Advice for setting up a Discord server for running TTRPGs

[MNblockhead]

I use the stock system audio for sessions, coupled with Roll20.

Since I also use a VTT (Foundry), I'm finding that it is easier for me to handle all audio in the VTT. Do you find that or are you still using Discord a lot for music, ambience sound, sound effects, etc.?

Setting Information*: The players entered the campaign without knowing the setting, so I posted campaign lore here as it is revealed.
Immediate Planning: Here players discuss what is should be done in the next couple sessions. My campaigns usually have a lot of politics and intrigue.
Metagame Discussion: In the current campaign the PCs have chosen to get deeply involved in a long-term goal, so discussion of the various issues take place here.
Dreams: For the first 18 sessions PCs were having inexplicable dreams. Here they can discuss them. Hasn't seen much use after around 25 sessions in.

Currently, I do most of this kind of discussion by e-mail. I've thought of moving it all to Discord, but I rarely have Discord running except during games.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Since I also use a VTT (Foundry), I'm finding that it is easier for me to handle all audio in the VTT. Do you find that or are you still using Discord a lot for music, ambience sound, sound effects, etc.?

I don't use music or sound effects. To be honest, I never tried Roll20s audio, but several of my gamers don't like it.

Currently, I do most of this kind of discussion by e-mail. I've thought of moving it all to Discord, but I rarely have Discord running except during games.

I check mine daily. I like the advantage of group chats, and frankly, there is too many posts for e-mail to work; I get 30-40 posts a day. Plus it makes for much easier research into what has already been said.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You've already gone immensely farther than I do when I've used Discord to run games; I primarily use it as a voice transmission medium, with the text channel to upload images.

 

[aramis erak]

Hasn't been an issue yet, but good advice I'll keep in mind should I ever need it.

My remote group is a wisecracking bunch of smartarses - not a lot of side conversation, but it keeps the memes and image reactions from obscuring the rolls by overfilling the text buffer.

They're also scenery chewers... but they're fun, often surprising, and most always entertaining. I do miss sitting in the same room with them, but not enough to move back to Alaska.

And I'll note: I don't use sound effects often, and almost never music, be it FTF or online.
My choice of VTT (chosen because it costs nothing - GTove) has no sound support, so I use Discord for voice. I have, at times, put hold music on using a bot that linked to Youtube... but not recently.

My normal setup for game:
Desktop Computer: running the die roller, and GTove, and discord. Discord on the main game channel for dice rolls, same channel is used to send handouts and GM chosen illos.
Phone: voice login on speaker. Off Topic thread in text.
Laptop: when needed, logged in with a separate (serverless) account, sometimes logged into GTove, with several applications running. One of which is a D&D Cyclopedia treasure generator, coded in QB64; I need to recompile it for linux now. Another is my notes file in libre office, which also includes XP tracking. Discord on a private text channel for GM die rolls. Also, rules PDFs when needed.
Dead Tree Notebook: needed tables for the game. paper for HP tracking.

I'll note as well, the d2c3 roller is really good for FFG Star Wars, Genesys, and L5R5. Better than I can do.

My diceroller is written in Python, using discord.py. It works, very basic. I don't quite understand all the discord side of it, but it works.

 

[MNblockhead]

I check mine daily. I like the advantage of group chats, and frankly, there is too many posts for e-mail to work; I get 30-40 posts a day. Plus it makes for much easier research into what has already been said.

Wow, that's impressive engagement. Is that for one campaign or do you run multiple games using the same Discord server?

 

[MNblockhead]

And I'll note: I don't use sound effects often, and almost never music, be it FTF or online.
My choice of VTT (chosen because it costs nothing - GTove) has no sound support, so I use Discord for voice. I have, at times, put hold music on using a bot that linked to Youtube... but not recently.

Never heard of GTove. Such a fast changing market it is hard to keep up. About 4 years ago, I spent a LOT of time testing nearly every VTT I could find. Besides keeping up with Foundry's development and the community mods, I backed and test Role for a use in non-battlemap heavy games. It is very nice, but I don't have time for running multiple campaigns and Foundry meets my needs for my current campaign. I've also tested DnD Beyonds new map feature, which I was actually pleasantly surprise with. I could easily see running a D&D game with just DnD Beyond and Discord.

