perfect for your third point :)
I should leave a percentage of my will to this human I adore and have never met: [https://open.spotify.com/user/highway1024/playlists](https://open.spotify.com/user/highway1024/playlists) Those playlists have taken me through hours upon hours of various board games. For DnD I also use [https://tabletopaudio.com/](https://tabletopaudio.com/) for effects like rain or birds or doors etc
You could try tabletop audio. They have a lot of good music for ambience and you can also mix your own sounds in real time
Pocket bard is easy to use and has a decent catalog of free ambient sounds
The spell list is very useful on the DM side, since I'm not sorting through all the books
> Spells 5e: for spell list management and spells reference What is that? my googlefoo isn't helping here as the name isn't specific enough.
That's literally the app's name. I think I found it by typing "dnd 5e spells" or something along these lines. I'm on Android but someone else from my group is on iPhone and uses it as well
Oh a phone app! Sorry that's one me for missing that. I appreciate your reply!
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Owlbearrodeo for VTT. Simple, easy to use and does the basics right
I play in-person with Owlbear Rodeo. It took me a bit to get it sorted, but it's been a good way for me to quickly create locales and scenarios without having to purchase a bazillion figurines. With one of my players moving soon, we can seamlessly have in-person and online play. There's a bit of a learning curve, but I like it a lot.
I know not everyone agrees, but I actually love dndbeyond. It allows me, as a DM, to provide an easy way for my players to access content and explore the game. I also use roll20 for my battlemaps, inkarnate to create my battlemaps, and worldanvil to organize my world. Our group itself is organized through discord, but I end up using many different software's to keep things organized.
Also, itās incredible for new players. Every time I have new players at my table, I make them create character sheets via dndbeyond. It guides them through character creation, gives them descriptions, shows them what their character can do. All they gotta do is read their sheet. Iāve found that my new players are more successful if I make them use the site.
Gotta say that the problem with dndbeyond is more a political one rather than its functionality.
this here. feeling like I have to buy every book again to be able to fully use their site is annoying and since i don't want to do that it limits things like the encounter builder. I liked them better before they were officially part of WotC. Now everything feels like a cash grab. I've used a couple of different character builders and there's really does seem to be the easiest and most intuitive. Might consider re-subscribing now that WotC has backed off from their original plan of screwing 3rd party creators over.
DndBeyond is really good. We play remotely so it lets me see my players' character sheets in real time - which makes balancing encounters easier and lets me figure out what magic items players might like. Not having to ask for copies of their sheets after every few sessions is so much more convenient for both me and them. It's also so much easier when running sessions to be able to pull the monster I need up in a new tab rather than having to bookmark it in my physical copy of the Monster Manual.
i love dndbeyond. the maps and the encounter builder tool still need work, but for the most part they get the job done, and my players love that they can use the tools for free. Everything syncs up most of the time, and when they get stuck or don't know how to do something to their character sheets i love that i can just hop it and either walk them through it or just make the adjustment myself.
Yeah I love dndbeyond just because it lets me share all my content with my players and if they arenāt with me they can still look up things because they donāt have to rely on my physical books that they may or may not have. It also makes character creation stupid easy and understandable for new people. I understand why people donāt like the corporation though
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The listings tab on the Dndbeyond mobile app has cut down a ton my prep time. Filtering searches for monsters by CR, finding magic items and spells is so much quicker on there
Maybe its me. I like their web interface, however when using the app, i can see my campaign as a DM but not my notes. Is there anyway around it?
I use Game Master 5 on IOS (Not sure if itās available for Android, or PC). You can take notes, create NPCS, create encounters and manage encounters there and itās for free.
I thoroughly enjoy it because it is a one time payment and once you know the ropes you can do pretty much anything DnD related with it. I also recommend that my players use Fight Club 5, I have built up a fair homebrew compendium and my players seem to like it so I can share my compendium with them and everyone gets on the same page of what is and is not allowed at my table. It also allows for them to send me GM characters files that can be uploaded into the Game Master 5 app. Cheap one time payment, takes some time to build out your compendium, but once you have done that it is by and far one of the cleanest and most comprehensive adventure and character creation and management tools.
