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

[Mark CMG]

How do you use facebook without it spreading all over each others friends feeds and etc?

I only use Facebook for showing relatives pictures etc.

Explain from the basics on up how yall use it if you have the time.

You can set up a private group on Facebook. Everything you post to the group will only be seen by its members. So far, we just have events and messages to the group. Everyone receives a notification when there's a new message to the group. Perhaps Mark can provide more background, as his group has been using it longer, and ours just started.

I don't know if making it "Private" just hides the content of what you post but still leaves residual "So-and-so posted to his blah-blah group" updates or if it hides stuff completely. So, I made mine a "Secret" group just to be sure.

 

[Mark CMG]

Ugh, we have one member out of 8 who will not use Facebook or G+ even because he's a Luddite so we have to organize every game over email which most people only check rarely. Nothing to add, just wanted to vent.

One person in a group I ran some time ago was similarly resistant to tech and I outright told him that his resistance was causing all of us to do a lot more work than necessary to accommodate him. I explained the details of how things would work if not for his resistance and the details of how much more work it was causing. I let him know he should talk to one of the other players away from the table and get separate updates of what was happening in the time between games through our forum (pre-Facebook). I also mentioned that all of us were up to speed by game time and spending a half hour at the beginning of each game was cutting into the game time of five other people, essentially 2 1/2 hours collectively simply because he wasn't getting himself up to speed. He used tech at work for plenty of things (even participating in Yahoo Fantasy leagues!), so I felt the requirement of phone calls for all updates and cutting into our game time was counter-productive for everyone else in the game. He stepped up.

 

[drjones]

One person in a group I ran some time ago was similarly resistant to tech and I outright told him that his resistance was causing all of us to do a lot more work than necessary to accommodate him. I explained the details of how things would work if not for his resistance and the details of how much more work it was causing. I let him know he should talk to one of the other players away from the table and get separate updates of what was happening in the time between games through our forum (pre-Facebook). I also mentioned that all of us were up to speed by game time and spending a half hour at the beginning of each game was cutting into the game time of five other people, essentially 2 1/2 hours collectively simply because he wasn't getting himself up to speed. He used tech at work for plenty of things (even participating in Yahoo Fantasy leagues!), so I felt the requirement of phone calls for all updates and cutting into our game time was counter-productive for everyone else in the game. He stepped up.

Yeah I was actually inspired by this thread to call the issue, told him to make a fake FB account and set it to notify him by email if he wanted but the rest of us would be using it. My age group is right on the edge where guys are suspicious and don't see the utility in social media.. until they try it and learn how to make it work for them.

Whats the point of being DM if you can't pull rank now and then to make the job easier?

 

[Mark CMG]

Whats the point of being DM if you can't pull rank now and then to make the job easier?

Sure. Why should the group be using the lowest common denominator of tech? As long as the resistant person isn't being forced to outlay a great deal of cash to keep up, it seems reasonable enough.

 

[Lalato]

I've used Epic Words (http://www.epicwords.com) for several campaigns. As long as everyone has an email address, you should be able to push communication out to everyone. It also includes forums for your individual campaign. You can track XP. You can track equipment and money.