D&D General My experience with paid D&D tools after 3+ years as a DM/Player

[Algorithmancer]

How does Saga20 work is it a Discord plug in? Is there anything like it for live games?

Its not a Discord plugin, you basically just upload your session recordings and it generates summaries with NPCs, locations, plot points etc. It even tries to match voices to specific players in my subsequent sessions which works surprisingly well most of the time.

The tech is pretty impressive but the summaries get locked to their platform which is a hassle, I end up copying it over to Obsidian to share. I'm not aware of anything similar for live games, seems like most of these tools are focused on post-session processing rather than real-time transcription

 

[AnotherGuy]

To those of you who use session summaries via AI, does it record the entire online session and generate a summary at the end with you just doing a read through and make corrections where necessary?
If yes, how does it handle player chit-chat which isn't part of play?

 

[YouMeetInATavern]

How do you find ShardTabletop compares feature-wise to the bigger VTTs? Haven't heard much about it but sounds like it might be worth checking out

It kinda just "clicked" for me. The encounter builder is quick and easy (and discovering you could trigger encounters while one is already in progress is an example of a nice surprise in the features). Character builder works well. As I mostly run my own adventures, or heavily modify modules, the book authoring system is amazing. Custom rulesets let a DM pick and choose what is available to PCs in a campaign, down to individual spells if they want. Combat has just enough automation to be quick but still feel tabletop-ey. Devs are very active and responsive.

Like everything there are potential issues: closed source, subscription only (sub is to increase number of characters/campaigns than for features). It's implementation can be quite different to other VTTs, so can take some getting used to. Modelling complex effects can be tricky. But on the whole, the advantages far outweigh for me.

Previously, before the "unpleasantness" of 2023, I was using a combo of Owlbear+DDB+custom encounter/initiative tracker I wrote. It...worked, I guess...but was super clunky in comparison.

 

[Distracted DM]

To those of you who use session summaries via AI, does it record the entire online session and generate a summary at the end with you just doing a read through and make corrections where necessary?
If yes, how does it handle player chit-chat which isn't part of play?

Yes, re: Archivist AI.
It seemed to remove chitchat well enough.

 

[Algorithmancer]

To those of you who use session summaries via AI, does it record the entire online session and generate a summary at the end with you just doing a read through and make corrections where necessary?
If yes, how does it handle player chit-chat which isn't part of play?

I've only tried Saga20 which doesn't record sessions itself - you upload your own recording after the fact. If its for online sessions that might be where something like Archivist (mentioned earlier in the thread) might be better since it seems like it supports it (I haven't tried it, only looked at their page)

The chit-chat filtering is ridiculously good though. My groups often go off on random tangents as well as order food mid-session and it somehow manages to filter out that stuff and focus on actual game content. Way better than I expected.

 

[Algorithmancer]

It kinda just "clicked" for me. The encounter builder is quick and easy (and discovering you could trigger encounters while one is already in progress is an example of a nice surprise in the features). Character builder works well. As I mostly run my own adventures, or heavily modify modules, the book authoring system is amazing. Custom rulesets let a DM pick and choose what is available to PCs in a campaign, down to individual spells if they want. Combat has just enough automation to be quick but still feel tabletop-ey. Devs are very active and responsive.

Like everything there are potential issues: closed source, subscription only (sub is to increase number of characters/campaigns than for features). It's implementation can be quite different to other VTTs, so can take some getting used to. Modelling complex effects can be tricky. But on the whole, the advantages far outweigh for me.

Previously, before the "unpleasantness" of 2023, I was using a combo of Owlbear+DDB+custom encounter/initiative tracker I wrote. It...worked, I guess...but was super clunky in comparison.

Thanks for sharing, I might have to try it out sometime. I'm okay with closed source/paying a little premium if it means a better experience. This sounds promising.

 

[Cynicide]

I thought I'd weigh in on the subject of battlemats and VTT's. In 2020 my group lost their in-person play space, we moved online and I have been running games in Foundry ever since. I've used battlemats almost exclusively but I'm thinking that I'll ditch them for theater of the mind after the current adventure is completed.

This came as a bit of a bolt of lightning inspiration to me, I was playing game of Call of Cthulhu at ChaosiumCon run by Brian Holland and he kept us on the edge of our seats, no maps, not tokens, no pictures. Just his descriptions and interactions with the NPCs. After the game I wondered if the tech was getting was getting in the way of my home game. What follows are my thoughts about it.

• Battlemaps and tokens add a whole lot of prep time. If it's a map of a specific place then I'm either looking for a public map, subscribing to a patreon or drawing it myself. Even If I find the perfect map I have to go through and mark the walls, windows, secrets and doors. If I choose not to do this I'm doing manual fog removal at the table. This doesn't even cover token creation or spell effects if you want to go that far. Is that time better spent fleshing out the descriptive details of the dungeon, or working on my rules mastery, or adding interesting details and NPC's to the plot.
• Players and the GM fixating on the details. How do I position this spell so I can get the most people? Is there true line of sight between these two tokens? Can I close the distance in one turn? There aren't hard questions but in my in-person table top days we'd hand wave this and move onto the fun stuff.
• Subconscious reduction in imaginative details while the map does the heavy lifting. I've noticed my descriptions aren't as good as they could be if I just subconsciously rely on the map to do the heavy lifting. I also don't want to deny the players the experience of imaging a place instead of picturing what they see on the map.
• Bugs. Ooops! Someone saw something they shouldn't because they clipped through a wall.