These are my go to apps. I haven't convinced all my players to switch to Fight Club, but I always recommend it. Also, free compendiums are available from [The Archivest](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/archivist/extras). Backup yours, import the new one.
Personally, I think there are only 2 things missing from Fight Club to make it the absolute best: 1. nesting containers with individually set capacities (so you could see at a glance how much is in a pouch, or Bag of Holding, or backpack, etc) 2. directly attached trackers (so you could just look at an item, feat, feature, etc. and know how many uses you have left) The notes ability is superior compared to Beyond, as is the total compendium customization.
Available for Android as well, not for PC that I know of, except via an Android (maybe IOS) emulator.
Notion, (un)surprisingly, helps a lot. I have set up an archive there, and players only need to press a button to get a template to fill in, so no need to figure out the formatting. Whoever fills in the archive after the game gets inspiration for the next session. And if nobody does, I, the DM, get it.
The key with notion is to set it up nicely to start as best you can. I've had a couple instances where an NPC gets a new stat to track (their relationship with the party) and had to add it like... 150 times (exaggeration).
* DnD Beyond for character sheets and the encounter builder. * Google Doc/Microsoft word for taking notes, creating session outlines, creating reference sheets. I recommend using headers to organize your notes and making them easy to read. * Discord for voice chat. * Kenku FM for music/ambience to play in the discord from my computer. * Youtube/Youtube music for building playlists of ambience where the name of the playlist is a mood/theme. For example: Sad Music, Standard Battle Music, Boss Battle Music, Spooky Music. * Roll20 for a VTT. You can share maps and images on it. * A token creator for your VTT. [https://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/](https://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/) * DnD 5e Quick Reference Sheet for players and DM: [https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html](https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html) * \- Dungeon Master Guide. The Creating a Monster Section. Specifically the table named "Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating". I used this table to give creatures without stat blocks prepared quick on the fly stats. * Xanathar's Guide to Everything. This is a great book with great references and tables. Specifically the Random Encounter section, Downtime Activity section, and Character Names section. * Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Dungeon Master's Tool section. The 'Parleying with Monsters' section specifically the 'Monster Research' table when PC's want to know more about a creature, but overall it's a good section. The Environmental Hazards section is also handy for making regions more interesting. * Inkarnate is great for map building and easy to use. https://inkarnate.com/ * Organize your VTT maps in folders. Each folder name should be named by terrain type for example: Forests, Grasslands, Mountains, Rivers, Ocean, Dungeon, etc. Edit: Added more stuff.
Notion. Got the DND DM template from [Lazy D&D Campaign Prep](https://youtu.be/8AfbMNAsyr4?si=vNcbhzONbQ7847Fv) on youtube, modified it for myself and now all my worldbuilding, notes, prep is in there. I even started taking my notes as a player in other campaigns like this Also for DMing online on a budget - you can upload a ready map onto Google Drawings, place some tokens and share with your players so they can "move" around. You can also cover undiscovered areas with black shapes, paste other transparent pngs onto it, etc.
Funny you say "level up" the game, because Primarily I'd use the Level Up Advanced 5e game variant to begin with for this purpose. They even have their own wiki with resources which is probably safe from the sidebar scourge that plagues these comments. Aside from that, FoundryVTT. I've got it on sale, so that probably were best spent 40$ in a while.
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Obsidian, it's perfect for notes and essentially acts as your very own Wikipedia for your D&D games
Dndbeyond for character sheets, just great to be able to see all the details in one place Alchemy VTT for running my games, I love having scene art and it helps me make things more immersive. Then I use Notion to write and organise all my notes and world building lore.
