Top 10 DIGITAL D&D Dungeon Master Tools of the Trade

[@theDMLair]

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[@Babbling_Bard]

As a veteran, really love seeing the support from one of my favorite D&D channels. Thank you, Luke!

[@theDMLair]

Happy to help! 😀

[@quonomonna8126]

D&D beyond allows scammers to advertise on their site with impunity

[@quonomonna8126]

google meet + jamboard, get battle maps and tokens and that's all you need, don't need fantasygrounds or roll20....of course, you have to find your own players your own way if you go that route

[@jamaljude4084]

instaBlaster

[@BlackJar72]

...meanwhile, my sister gave me a real DM screen so I don't have to use a cut-up cardboard box to hide my graph paper maps....

[@DarthOlum]

that’s a good sister

[@willmena96]

The VTT that helped me a lot recently is Owlbear Rodeo. It's really easy to use and it just works! I think it's great for people that aren't good with Roll20 and other kinda complex tools. Also, it doesn't consume all of my RAM

[@Lexipumpkin783]

as someone who has a writing disorder, online tools are a blessing for me as a player for keeping track of stats

[@arcanemedia8166]

This episode is really usefull at the minute because ill be running an online game soon, thank you for the impeccable timing Luke 💙

[@theDMLair]

You are very welcome. Happy to help. There are tons more online tools as well they could help you what I mentioned in this video are just the ones that I personally use and get the most bang out of the buck 4.

[@theskray2653]

Well that's perfect timing for sure

[@joras]

Loving the Wheel of Time shelf on the bookshelf

[@SteveTheNerd]

12:43 For those who still want to have a no-electronics-rule at the table, just either use spell cards (print them out if you can't afford the official ones) or use a different spell sheet than the one on the official character sheet. We use a custom spell sheet where we add all information about a spell in condensed format (such as a short description, casting time and duration, components etc.). Sure, for classes that have access to all spells that could be way to much work, but I usually pick just the spells that I might use and copy them to the sheet. Otherwise, I think the spell app is worth breaking the no-electronics-rule...

[@theDMLair]

And of course. Everybody almost everybody is playing online it really hard to have a new electronics real huh. :-)

[@caseyclark311]

my man not sure if youll see this but your videos have helped me out a ton as a new player and a new dm. my entire group is new. so much love and appreciation for all the free content. keep doing the gods work

[@jameseustice7144]

Shoutout to Foundry VTT, best VTT I've used so far

[@supergaminggeek5546]

As an artist I just draw a map with minimal details, for music I have a bot in discord, as well as having private channels in which I use to hold the stats of monsters/anything else I need. Also bots to do rolling, though we mostly roll in roll20

[@joeyderrico8134]

I always feel great when I see other DM's use the same tools as I do, doesn't matter if its physical or digital

[@emessar]

One tip I have for music that's in between fully random music and picking music per scene is to make playlists. In the past, You could have playlists like combat, serene, town, creepy, exploration, or sailing. Then you can use and reuse those lists and add to them over time to increase the musical diversity. Also, it's worth pointing out that you can link a song or an entire playlist to a map in roll20 and it will start the music as soon as you drag the players over to the map. Entering the Tombs of Whosamawhatsit? Just tie it to your creepy playlist and it's a done deal. No need to fiddle with something mid session.

[@Lellie77]

I do this and it's amazingly easy for transitions.

[@jamess7745]

One cool thing Luke didn't even mention about his site are the adventure modules he's put together. I've run them standalone or as parts of another game and every time they have delighted my players. It's a great resource if you just hit a wall mentally trying to figure out what you should do in an upcoming session. Thanks Luke!

[@theDMLair]

Yeah you're very welcome. I'm happy to hear that you're finding those useful. :-)

[@ZaydenSkye]

I gotta say, you knocked it out of the park with this one. Going back to being a DM in a couple weeks after a long hiatus and I may just use all 10 tools on this list for my prep.