So once my current campaign is done I'm going to going map free for a spell to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Distracted DM]

I thought I'd weigh in on the subject of battlemats and VTT's. In 2020 my group lost their in-person play space, we moved online and I have been running games in Foundry ever since. I've used battlemats almost exclusively but I'm thinking that I'll ditch them for theater of the mind after the current adventure is completed.

This came as a bit of a bolt of lightning inspiration to me, I was playing game of Call of Cthulhu at ChaosiumCon run by Brian Holland and he kept us on the edge of our seats, no maps, not tokens, no pictures. Just his descriptions and interactions with the NPCs. After the game I wondered if the tech was getting was getting in the way of my home game. What follows are my thoughts about it.

• Battlemaps and tokens add a whole lot of prep time. If it's a map of a specific place then I'm either looking for a public map, subscribing to a patreon or drawing it myself. Even If I find the perfect map I have to go through and mark the walls, windows, secrets and doors. If I choose not to do this I'm doing manual fog removal at the table. This doesn't even cover token creation or spell effects if you want to go that far. Is that time better spent fleshing out the descriptive details of the dungeon, or working on my rules mastery, or adding interesting details and NPC's to the plot.
• Players and the GM fixating on the details. How do I position this spell so I can get the most people? Is there true line of sight between these two tokens? Can I close the distance in one turn? There aren't hard questions but in my in-person table top days we'd hand wave this and move onto the fun stuff.
• Subconscious reduction in imaginative details while the map does the heavy lifting. I've noticed my descriptions aren't as good as they could be if I just subconsciously rely on the map to do the heavy lifting. I also don't want to deny the players the experience of imaging a place instead of picturing what they see on the map.
• Bugs. Ooops! Someone saw something they shouldn't because they clipped through a wall.

So once my current campaign is done I'm going to going map free for a spell to see if it makes a difference.

I think this depends on a lot of factors.. what the GM likes, what the players like, what game you're playing, etc. Call of Cthulhu is distinctly a non-battlemap game. DnD can play sans battlemap just fine if the battles don't have too many enemies/moving pieces, but it can benefit from one. A DnD-like such as 13th Age or Shadowdark only uses ranges in general terms, like "engaged" and "near" or "far," so a battlemap isn't necessary but might improve things if you want more complex pieces (more enemies etc).

 

[SableWyvern]

Obsidian.md's been a hurdle I couldn't get over... I couldn't grok it, and I didn't have an "Example DnD Campaign" to load up and reverse-engineer tounderstand what made it tick I'm jealous of folk that get it working. (Obsidian - Sharpen your thinking)

If you're interested in giving it another look, I would recommend not attempting to begin with a fully-fledged campaign management system.

I originally pickup Obsidian.md + sync simply because I moved to Linux and the sync tool offered me a replacement for google drive syncing.

I then started making use of some of the basic note and linking systems -- no plugins, nothing special at all really, just arranging some very simple, nested notes for a fairly straightforward campaign.

Then I realised I could probably do more with it, to help me set up a new, more complex sandbox campaign I've been planning. I started installing some individual plugins that looked useful, and working out how they work individually. Stuff like the initiative tracker, fantasy statblocks and encounter builder can all be used without needing any huge overall setup. I also added Leaflet for my main map, and started adding pins.

I have been using Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials - Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials to help me get a handle on each individual plugin.

The overall campaign material is just folders and notes I've built myself in a sensible folder structure. When I was ready, I looked at metabind to start adding quick-linking buttons for some rules material, which I was setting up myself. That said, you can do the same thing with just regular links and next to zero skill. Again, it was Obsidian TTFPG Tutorials got me onto the idea that I can create a note and pin it to the main left side panel to have a quick access system. But I didn't need something someone else built -- it's just a note, and I can add whatever works for me, however I want.

In the end my system isn't going to be anywhere near the complexity (or prettiness) of one of Josh Plunkett's vaults, but I don't need all that glitz and glamour, I just need something functional, and I'm adding bits and pieces one at a time, so I don't need to worry about how a bunch of different plugins are all interacting with one another or understand them all at once.

 

[Cynicide]

I think this depends on a lot of factors.. what the GM likes, what the players like, what game you're playing, etc. Call of Cthulhu is distinctly a non-battlemap game. DnD can play sans battlemap just fine if the battles don't have too many enemies/moving pieces, but it can benefit from one. A DnD-like such as 13th Age or Shadowdark only uses ranges in general terms, like "engaged" and "near" or "far," so a battlemap isn't necessary but might improve things if you want more complex pieces (more enemies etc).

Yes, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. I guess I was also thinking back to my 2nd Ed AD&D days where we got by with scribbled maps that roughed out positions. Although to be fair there were a lot less "clicky" abilities with ranges and durations then and I'm probably looking at it with rose colored glasses.