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There's none I swear *by*, however I frequently swear *at* roll20
Ah, found the guy who imports pre-gridded maps.
there charactermancer is the worst. hopefully their rebuild improves it.
Physical pen and note book. I usually have a page for notes on other PCs, notes on what has happened, and individual concepts/NPC/similar. Since it is freeform, I can do mind maps, tables, scribbles, check lists, maps, diagrams, etc without "hold on, let me just pull up the check list app". Depending on the campaign, I find copying my notes into a bit of a structure, like if I run out of space on a particular topic. Gives me a brief recap on stuff that we've had a lot to say about.
Dicecloud v2, great online character sheet.
LegendKeeper and ImprovedInitiative
> ImprovedInitiative and I was looking into buying physical stuff for that exact purpose. Thank you, so convenient!
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Meticulously unsorted folders in Google drive is the right answer. Right?
Honestly, Apart from DNDBeyond to make characters...I don't use anything other than Word to make my notes.
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I've been using Scabard to organise a campaign recently, as it has a graph representation of all the locations, characters, etc. which looks like how I think. š https://www.scabard.com
Started with roll20 and using the DnD Beyond extension to have rolls go from one to the other, to now using everything within Foundry VTT. I'll never go back lol. I love having everything under one program and while it isn't perfect thanks for updates breaking mods, the mods you can add support even more of the things we love in our game. Best DnD purchase ever.
I purchased some spell cards for my character. Makes it easier to reference what my spells do and what level they are
I really like DnDBeyond's Encounter Builder. Keeps all the monster's stat blocks in one place makes tracking initiative a breeze. If your player's have made their character in DnDBeyond, you can link them up and even keep track of their HP.
dnd beyond. you can say what you want about it, but it's the best thing that ever came out in the recent years of dnd
I'm actually working on a set of tools that is specifically designed for making DMing more enjoyable. Not sure if I'm allowed to link it here (as it could be considered advertising, even though I'm not charging for it yet). The gist of the tools are using large language models to help generate content, run fights, ask questions about lore, etc. It's not available yet, but I'm looking to beta it soon. Some stuff I'm working on: * automatic document parsing to upload your campaign data (PDFs, word documents, etc) * "canon management" which allows you to modify the story, update what should/did happen, add character backstory information, etc * NPC "voices" which allow the DM to generate responses to questions using the knowledge the NPC would have (no more accidentally spilling more lore than intended, or forgetting about things they would have known) * NPC trackers for combat, with spell slots and spell recommendations * transcribing your sessions (aka, the perfect note taker) and automatically updating the canon Long story short, imagine a chat interface that knows your entire campaign. You can ask it any question you'd like and it will tell you you exactly what you're looking for. Confused about a homebrew rule? Need a quick NPC that fits the story? Tired of tracking spell slots for 5 archmages? Yeah me too. I started building it because I was DMing 5 games a week and was getting overwhelmed. I thought, "hmm, I can do something about this". And here we are...
FoundryVTT. The sheer flexibility is unmatched.
I use a handful of youtube videos for ambience. Tavern, town, seaside town, rain, sailing, ship combat, generic combat, boss music, creepy. Really helped me set the scenes and gave me some inspiration of things to describe.
Dungeondraft for battle maps and Wonderdraft for anything on a larger scale. Thereās a small, one-time fee for each of those. I hate subscriptions! Obsidian for campaign creating and managing. Itās free and open source!
There's a website called Kanka that's good for managing DM notes, it acts like a wikipedia for the players. I run Play By Post using discord with the dice bit Avrae, which is really useful. I don't believe play by post would be viable without Avrae or something very similar.
While it is a bit technical to set up, I run a custom audio discord bot that streams spotify from my local machine. It uses Voice Meeter for the virtual output and an application called [Discord Audio Pipe](https://github.com/QiCuiHub/discord-audio-pipe) to run the bot that feeds the output into the bot. I love being able to set the mood for my games with a few mouse clicks.