[@theDMLair]

Awesome! Welcome back! 😀

[@MultiSuperMarion]

Oh how I wish I had heard of Tabletop Audio earlier, would've saved me so much time! Instead I've spent time hunting for music on KZbin and not finding anything that fits lmao

[@theDMLair]

Oh yeah totally Marion. Tabletop audio is the bomb. :-) I use it all the time during my gameplay sessions to the ones that are on Twitch and stuff. It's just so convenient you just type in the word you're looking for the type of music that you want then you could play. It's perfect for background audio.

[@zendikarisparkmage2938]

I use Donjon all the time, and not just for 5e D&D. Its generic fantasy generators are great, too. It's got an inn generator, a settlement generator, even a fantasy world generator with ideas for adventure locations. It's amazing! I use that encounter calculator, too! I love how it shows the effective EXP value of the encounter, so you can compare it against the party's difficulty threshholds, so you can know if an encounter is /barely/ "deadly" or ridiculously hyper-deadly.

[@andrewdelrusso4951]

Best VTT is definitely Foundry, our group switched from roll20 and it’s black & white difference

[@shaunhable]

Foundry is a self hosted solution though, so its got a bit of a steep learning curve. 100% best VTT tho.

[@bobbertpugg]

The curve is steep I’m trying to play with it

[@user-dd9dh9kw5c]

Yep its night and day difference foundry actually cares about the user unlike all other vtt's

[@tacuska7]

This is 101% true. Best decision in my life :)

[@Beth-cj7ip]

Didn't see the DM's laptop at first. It blends into his shirt

[@ethanpercival216]

Tabletop audio is fantastic. Thank you for introducing me to it

[@boogaethje]

I have a D & D sounds playlist I play on game nights on my bluetooth speaker during our adventures. I always start out (and end) out with tavern sounds while we are settling in and breaking down for our sessions. Setting the mood for the environments night camp, damp cave, winter mountaintop , village market and the like has become an absolute staple of our experience. I also play the air horn sound when people crit roll. 😂

[@DrunknBraindead]

I can whole heartedly recommend Foundry VTT. One time pay and you can add anything the community comes up with and one of the tools in existing is an import from dndbeyond for basically everything. And I think it also works with beyond20.

[@roberttschaefer]

The tip of using Beyond 20 is freakin’ brilliant! Thank you!

[@Ninosai]

Joplin is a similar alternative to evernote and free, similarly syncs to different devices and can do just about everything you can do on evernote. I especially love it when I have a pdf where I can crop copy something from the pdf and directly paste it in joplin where it will give me an image of what I cropped.

[@theDMLair]

Oh that's cool never heard of that one before. Thanks for sharing

[@djtigon]

@ninosai can you merge table cells in Joplin?

[@Ninosai]

@@djtigon I do not know what those are so I'm afraid I can't tell

[@tonycrader8978]

Your charisma and delivery is inspirational. Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos; I've started to take light notes while listening and I feel far more confident for my upcoming sessions. You rock my dude.

[@josephmcwhorter7319]

Extremely helpful video... I have recently started using some of the digital tools mentioned in the video , I have always been straight up pen and paper so going digital has taken some getting use to, but to be honest with all the quarantining, going online is better than not playing at all!

[@theDMLair]

100% agree. Online isn't my preference. But it's way better than no dnd.

[@robmatheny2412]

The title of the video was so promising, then I hit play.

[@Sniflet]

I think you should mention Encounter+ app. This is without a doubt my go-to app and I tried everything you mentioned in the video. But this is THE app. You can search for monsters, spells, you can easily track initiative and hp and so much more.

[@Zinj1000]

I use certain tracks for important characters and locations/regions. Also for special moments. But use of leitmotifs is done for a reason. A connection for emotion and an easily recognized theme helps.

[@RebelHuntersMead]

Thank you Dungeon Alchemist and discord plug-ins for a good VTT. Makes my life very easy.

[@Sceadusawol]

Online dice rolling is key in my Covid Campaigns (online only, due to the Coughenning). It enables everyone to see each other's roles and prevents any accusations of cheating. Beyond that specific application, it can be good for DM covert rolling due to it not having any sound. The exact same sound that many DMs utilise to make their players paranoid.

