Why the Strong Preference for Discord in Remote Games?

[Narq]

Primarily Discord was the recommended service to use instead of Roll20's video and voice as it has the reputation for being unreliable especially for large group. I use discord because it cost effective for both myself and players where as to really get the best use of things in zoom one has to purchase. I do not think that makes discord better nor zoom, skype or any other voice/video meeting software. It all comes down to preference and what works for your group.

 

[SirMoogle]

Checking on Zoom's pricing plans I can see another reason why gamers are more likely to use Discord: if you're only using the Free plan in Zoom, group meetings are limited to 40 minutes, which means that you'd have to restart meetings multiple times if you're doing a 3-5 hour session, and the next plan is $200USD a year for the ability to host 30-hour meetings and stream social media, which Discord can already do without the need to pay.

 

[Umbran]

Discord does allow you to keep persistent game-relevant chat channels and A/V access in the same place.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think Zoom is likely better video quality, but Discord has all the other functionality that really is geared toward gaming. Drag and drop file sharing and multiple text channels and bots for dice rolling and other applications. All that stuff really supports play. And Discord does have video capability....my group uses it sometimes, and it seems to work fine.

 

[pogre]

Really helpful replies. As a teacher, I can run Zoom sessions as long as I want for free. I certainly understand why others might gravitate to a less costly program. I also appreciate the persistent nature of Discord - that makes sense.

I am not here to tout Zoom or anything, I was genuinely curious. I had not realized a lot of the features of Discord - so again, thanks to those who replied.

 

[Bilharzia]

It has as much to do with the huge Discord RPG communities than any technical advantage. Discord servers are used as a kind of chat-forum as much as they are a live messaging system, this cultivates more of a presence than something like Zoom. Discord servers can be run or moderated by rpg companies with thousands of members, or be a small server with single figure members which exists just for a campaign. I don't see them as comparable technologies.

 

[John Dallman]

Discord handles several people trying to talk at once quite well. Its persistent chat and pinned documents also make carrying information between RPG sessions easy. I play in an AD&D1e campaign that uses it, plus Roll20 for maps and dice-rolling. We don't use video at all for that game, and I don't miss it at all.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Others have already mentioned the various reasons both practical and cultural, but for me personally there's another, emotional reason. I spend half my working day sat on Zoom. I associate Zoom with sales calls, performance reviews, office training etc. This does not put me on the right frame of mind for pretending to be hobbits.

 

[Sir Brennen]

A lot of people mentioning Discord for persistent chat channels, but our group uses Slack for that. Granted, it doesn't have voice, but then there usually aren't any voice discussions happening outside of the game. I have notifications on my phone so I can see and respond to anything posted in Slack pretty quickly if needed. We can also post docs/images for reference (though most images are funny memes someone came across).

Slack also allows for multiple channels, essentially forums, so we have one going for each game, plus a General channel to discuss whatever. It also integrates with Google Calendar, which we use to schedule games.

For actually playing, we use roll20 for map and text chat, and Google Meet for audio. We tried roll20's video/audio, and also Discord's, but neither worked very consistently for all of our players.

 

[Umbran]

A lot of people mentioning Discord for persistent chat channels, but our group uses Slack for that. Granted, it doesn't have voice, but then there usually aren't any voice discussions happening outside of the game. I have notifications on my phone so I can see and respond to anything posted in Slack pretty quickly if needed. We can also post docs/images for reference (though most images are funny memes someone came across).

Yeah, Slack isn't a bad alternative. You don't get free group voice or video on Slack, but otherwise the channel structure, file use, notifications and such are similar.