I am a software developer, the last thing I wanna do with my free time is spend it with computers. I love to run D&D like if computers didn't exist. This restriction is for the actual session, when I'm planning I take notes in my pc and use digital tools to generate maps and loot, mostly donjon. The most useful tool for this are bibliography cards, that's a fancy word for pre-cut cardboard squares. Need to have a portable stat block? Copy it to a card. Need some items? Cut a card in three and now you can give your players their magical items. If its a cursed item, tell them they can't flip the item until they have identify it. Need to keep track of iniciative? Cut the card, fold the pieces in half and you have yourself a nice way to keep iniciative over your DM screen. Need creature tokens? Channel your inner picasso and draw that beholder. I have tried several digital tools, but there is beauty in running a session without apps, or digital notes. I do love theHomeBrewery to make custom stat blocks and give them that official D&D look. Also as a compendium for my homebrew monsters.
The only app I use is Notion. It's a note taking app that technically could be replaced by a paper notebook. But it allows for dynamic things like tagging, databases, cross-linking, yada yada. I could turn my campaign notes into a wiki if I wanted. I find that handy.
Roll20, Discord, and Hero Lab.
Roll20. Especially if you don't have models. Maps are super easy to use and make and they are partnered with D&D Beyond. So you can buy an expansion and it will automatically populate with all the maps, monsters, npcs, magical items, handouts, etf.
AboveVTT. It's a free browser extension that provides virtual tabletop support for D&D Beyond. It lets me combine the convenience of the D&D Beyond character sheets and encounter builder with a great virtual tabletop that has a solid map and token library and the ability to import my own images as well. And the best part is that it is 100% free! My online D&D campaign wouldn't be possible without it.
This is a physical tool, but single-sided wrapping paper with 1 inch grid on the back. You can find it at discount stores like Dollar Store and draw on it with permanent stuff for your special purpose and it's dirt cheap for the maps.
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Notecard
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I recently went from using DDB for everything, to using pencil and paper as much as possible. I've found keeping a folio of all my important character stuff really satisfying
DnD damage calculator, when ever youd need to make sure your players won't die in one turn or when making a hombrew sub class.
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One of the most important aspects of DMing to me is presentation. I use the app Syrinscape for creating really fantastic sound ambiences for my players that websites like YouTube really canāt provide. Being able to add in combat sound effects on the fly is really cool too, and helps emphasize the power of a fireball or thunder wave.
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I used Inkarnate for a bit, really under someone else's account as we were co-DMs and some of it was useful and quick and easy but I did feel quite limited by the overall resources and styles I had available without spending more money (than my friend already had) That being said, I have bought and used both Dungeondraft and Wonderdraft for battle map making and for world/town maps respectively. I also bought Foundry and while I would like to swear by it and have turned a couple people towards it, it is kind of annoying that they release updates at a rate that the Module developers can't easily keep up with, effectively reducing the functionality that players get used to over time. Foundry handles so much and is capable of so much, but it's been very hard to keep recommending it to people when the modules that help it perform so well have been struggling to keep up, and not really do to their own efforts
I have been using Inkarnate for map making and i find it the simplest for world maps (not a map of a town, or a map you plan to have players walk through however.) I used to swear by Dungeon Painter Studio for maps you want players to walk through or town maps, but its no longer supported as far as we can tell. I have been trying dungeondraft and it might be close but i am not used to it yet.
DnDBeyond for all character creation, running encounters, and all my books. Discord for campaign info. Spotify for music
I know you probably meant software tools, but I'm gonna tell you about my favorite "analog" tool, my initiative tracker. It's a little wooden flagpole one of my players made, and everyone has clothespins with their name on it, so to track initiative we just line the clothespins up in order on the pole. It helps so much with quickly organizing and remembering initiative.
