D&D 5E Best Online Tools for Coordinating a 5E Group with a Busy Schedule

[Jake Johnson]

As I'm sure is the case for many of you, our 5E group is comprised of busy professionals. We meet every Tuesday night for a few hours, and keep in touch during the week, mostly by email. We use phone and text, too, of course. As we finish the Starter Set, and prepare to begin HotDQ, I'm wondering if we should be looking at other means of communicating online. It seems like we may want to exchange more files and links. There may be a need for more communication between individual group members.

Some goals that come to mind:

• Keep in touch between games
• Logistics and scheduling
• DM communication
• File transfers
• Sharing of news, such as from WotC or this site
• Use playing time most effectively by moving activities that don't require to whole group offline

I know we could use Dropbox, Google+, and a variety of other tools. I'm interested to here what others are doing, and about how you may be collaborating to maximize the limited time you have for planning and playing.

What are some of the ways you use to communicate and interact with your playing group between games?

 

[Crothian]

We use our own private message board. Each player has a private forum for information just for them and the DM can see all those private forums. It took a little while but the players now know that all buying and selling and spell selection happens on the boards. At game we jump right into the action. We also do some role playing on the forums and I add in additional information and set up scenes and adventures in threads everyone can see. XP and level gain is all done on the boards. It saves us so much time at the gaming table that when I've been in games that don't use a system like this I feel like we waste our time on these things.

 

[Mark CMG]

We use a private group on Facebook.

 

[edemaitre]

Helping busy pros stay in touch for games

I use a Yahoo message board and folders for my face-to-face group, and a Google Group and Google Docs/Drive for my weekly telecom campaign. We mainly use these for file storage and discussions between sessions. We talk about scheduling, plot threads, and nongaming topics such as movies.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DnD3VanishedLands/

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/holysteel

We also use Obsidian Portal for campaign and character information management. It includes house rules, session notes, and character records.

https://vanished-lands.obsidianportal.com/

I know of groups that prefer EpicWords for the same functions.

I encourage the role-players to keep their P.C. records up to date, check updates (especially if they miss a game), and to try to contribute to conversations in the weeks between games. Good luck, and happy gaming!

 

[TerraDave]

I use the message boards right here on ENWorld

http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?362-Gaming-Action-Play-By-Post-Center

We are also supposed to have some new campaing manager tools, but I haven't really looked at them.

There are also lots of private message board options, some noted above.

 

[Jake Johnson]

We use our own private message board. Each player has a private forum for information just for them and the DM can see all those private forums. It took a little while but the players now know that all buying and selling and spell selection happens on the boards. At game we jump right into the action. We also do some role playing on the forums and I add in additional information and set up scenes and adventures in threads everyone can see. XP and level gain is all done on the boards. It saves us so much time at the gaming table that when I've been in games that don't use a system like this I feel like we waste our time on these things.

This sounds great, Crothian! We're hoping to reduce administrative time (leveling, spell selection, etc.) in play sessions exactly as you have done. Do you mind sharing the software you're using for the forums?

At present, email is working well for communications. I just published a group calendar for tracking play sessions, that everyone can see with their app of choice (Outlook, Apple Calendar, Google, etc.), and we have a new Dropbox file share.

 

[Jake Johnson]

We use a private group on Facebook.

I like the idea of using technology that's light-weight and familiar. Facebook definitely falls into that category. So, you're using it for communication between play sessions and tracking play session dates and times? Is there anything about your group's use of Facebook that you find particularly useful or valuable?

 

[Jake Johnson]

I use a Yahoo message board and folders for my face-to-face group, and a Google Group and Google Docs/Drive for my weekly telecom campaign. We mainly use these for file storage and discussions between sessions. We talk about scheduling, plot threads, and nongaming topics such as movies.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DnD3VanishedLands/

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/holysteel

We also use Obsidian Portal for campaign and character information management. It includes house rules, session notes, and character records.

https://vanished-lands.obsidianportal.com/

I know of groups that prefer EpicWords for the same functions.

I encourage the role-players to keep their P.C. records up to date, check updates (especially if they miss a game), and to try to contribute to conversations in the weeks between games. Good luck, and happy gaming!

Thank you for sharing your experiences and these great resources, edemaitre. Obsidian Portal looks promising, and Yahoo groups seem like a great option. At this point, we have basic communication, file sharing, and date/time tracking covered, although I'm hoping we can reduce email usage. Forums for handling administrative tasks and discussion seem like the next component.

 

[Jake Johnson]

I use the message boards right here on ENWorld

http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?362-Gaming-Action-Play-By-Post-Center

We are also supposed to have some new campaing manager tools, but I haven't really looked at them.

There are also lots of private message board options, some noted above.

Thank you, Dave. I didn't think of using the message boards here at EN World. I will check that option out, too. Doing so would confer the added benefit of providing news and opportunity for players to take part in this vibrant community.

 

[Viking Bastard]

We also use a private group on Fb. Pretty happy with it.

I like the idea of using technology that's light-weight and familiar. Facebook definitely falls into that category. So, you're using it for communication between play sessions and tracking play session dates and times? Is there anything about your group's use of Facebook that you find particularly useful or valuable?

Everyone in the group is an active user of Facebook, have it on their phone, etc. It doesn't require anything other than people checking their notifications, which they all already do obsessively (as people do).