[@Whitefaulken]

My group likes using tabletop simulator. We are all spread out from US to Canada and like the 3d feel of it over roll20. It does take quite a bit more work to get set up, but I have only ever had to pay the initial price of TTS of $20 and everything else I have managed to find on the workshop for free. The 3d interactive maps I can make for our games have had a huge payoff in fun for the entire group.

[@wafflesarelove5801]

I would highly reccomend Foundry VTT. It's basically a more extensive Roll20. It does require the Game Master to buy a license but it supports modules for multiple systems such as Pathfinder and not just DnD. From the GM's perspective it takes a lot longer to learn than Roll20 but the amazing array of options and the high quality makes it worth it in my opinion. My favorite feature is that it also has DnD beyond integration, but in a different way. If you have say the players handbook, and want to play a spellcaster, there is a compendium of spells from the PHB that you can just drag and drop onto your character sheet. Saves a lot of time!

[@lucasogden9457]

Fantastic! I have used onenote for a long time, and am finally looking to create a full homebrew world so would be really interested in a full video on how yours is set up.

[@pharrigan-hikes]

Yeah ! I've been using that 5th edition spells app for a few years now and it helps so much. You can filter spells by components, actions, schools of magic and by class.

[@jakegray1723]

*sniff snff* Yall got any of them 5 am uploads??

[@theDMLair]

Yeah I have them every single Tuesday and most Saturdays. So plenty more where this came from. LOL

[@seanptaco]

Not to mention that D&DBeyond released an app that you can view your character sheets and even role virtual dice, whether if it's just rolling a D20, or clicking onto an attack it'll auto role and add for you.

[@Max_G4]

For online dice rolling, especially if you're using D&D Beyond, I would recommend D&D Beyond's Discord Bot "Avrae". It has all the functionality you could want froma dice roller. Input any number of any dice(even non-real), use advantage, reroll certain things, roll many iterations of the same dice, using spells with automation, an initiative tracker(though I never used it myself) and the best one: importing a character sheet from Roll20, D&D Beyond, etc. do that you can roll directly with your stats, bonuses etc. I use it with my online D&D group and it's pretty nice having most VTT functionality just using Discord

[@linus4d1]

Since you asked, I love these digital tools. (Again, coming from a Pathfinder GM). 1) Archive of Nethys. Hands down the best source of information for Pathfinder and Starfinder. 2) Pathbuilder app. Part of the fun of Pathfinder is building characters and I have built soooo many on Pathbuilder. You can also upload these characters to Foundry (VTT) in seconds. 3) Syrinscape. I love this audio app. I'm pretty sure they use it on Critical Role because I recognize some of the music and sounds. I can't confirm that however.

[@robschmahl5037]

Luke Tabletop Audio is amazing great find there! Thanks!

[@xMaugrex]

For virtual tabletop, I play with my group on Tabletop Simulator. Sure, it doesn't have a lot of the bells and whistles and automations that something like roll20 does, but neither does an actual physical table. And it looks prettier, you can build 3d maps if you have the inclination (I do almost exclusively), and everyone can have their own dice, tokens, items etc that they can "physically" keep in their little plot of land at the table. And it does have grid capabilities and grid snapping. Only thing I personally wish was easier with it is fog of war, though we opt for a "if one player's seen it, I'll just let the whole party see it, as long as you dont metagame" method, where I just block off sections and delete the blocks as they explore. Plus you can play board games when you're not playing d&d!

[@aniallater33]

Fight Club 5 is an incredible character creator app for the iOS. Wide list of spells and items, and you can add stuff to the compendium easily, then extort it to your friends.

[@CarlosTorres-vj3vh]

Damn beat me to it xD I love FC, it's made everything easier as a player and DM

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

I second this! It's an amazing tool for players! Only thing I think would put people off is some of the tinkering you got to do for rolls and some abilities. It's kind of like comparing D&D Beyond and Fight Club 5 with Mac and Linux.

[@theDMLair]

That sounds cool. I am happy to report that I do not have an Apple device and shall never have an Apple device. Well except for the iPad that I have. But I didn't buy it that is my excuse and I stand by it. :-)

[@CarlosTorres-vj3vh]

@@theDMLair oh it's on Android too, I use it on my android phone

[@alphathewolf583]

Something i want to make sure luke knows... With dnd beyond you can run initiative for the encounters you make. And if you are using beyond20 it will send that initiative set to your vtt(at least roll20) when you hit start. Its a lifesaver.