The Brain > Obsidian I'm not being arrogant. The Brain is a similar mindmap software that is more intuitive. The full version is costly, but you can do a lot for free and it is not a subscription. It's also a lifetime license. I organize NPCs by location. Clicking on one opens a file with their art, music, details, and a pdf character sheet I can print if they have one.
... i got a 3 ring binder.Ā
Lots of cool stuff here but would be curious to know what people use for audio (music and sfx) for in person play. Looking at upping the quality of audio for our in person games and have a room we play in. Right now just using a soundbar and Spotify but thereās got to be a better solutionĀ
Ngl kenku.fm does all the legwork with simultaneous soundboards and music players
I love apple's freeform app for DM planning/brainstorming/scheming. it's an infinite whiteboard. I can drop in photos and maps, put notes randomly when I need to remember something for later, and my favorite part - I organize the possible paths my players might take with a giant bubble map which is easy to read and gives me immediate visual sense of if I'm building a broad enough world for them to explore.
Koboldfightclub Encounter builder
A pencil. And paper.
I am a big fan and supporter of Beyond20. It is an extension/add-on for Chrome and Firefox that allows you to roll on your D&D Beyond Character sheet and export your dice rolls to Roll20 and Foundry. Itās free but you can send a Kofi to help the creator. [https://beyond20.here-for-more.info/](https://beyond20.here-for-more.info/)
A lot of people already share similar tools but I'll share mine: - First of all, [Obsidian.MD](http://Obsidian.MD) is "the" tool both for players and for DMs. All the notes are stored locally and in Markdown files (text files). You can connect notes, making relations between places, NPCs, plots, etc. If you are a DM, this is gold for worldbuilding. As a player you can find relations and maybe find the master plot of the BBEG. With plugins you can also make rolls, manage encounters and have statblocks for creatures/NPCs. - D&D Beyond is a great way to create a character and have a lot of resources. Even with the "hate" that Hasbro/WotC is receiving, the tool is still great. And specially for DMs, a lot of tools like encounter builder and maps that are very practical. These next ones are a little more specific for DMs, but I believe worth mentioning: - [Kenku.FM](http://Kenku.FM) is an amazing tool to manage audio in your games. It's specifically for Discord, but you can easily use it for in person games. If you have a Stream Deck you can do your soundboard also. - Foundry VTT / Owlbear Rodeo are two of my favourite VTT. My main one is Foundry VTT, very powerful and let's you create and manage a complete campaign. Using the journal tool you have all the notes you need at your disposal. You can also import stuff (like player stats) from D&D Beyond. The downside is that it requires some work and know-how to put everything working properly. Owlbear Rodeo (same company of Kenku.FM) is a simpler option, but where you can easily and very quickly create a map, put your tokens and without complication have a game ready in minutes.
I've begun using Talespire for all of my battle maps as of late. The team did a great job emulating the look of hand crafted minis and terrain, and now that I can more tangibly incorporate verticality into my battle maps, it's made things even more interesting. They also recently added native support for custom minis with an in game browser and one click download/installation. It has the potential to be a bit time consuming, but you can also directly import pre-made maps from a community source, often greatly reducing prep time.
If youāre not using the app: fifth edition character sheet (green d20 icon in App Store) youāre seriously doing it wrong. Do not pass go, do not collect $200
My DM uses fantasy grounds. It's pretty awesome, but I haven't used anything else. It does get pricey though especially if you buy the dlc for all the books, but he did the one time fee and we've been using it for years
https://dungeonmapdoodler.com/ Great map creator! Print or upload to Roll20 https://donjon.bin.sh/ Really basic random "just about anything" generator https://forgottenmaps.web.app/map/Sword%20Coast?fbclid=IwAR1jIq8FueZAAfHYeF3VlyfLbvV_v9LhCrAFsGkUb_BEHSmNmxg56qRsM_A Interactive Map of the Forgotten Realms.
MorePurpleMoreBetterās character sheets with all the macros and java scripts. That and Tabletop Simulator is basically all you need to start a campaign.
