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

[Distracted DM]

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.

Ha well, my hurdle was just understanding how all the different notes + links worked together, were set up etc. That's why I mentioned wanting a campaign to reverse-engineer, just having a little generic skeleton of a thing with all examples of linkings etc; that's how I learn best. Unfortunately the Obsidian TTRPG tutorial didnt help me much because even there they didn't provide a premade generic campaign to load up and tool around with

Example: in FoundryVTT, say I want to set up the effects etc for a Periapt of Wisdom- I won't look up what values and commands you need to make it work, I'll look at Gauntlets of Ogre Power and see how it's set up there, now I know the VTT mechanics for setting up an item that sets a stat at a certain number.

 

[Distracted DM]

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.

Yeah "modern" DnD, 3e and afterwards, has a lot more to keep track of. I play OSE with a group still, that we play purely Theater of the Mind no problem... but modern DnD has a lot of moving bits and pieces.

 

[SableWyvern]

well, my hurdle was just understanding how all the different notes + links worked together, were set up etc. That's why I mentioned wanting a campaign to reverse-engineer, just having a little generic skeleton of a thing with all examples of linkings etc; that's how I learn best. Unfortunately the Obsidian TTRPG tutorial didnt help me much because even there they didn't provide a premade generic campaign to load up and tool around with

Example: in FoundryVTT, say I want to set up the effects etc for a Periapt of Wisdom- I won't look up what values and commands you need to make it work, I'll look at Gauntlets of Ogre Power and see how it's set up there, now I know the VTT mechanics for setting up an item that sets a stat at a certain number.

Well, a link is literally just [[Name of note to link to]].

I'm pretty sure you can also right click, choose insert link, and select from your existing notes.

 

[Bagpuss]

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

By live I just meant with people sitting face to face, so as long as I have a means to record the session it works.

 

[LordEntrails]

How's NotebookLM working out for campaign prep? I've heard some interesting things about it but haven't tried it for any TTRPG stuff yet

My experience is pretty good with it. But I haven't been good about keeping it updated as I've developed the campaign.. Right now it really just has the core rules loaded and some initial campaign info. It's been reliable for looking up references and answering questions. i.e. "What form of government does the Kai Empire have?" "What are the species bonus for an erakai?" "Create the names of ten taverns and bars in the city of Kertow."

 

[MNblockhead]

Since you mentioned backing Ember, what made you decide to jump into that early when you seem pretty settled with your current Foundry setup?

1. I run long campaigns. My current one will go at least until the end of next year. So I'll be looking for another game system at that time. I like the Crucible Game System, but it currently is half baked and development has been slow, which brings me to point 2...

2. To support Foundry, and especially Crucible development. Foundry is a great VTT, and it is great that you can get a perpetual license for $50 that only the GM has to buy. But continued support means continued development. Foundry has a Patreon where supporters get to vote on new features. But over the years I've learned that my needs and wants do not match the majority of foundry customers, or at least the majority of whale customers and patrons. The customers putting the most money into Foundry and its ecosystem seem to be those looking to push the boundries of the VTT experience, but mostly that is focused on eye candy. I don't mean to be dismissive of that, but I just want something that "just works". I stopped backing Foundry on Patreon a while back because I just wasn't getting what I most wanted for my extra money. Backing Ember not only allowed me to back the creation of fun-looking campaign designed from the ground up to work with Foundry, but also allowed me to support the development of the Crucible game system. As I wrote in my previous post, I'm more interested in a VTT experience that just works without lots of effort configuring the systems and implementing and troubleshooting community mods.

3. I'm hardly "settled" with my current Foundry setup. It has, hands down, the best game system of any VTT for Warhammer Fantasy RPG, but it is still finicky. Putting aside game systems and automation challenges, it lack what I feel should be core feature of any VTT, especially a "top tier" VTT and that is manual Fog of War. Foundry just isn't a great VTT for low-prep, on-the-fly, sandbox play styles. I had a better experience with Realm Works and Map Tools. Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are also better for that style of play. If I were to run a published WotC game with D&D 2024, I would just use D&D Beyond. DDB's Maps feature is slick, fluid, and its manual FoW works great. The encounter builder is a decent combat tracker. DDBs character sheet provides a much better experience than Foundry's D&D character sheet. I might stick with Foundry for D&D if it better supported automation, especially for resolving saves and damage on AOE attacks and condition tracking, but after many, many, MANY hours of playing around with community mods I've always ended up returning to more basic, manual routines.

I went with Foundry originally because I was running a years long campaign tied to a mega-dungeon (Rappan Athuk). It had over 100 maps with complex interlinking. The time I spent setting up the maps for dynamic lighting, regional sounds, some occasional cool special effects, and exceptionally useful (community mod) feature that allowed me to instantly move PC tokens to an area (e.g. beginning of tunnel, top of stairs) to another area on another map (e.g. end of tunnel, bottom of stairs) made running the game easier and fun and gave a good experience to the players, but was only worth the time and effort because it was a campaign that lasted about five years.

But, to be honest, I'm getting tired of VTT configuration and session prep being a second hobby. If Ember meets its promise as a fun campaign that also makes my life as an on-line GM easier, it will be my next campaign. If not, I'll probably go back to D&D on DDB.

 

[MNblockhead]

I'm a bit embarrassed by how heavily I rely on various Google tools (Meet, Docs, Sheets, NotebookLM), but we use it so much for work (teacher; Google Classroom is foundational) that it is just automatic and simple/lazy for me, even though some of these bespoke tools are probably much better. So my tools are basically DDB+Google stuff.

No reason to be embarrassed. They are great tools. I would personally like to go back to Google Meet, but my players strongly prefer Discord. If I were doing screen sharing instead of using a VTT for maps, I'd go back to Meet -‑ it is just a cleaner interface IMO. But I'm fine with Discord just for voice and Discord has impressed me with the quality of its connections, even with people with poor bandwidth.

 

[Cynicide]

But, to be honest, I'm getting tired of VTT configuration and session prep being a second hobby.

Hard agree here. I want to get back to what made the hobby fun for me when I started.

 

[MNblockhead]

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 not yet used it for a game session but I've used Google Meet's transcript and summary features. It creates a document with two tabs. One is "notes" which give a (usually) one-paragraph summary of the meeting, bulleted "details", and "suggested next steps". The second tab is the full transcript. The transcript will contain everything said. What I find useful is the Notes. The high-level and bullet-list summaries are very useful. The suggested next steps are surprisingly useful for certain types of calls or meetings, but I'm not sure how useful they would be with a game session.

My players prefer Discord so I've not had an opportunity to use it in game, but it is useful enough that I am very tempted to try to convince them to switch back to Google Meet. But I'm not sure all of them would be comfortable with sessions being recorded. I would need to have a discussion with them and if even one objected, I wouldn't do it.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I've not yet used it for a game session but I've used Google Meet's transcript and summary features. It creates a document with two tabs. One is "notes" which give a (usually) one-paragraph summary of the meeting, bulleted "details", and "suggested next steps". ...(snip)...
What I find useful is the Notes. The high-level and bullet-list summaries are very useful. The suggested next steps are surprisingly useful for certain types of calls or meetings, but I'm not sure how useful they would be with a game session.

What do you mean by the bolded part? You believe the players won't find session summaries useful?