[@theDMLair]

Oh that's really cool I'm going to have to play around with that and figure that out. Did not know that. :-)

[@alphathewolf583]

@@theDMLair had a feeling. I need to get an income so i can rejoin patreon i miss the calls.

[@beatacrochets]

I love my spellbook app! I have an iPhone and my daughter told me about it. It was a total game changer for me 👍🏽

[@Zertryx]

DungeonDraft and Foundry For VTT's I Switched to Foundry and never looked back. Also for map making DungeonDraft is amazing, all the walls and lights can be saved to a VTT file which then you can export and reupload to other VTT's and it automatically have the walls done for your dynamic lighting, it saves soooo much time. and there are plenty of Free / Paid resources of good quality as assets to make more advanced maps with it.

[@TheHavokStorm]

Android 5e Spellbook! I'm not alone! It's such a quick and slick app. Everything you need from a digital spellbook and nothing more - no clutter.

[@thejoester]

at 7:00 one cool thing about DnDBeyond, is that you can buy parts of books that you want, like say a single class for $1.99 or all classes for like $4.99 and it has content sharing so if you have a regular group who is willing to pitch in its not that expensive for what it gives you IMO.

[@Pfilibuster]

And if you decide you want to buy that book later, it will subtract the price of what you paid already from the price of the book.

[@barrettready1713]

Would love for you to do a bit more of a deep dive on these

[@Boss-_]

I play online because only one player is in the same country as me, and even then we can't see each other in person often. So we use a bunch of stuff, and apart from stealing images we google search, we make our own stuff. Here's some stuff we use for the interested: Some of the similar stuff as Luke, but different things. A collection of 5e apps for Monsters (DM only), Items, Spells, and Characters. Everything you might wanna look up. Really quick. I can even remind stupid players their character mechanics with this in hand. Koboldfightclub for encounter building. Lightning fast search, CR and XP calculation, tuckfons of monsters in the list from both 1st and 3rd party sources, and you can even sort them by environment, if you wanna pick something appropriate at random, then look it up. Roll20. Despite not playing Roll20 because we got frustrated with it, the ONE thing they do good is the character sheets. Sometimes we use those, and we also have a dice roller in there in case somebody needs to roll 20d8. We're playing a sandboxy pirate game, so we need to keep track of inventory and crew. One player made us google sheets to keep track of all of that. We also use XP for leveling, and for various reasons they're not always progressing the same, so he made us excellent sheets to track that as well. We're using Tabletop Simulator as well, so I like to make custom cards to give them as handouts. I also make cards for stat blocks I can use. Sometimes I also just screenshot a bunch, mash them together as an image, and keep that open on my 2nd screen for reference. So I guess "Paint" is the next useful tool. TTS is also great because you can find a bunch of mapmaking assets in the Steam Workshop. I can put 3D maps together pretty quickly now, and it really enhances the immersion and the combat, especially when you add verticality to the maps. And this final one may be cheating but: Visual Studio, or some other IDE. Need a tool that doesn't exist (or don't wanna pay for it because we're cheapskates)? Just make it yourself. One player made us an automatic initiative roller bag in Tabletop Simulator, which is super useful, especially when there's a bunch of enemies. And now I'm making a program to automate inventory management, weight management and big buying/selling trips. Basically: Learn to code.

[@GlenHallstrom]

Good stuff. Relevant info even for an old OSR grognard like myself. Oh, and I second the use of OneNote. It's become my GM's Online Resource for writing up and prepping adventures.

[@theDMLair]

Yeah OneNote is awesome. I still use Microsoft Word for typing up the adventures themselves but all of my notes and world-building information goes into OneNote.

[@GlenHallstrom]

@@theDMLair I do have some adventure notes in OneNote but I ended up pasting tables and other resources from PDFs into it for easy game prep wherever I am. Which is ironic given that with the COVID pandemic I don't get out much. :(

[@DrDeepspace]

subscribed! so happy to have found you! Can't believe KZbin has taken this long to put you in my feed!