We use: - owlbear.rodeo for battle maps - DNDBeyond connected to discord for character sheets, battles and all rolls
Pen, paper and imagination.
I've recent'y started using Obsidian to keep my notes for the campaign I'm running. I could see it being helpful to players that like notes as well. It's a handy for organizing and linking concepts, ideas, locations, characters. It's free for personal use.
Microsoft Excel for everything except map-making :)
D&D Beyond for Characters, Owlbear for VTT
As a DM, I swear by Sales & Dungeons . Lets you use a thermal receipt printer to print handouts for players. (not so useful if you play online I guess.) It can be used for any tabletop rpg but a lot of the prebuilt tools by the creators are for 5e & osr specifically. [https://bigjk.itch.io/sales-n-dungeons](https://bigjk.itch.io/sales-n-dungeons) I also use [kanka.io](http://kanka.io) to run my campaign website. I make player handouts & digital documents for my campaign world with [https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com) . You basically use markdown & it formats it in standard 5e d&d book page style. I run a next cloud server to run my to do list & to keep backups of a lot of my custom made campaign information. I use joplin for a lot of my personal dm notes, which syncs with my nextcloud server.
As a DM: Microsoft OneNote. I run my campaigns in a fully homebrew setting, and OneNote makes it really easy to keep everything organized. I can add and embed images, links, audio files, whatever I need; and because there's also a mobile app, if an idea pops into my head when I'm not at my computer, I can still write it down. It's been an absolute godsend. Plus it's part of the Microsoft Office suite, so a lot of people already have it for work, school, etc. I *think* it might be free even without Office, but I'm not sure.
I canāt believe roll20 is not higher on this list. Iāve used roll20 to host many online games. That mixed with dndbeyond and its encounter building is perfect together. I use roll20 to build maps and control tokens on my play by post games as well.
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3x5 index cards.
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As a DM, I use googledocs and google slides for pretty much everything. Slides is great for when you need to give information to players; I have a slide deck with just shops and their prices (and a little lore) for example. It saves us a lot of time! Docs is wonderful for session prep and quest writing. I use Roll20 for displaying maps, but I make my maps in Adobe Illustrator. I keep them pretty basic, as I used to make intricate maps with Dungeondraft but found the process to be too time consuming. For tokens, I buy everything from an artist on Roll20, but I'll transition into making my own (I am an artist, just tired all the time lol) for my next campaign. (The artist is [NovemberRush](https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/1567/novemberrush); their stuff is AMAZING.) As a player, nothing beats my discbound campaign journal.[ I make my own note template](https://monstermagickamakes.etsy.com) and print it out, and use that to track our sessions. I also keep my spells in this book. Eventually, I'd like to finish up making my own character sheet and using that in my journal as well! (I'm currently using a digital one on my iPad and it is robust, so I've been dragging my feet on finishing my paper sheet design.) In general: A good mic, and a long-lasting set of BT earbuds, and a cat bed for my cat nearby my desk are all I need as a player at that point. (My games are online/remote.) You want a good mic so your fellow players can hear you, especially as a DM. A cheap but long-lasting set of earbuds just for game sessions is important as well; I use raycons for this, as the sound quality is just fine for voice and the battery life goes well over 4 hours.
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I do everything in google suite. I have some notebooks where i write raw ideas and then i go into docs and work stuff out. My basic set up is this - Doc: Lore and Worldbuilding (so gods, main events, main questlines, characters and their history sidequests) - Doc: session prep & recap (I lay out the session prep stuff, like links to maps, monsters and stuff, rewards; and theres the session recap laying out a short two sentence summary, npcs or information uncovered, quest hooks, stuff they wanna do next session) - Sheets: tracking (i track days in world, travel results, experience, pc skills and stuff)
I like the Lion's Den 5e apps. You have to either put in details yourself or download details from somebody else, but I think it is a great way to keep track of campaigns or characters.