After more experience, I think I'm moving away from the idea of using Discord for background music. While I like being able to connect it to Spotify with Flavibot, I don't like switching back and forth between the my browser running Foundry VTT and Discord. Also, the Moulinette modules are amazing. Used in conjunction with Foundries playlist features and map-area specific sound effects, it more than meets all my needs. Also, I can tie music or ambience with a map or an area of a map so that they just play automatically when I activate a map or the characters move their tokens to a specific area of a map. Also, Moulinette gives a Syrincape-type sound board I can pull up within the VTT. I just don't see a need to pipe music and sound effects through Discord.

My normal setup for game:
Desktop Computer: running the die roller, and GTove, and discord. Discord on the main game channel for dice rolls, same channel is used to send handouts and GM chosen illos.

By "dice roller", you mean a bot within Discord, correct? Or is it a separate program that integrates with Discord?

Phone: voice login on speaker. Off Topic thread in text.

This is one reason I stuck with Discord. Where I am working when abroad I often don't have great internet and sometimes running both the VTT and Discord on my laptop causes sound issues or makes the VTT laggy. So I often pair my bluetooth headset to my phone and run voice over the Discord iPhone app. Discord has offered the best voice quality on poor connection of any other service I've tried. The only one that comes close is Google Meet. I didn't want to move from Google Meet, because I found its interface much cleaner than Discord and I could give a phone number for people to dial in if their Internet went down. But my players prefer Discord because many of them are on it frequently and have it running through the day and use it for many other gaming and social communication, so they wouldn't have to deal with another link. Easier for them to just use Discord. I'm not paying for Nitro or anything, so I'm fine with Discord.

Laptop: when needed, logged in with a separate (serverless) account, sometimes logged into GTove, with several applications running. One of which is a D&D Cyclopedia treasure generator, coded in QB64; I need to recompile it for linux now. Another is my notes file in libre office, which also includes XP tracking. Discord on a private text channel for GM die rolls. Also, rules PDFs when needed.

I run everything on my Mac, except when I need to run Discord on my phone because of bandwidth issues. I connect it to a TV. Foundry is on the TV and I use my laptop screen for Google Drive, PDFs, and DnD Beyond (when I was running D&D).

Dead Tree Notebook: needed tables for the game. paper for HP tracking.

Due to travel, I've ditched using any paper for notes and reference materials. Everything is either put in Foundry journals or Google Drive. I do keep some scratch paper around when it is easier to just make some marks to track things in a game where it isn't as convenient to do so in the VTT.

I'll note as well, the d2c3 roller is really good for FFG Star Wars, Genesys, and L5R5. Better than I can do.

My diceroller is written in Python, using discord.py. It works, very basic. I don't quite understand all the discord side of it, but it works.

The only game-related coding I ever do are very simple macros for Foundry, usually just modifying existing macros from the Foundry user community.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Wow, that's impressive engagement. Is that for one campaign or do you run multiple games using the same Discord server?

Just one campaign. A lot of the traffic is in General, where there's a lot of discussion of firearms, music, food, and just general BS.

 

[aramis erak]

By "dice roller", you mean a bot within Discord, correct? Or is it a separate program that integrates with Discord?

No discord bot is part of discord. They're all separate apps that log into discord. They're robotic users, literally.

D2C3 runs on some dude's web-hosting or home machine, and when people "add" it to their server, they're just subscribing it to their server.

My dieroller runs in Python - on my desktop - in the background, and logs into discord on startup.

I'm tempted to get a microcontroller that uses micropython and trying to put it up full time.... I don't know containerizing well enough to get it onto my webhosting.... because certain standard python modules are missing on that server install.

 

[Juxtapozbliss]

I also use Kenku FM as others have noted, and one thing I particularly like about it is it can integrate with Dscryb audio library. I belong at the Celestial level and Dscryb has a TON of SFX, ambiance and music tracks, and they are constantly adding to it. I like the integration.

 

[General_Tangent]

One thing I did was to create a GM role and assign it priority speaking. I know you have to set push to talk to make it work but I did find it useful in certain situations with players who idly chat and won't quiet down.