[@BelegaerTheGreat]

You said about that Matt that was DM-ing. You know, the secret of being one of the greatest game masters is being named Matt.

[@TheNamelessOne]

All of the advice and rants on this channel feels like it is meant more for module users

[@launder0]

I love the kobold fight club to plan my encounters!

[@1003JustinLaw]

I'm going to suggest another thing: Microsoft Excel or a similar software, especially one that allows you to create a pivot table (if you don't know how to make pivot tables just search on KZbin, it's not that hard once you get the hang of it). I do a SHIT TON of homebrew, like I have as much homebrew monsters, homebrew spells, and homebrew magic items as many of the other source books have combined, so stuff like donjon and D&D Beyond just doesn't cut it for me anymore. What I do is I create my own giant database of monsters, spells, and magical items, make them into pivot tables, and sort or filter from there. Also learning how to do pivot tables would make real jobs so much easier, I currently work clerical and it is a lifesaver.

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

Cool list I use one note for my campaign notes so I can type it on my phone and print from the computer

[@theDMLair]

No yeah OneNote is so beautiful I love it. I can't imagine running DND campaigns that OneNote to keep everything organized.

[@thajocoth]

Music in person is good. Music for an online game just means you can't hear everyone. When your PC is getting multiple streamed sources of audio simultaneously, they'll keep cutting each other out, even if they're from the same source. So, when people speak, and Google Meet, Discord, Jitsi, Zoom, or whatever is trying to provide you with their audio & ~5 sources of video, having an extra audio output just muddles things more and increases how much everyone is cutting out. It just creates too many problems into an already barely stable situation to really bother with. It's more important to be able to see & hear the players (& to be seen & heard by them) than it is to use music for ambience. Roll20 is good, but it sucks for video chat. It's rare that more than 2 people keep a stable connection to it at once in my experience trying to use it. I've had pretty good luck with Google Meet, but there are a lot of options for it. Being able to see one another's faces can be a necessity for many players. Personally, if people can't see me, I often just don't get to speak because I just can't talk over other people, but in person & with video chat, I can raise my hand & be seen. Be aware that some of these start to break down if multiple players are on the same internet connection, even if they're in separate rooms. That's a problem that I've had with both Discord & Jitsi. I would add that having multiple monitors is really helpful. I have 3 on my PC, and 1 on another computer next to me. I can keep the video chat up on one, my notes on one, and Roll20 on one, and use the other computer if I need to look something up quickly. That's a bit much of a setup for most people, but having at least 2 monitors can at least ensure that you can always see your players while you have whatever else you happen to need up on another screen at the same time.

[@dokkabaerpg7896]

great content as always Luke.

[@SoloLlamameDiego]

Ok, got me with FREE, subbed, liked, following, dude your website is GOLD

[@Wulf6491]

Having used Tabletop Simulator, and roll20, I prefer using Tabletop because having 3D is an asthetic choice for me, but I can honestly say, roll20 is far superior I think, if, and thats a big IF, you are willing to throw down more money, for the modules, the subscription to get dynamic shadows, and all that stuff. If you shell out, its great, and only one person has to spend money, whereas with TTS every player needs to shell $20. But I prefer TTS for the 3D look, the feeling of being around a table, and the VR support.

[@tommoses1372]

Hey Luke, don’t forget the combat tracker in DNDBeyond. That sucker is so nice.

[@theDMLair]

Yeah I don't think I've used that yet. I have to check it out

[@riddlin4u]

I use Fantasy Grounds. It was the first one I tried back (seems like) a decade ago so, I understand the not wanting to relearn how to roll a the wheel. I also use dungeon painter studio for my custom map making and Token Tool for making custom pogs and tokens. Great list though and I use everything you listed!!! NOW, I am off to check out YOUR site ;)

[@nicholasleaf3646]

For encounter building I use Kobold Fight Klub. Best online tool ever!