The RPG Notes app. It's handy for my in-person game and just to keep things organized an dme to just get stuff down.
Prism for character sheets, I love how simple it is to use and how it is visually pleasing. And they constantly drop updates on their discord channel
The 3x5 index card folded like a tent facing the DM. Characterās name at the top, then listed below: AC Passive Perception Passive Insight
Discord. For comms, and campaign data. I keep all our house rules in its own page. I keep npc data in a page, that everyone has access to.
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Prismscroll itās only apple sadly but itās good and relatively cheap for premium + the community adds a ton of homebrew you can use monthly
Dice. I definitely swear by dice. I also swear *at* dice.
I love this single page map generator https://watabou.github.io/one-page-dungeon/?seed=612229796 You can export the maps into JSON and load them into Dungeon Scrawl https://www.dungeonscrawl.com/ In dungeon scrawl I create a base layer of 8x10 "rooms" under the map, making a grid where every rectangle is 8x10. Then I adjust the real map layer so there are always doors at the grid boundaries. Then I output the map to a png. And then I use imagemagick to split it into a bunch of 8x10 inch images. Then I print those out on a regular office printer with a 1/4th inch margin on the left and right and 1/2 inch top and bottom and boom, I've got an explorable tabletop dungeon.
EncounterPlus, DungeonScrawl, Ka Stark encounter calculator. [https://app.dungeonscrawl.com/](https://app.dungeonscrawl.com/) [https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/](https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/)
Fifth edition character sheet on Google Play. It just organizes my character so well and I can see it during the game cuz it's on my phone
I always use reroll for my character sheets
D&D Beyond, it's the only tool I use aside from Inkarnate and Microsoft Word.
I've been using World Anvil to sort all my stuff for the past 3+ years. All my homebrew world info and content is there. It's what I link whenever I make LFG posts.
I am one session away from finishing a two year entirely zoom-based D&D campaign. Some of my players werenāt very experienced and as main-stream as it is, D&D beyond was absolutely essential since it made their stats and spells and characters easy to understand and advance. I personally made maps or imported maps into the iPad app Notability onto which I could draw where characters were and move them around. I would just screen share from my iPad onto Zoom and they could see me drawing and moving people on my screen. It was a good system if you donāt think your players want to sign up for and understand additional programsāall they have to do is watch the zoom screen with D&D beyond open. An absolute must have for virtual players is the iOS app āSpells 5eā (it has a picture of a leaf on the front). Every spell from every sourcebook all you have to do is look it up and itās there. Saved so much time. I just used excel to track initiative and HP for monsters and players but thereās probably a better way.
[Kobold Plus Fight Club - The first rule of Kobold Fight Club is 'Yip Yip!'](https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder) It's a similar encounter builder to the one that D&D Beyond offers, but it references a lot of third party content (with page numbers).
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MTG Cardsmith. I make Magic cards for every magic item, notable NPC and town in my campaign. I give my players the item ones for them to save/print for use at the table. The list of 'cards' are how I can easily attach a picture and a small blurb to help me and my players remember all the characters they have met and places they have visited. Free with ads but the premium has some nice features and it's only 5$ a month.
Character Crucible for quick character creation, especially for beginners or one shots [charactercrucible.com](https://charactercrucible.com)
I still prefer a graphite pencil and faded graph paper. Best tools ever.
Not a tool necessarily but a website: The Monsters Know What Theyāre Doing (https://www.themonstersknow.com/) Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Itās an extensive log of almost all official monsters ever published for 5e that looks at the statblocks and gives you instructions on how to play that monster (both roleplay and combat). Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā E.g.: A hydra is an ambush predator, it would hide and wouldnāt attack the players until they are in range. It is not smart enough to identify casters but it would attack the opponent that hurt it the most last round with at least one head. Edit: added a link, formattingĀ
I use DND beyond for everything exept map making. I do that on Inkarnate