[@GuardianTactician]

I use Kobold Fight Club for calculating the difficulty of encounters. Although that's more of a reference guide. The online calculators tend to lowball the players, and it's hard to include NPCs allies into the mix. Also, I posted this on the DM Lair's discord server, but if the subscription model of DungeonFog is too expensive for people, Dungeondraft is a $20 one time purchase. If I need a subscription to Roll20, DungeonFog, and DnDBeyond, then my players should be paying me.

[@SirKaibel]

I use most of these tools, except dnd beyond. I'm sorta cheap, so I run with Lion Dens Gamemaster and Fightclub

[@Alexs229]

As far as apps for android, I use the apps by the developer called Dungeon Devs. They have a spell book app, bestiary app and character app with all the info for races, classes, backgrounds and feats. You can't build characters or spellbooks though, these apps are for reference. I've used the spellbook app you suggested but ended up hating it since it didn't have all the spells from Xanathar's in it.

[@microbialtitan6883]

You can also set up a discord chat and the bot Avrae and it can sync to your dnd beyond account and you can roll dice, look up monsters and such in chat.

[@Putrefax]

For encounter calculators i like to use Kobold Fight Club. Has all the filters to sort by monster type, environment, CR, size, whatever. Plus puts them together in an encounter builder. Only thing it doesn't have is the map tool like DonJon, may have to check that one out

[@BrendanDHara]

Like the WoT books in the background, very apropos, lol.

[@LudyLoomy]

There's a fairly new app on the play store called RPG master soundboard, and it has tons of great options for everything from dnd music to sounds and battle noises.

[@AuntLoopy123]

My family/game group consists of some people who use tech, and some who do not. I don't even have a cell phone, and my mother has one, with which she struggles just to make and receive calls (it is NOT user friendly, and I had to search for the actual phone app for her, since she somehow managed to LOSE IT???). Anyway, if access to spell information is the only reason to allow tech at the table, just have them use cards. You can purchase pre-printed spell cards for your class, or you can go cheap, like we do, and just write our spells out, by hand, directly onto the index cards. Every character has an index card box, where they store spells, magical items and equipment, potions, abilities, and anything else they think they should have on notecards, like maybe certain notes that the particular character absolutely must remember. If I have a character make a history/arcana/whatever check, and then tell them "You know this lore," I give it to them, pre-written on an index card, and they can keep the card in their character box. Of course, digital is much nicer, and a lot easier to read than my writing. But, if you want to go no-tech, that is a good way to do it, and they don't need to look stuff up in the player's handbook, except on level up. If the wizard learns a new spell from a scroll or stolen spell book, I'll give him the spells, already written. This way, the only time we need to access the PHB during a session is if I roll up something on a random treasure table, or if we have a question about a rule. ALL of their abilities are written in their boxes or in their folders, behind character sheets. And if they get random treasure, we usually write it down, and then make the card for it later, during a break. Granted, when my hand starts to hurt, I really wish I could afford to just buy the cards on amazon. They have pre-made spell cards AND magic item cards, including card sets for various expansion sets. It's great, if you want RAW. Also, I'm with you, on wanting the books in hand. I'm an "old fogey," and I just find things better with my fingers. What can I say. I'm NOT tech-savvy. That said, I am having fun putting together a music playlist for my game. Also, I found a free recording software, so I can record the session, for ease of creating notes afterwards, or just to have fun re-living the experience. Audio, only, but still. FUN!

[@diogofonseca1104]

Yo! Nice tips! Oh I would add a CR calculator. Good for balancing customized monsters, bosses, etc.

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

Spreadsheets... I often employ them in place of a "digital dice roller"... Nothing against the online dice, but first, I didn't start digital play with digital dice online or available... SO I learned the simple equations to create a random number generator (essentially the same thing) on a spreadsheet cell... Then this gave me the flexibility to create dice of any size/number to fit whatever chart. Ever create a mechanic for the game and in listing the effects on your chart, you suddenly realize you don't have a D5 or a D7??? They do exist, but good luck finding and then affording one. Why not simply keep around a spreadsheet with a cell that essentially reads "C5=Rnd*5" and every time you click or tap it, it spits out a number between 0 and 5... you can search your spreadsheet creator's help-file for precise terms and how to make the roll "inclusive" or "exclusive" which avoids rolls of "0" if you need... The simplest method (for a D5) was "...= (Rnd * 4) +1 {this was with a primitive generator that was "inclusive" by default... so you drop a numerical value, since 0 - 4 includes 5 digits, and then add 1 so the "0" value would then be "1" and a "4" would automagically become "5". Okay, yes... For some who have neither the coding savvy nor the patience and time to invest, it sounds like a lot of excess activity when you have online and available resources... BUT once you've accomplished this math-trick, you've created a tool you can then SAVE forever... Eventually, if you like, you can even create a graphical interface (or ask someone's help with doing such) so it has the same look and feel, and you KNOW it's as honest as it can be. You're not blindly trusting some faceless, nameless bots on some site online to handle everything impartially... You're also not blindly trusting your Players to keep using the honest utility, rather than sneak around and download some digital equivalent to "loaded dice"... which if they don't exist yet, I'd be VERY surprised. ;o)

[@lalanunu]

As someone who has bought every book on DNDbeyond I can attest to how amazing it is... assuming you have $800 lying around for everything... Also if you are going to buy more than a handful of books seriously consider just buying the different bundles.

[@theDMLair]

Yeah that's what I did about a year or year-and-a-half ago. I waited for there to be a sale like on Black Friday and then I bought every single thing they had available for about $400 I think it was. There was a bundle going on.

[@gimlithegrey4863]

Just a heads up for everyone here there's a newer VTT (to me at least) called OwlBear Rodeo and it is the free version to alot of these. ITS AMAZING.

[@remixtheidiot5771]

As a dm. The laptop is my screen and also my tool, my only tool. Obviously i have dice and pen and paper too. All i use is good ol' notepad, wordpad, and a generic pdf reader. It gets me through somehow.

[@fhuber7507]

The only electronic tool I actually use is the D&D Beyond PC generator. I think it accelerates PC generation and if set with the appropriate limits it should have the PC build acceptable to the DM.

[@navidryanrouf441]

I only the special music for big events/battles in my D&D games.

[@Ivo5290]

Ah, I was very much anticipating this one since all my games are virtual. ^^ And there were some new ones on your list I didn't know yet that I'll definitely check out. ^^ For myself, I use donjon pretty often, as well as 5etools, which is also compatible with Roll20 by Chrome extension. It's a nice free encyclopedia-kind of source for me. I mostly use it and the Roll20 extension to easily import things like monsters or spells that aren't in the Roll20 compendium and I'd otherwise have to create by hand. And I also find its CR-Calculator for homebrewed monsters pretty useful to just get an idea, how powerful a created monster might be. So yeah, a resource I definitely can recommend. ^^

[@theDMLair]

Yeah no problem dude. These are the digital tools that I use all the time for my games.

[@LostTheNecromancer]

Dnd 5e spells gor andriod is worth it. I use it, and even a new player playing a caster in my games has put it to excellent use.

[@billharm6006]

First time seeing you. Nicely informative. Seems likely I'll be back.

[@Vizeroy9]

If you want a really good and easy to use app for background music and even sound effects, have a look at SoundTale. Just set the area and mood you want and get matching music and sound effects - seashore, town, dungeon, haunted village... many combinations with weather and time of day can be selected in seconds. You can also set a few presets for fighting scene sounds And there is a whole section for your own presets. Edit: DungeonFog will become even better. They are currently developting "Project Deios". In essence it is kind of a combination of DungeonFog with World Anvil - they coop on this development.

[@theDMLair]

Oh that's interesting option to look at sound tail. Yeah I've heard of the project deios thing from the two of them.

[@Vizeroy9]

@@theDMLair SoundTale exists in a PC and Android version right now. Purchasing both as a pack is currently still in development. But they might be open to provide you a review copy.

[@samholden5758]

The encounter builder on dndbeyond is also good just to add all the monster types in an encounter to. Then instead of browser tabs you have a clickable list of monsters that give you a smaller statblock with all the beyond20 die roll buttons on it. I assume the dndbeyond combat tracker would work similarly, but I use the turn tracker in the vtt and track monster hitpoints there too so I haven't played with that.

[@spooderous]

There is a new tool I found called DM Help Mate which is insanely useful.

[@jasono.6168]

Dndbeyond + AboveVTT browser extension... So great for ease of use and continuing improvements as it is being further developed.

[@Arthursd3]

Thanks Man you help me to dm my campaing so much better

[@theDMLair]

Happy to help! :D

[@brenosobral9500]

I like using dungeon-scraw (maybe scrawl? Don't remember). Is a beta project that is basicly a manual dungeon map maker. The maps are (mostly) old School in style, they have a isometric view opition and a Donjon conetion that aloud to make an aleatory dungeon on Donjon and edit it in dungeon scraw.

[@beanpole218]

Funny thing is at the start of my dm stuff a while ago I came across the website on accident and never connected it and the website till now lol 😅

[@PsychicSoldierPro]

will you be doing a top 10 player tools (digital or otherwise)? since something that both DMs and players (especially me) find really good is a phone app called fifth edition character sheet, which is a even easier way to create characters, does auto leveling for you, keeps track of things and just makes building a character and keeping track of things so simple. Would highly recommend it over every other. Especially since unlike d&d beyond and the like, if you get a companion app called fifth edition custom builder, it allows you to create custom backgrounds, races, subraces, classes, subclasses, features and feats and install them into the character sheet app for any homebrewed classes or anything the DM is allowing to be run.

[@user-dd9dh9kw5c]

DnD beyond, just use foundry VTT people. Its the best virtual tabletop out there.

[@ShugoAWay]

Digital dice isn't heresy it just saves time and stress for the fist of dice rolls like fireball sneak attack and smite so dice don't have to be lent out and also u don't have to worry about loaded digital dice usually (cuz most track past rolls to prove innocence) And for audio i handed that off to a player who enjoys planning out a bunch of background music that way it's one less thing i have to do and he likes it

[@jonathanogden8756]

May I recommend Syrinscape? It creates the music scenes for you and you just need to search for "Storm" or "Wolves" and you're sorted. Not free though.

[@jf649]

We are testing TaleSpire atm. This is still alpha/beta? It has great potential once its fluently playable. DM preps are mich easier. Biggest issue so far is line of sight. Especially when 3D objects come into play. But awesome design and flair. Hope the launch version will be more stable.

[@Aelanna]

I can't see using a dice roller or spell lookup when that's all in Roll20 already. You can look up anything in the compendium just as fast, and dice rolling is right there on the screen.

[@murgel2006]

This is the moment you realize old age has caught up with you. Even if you know all the tools and use them during game prep but you would be completely annoyed if you found them at the table.

[@subduedpotato7216]

the one digital tool that I don't think I could run an online game without? Avrae. It's a discord bot done up by the good folks at DNDBeyond. It integrates your entire compendium (once you associate your DNDBeyond account with the bot) so you can look up monster stat blocks, spells, items, etc, load up character sheets that you or your players have created in DNDBeyond. It'll even generate a random character. Almost everything can be done from within the bot. It even has automation features that automatiaclly tracks spell usage, hp, special abilities etc. During game, I rarely have to step outside of discord for anything other than looking at/making notes. Onenote, sharepoint and Teams from Microsoft as well as Google docs are also very useful tools for sharing handouts/maps and collecting feedback from players. I haven't tried but I think you can run a tactical combat through sharepoint. Something to look into anyway.

[@Xakryn]

I love the idea of virtual table top, but 35 USD is 50 Canadian so that holds me back.

[@moustacheboy9918]

The biggest drawback of D&D beyond is that I don't have a PC ;-; However great video

[@PatriceBoivin]

funny sketch 🙂 The "steep price" of D&D Beyond must be why the Wizards of the Coast corporation bought them. Ka-ching! It's all about stable revenue streams for the shareholders.

[@shivamutreja6427]

check out the DnDify app on the play store for background music. Its an absolute beast.

[@akhileshbhardwaj3756]

My first dm would be so awsome

[@fernandoptirado6013]

Hi @DM Lair, I want to know if you could do a video (or an update of an old one) of your OneNote notebook to manage your campaign. How does that compare to the D&D Beyond Campaign notebook, or other sites such as WorldAnvil? Thanks.