Tools for Playing DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Part 3
Here’s the third installment of tools that you can use to help improve your experience playing Dungeons & Dragons. The theme of this post is miscellaneous as they don’t really have a theme. Two of these though, have been mentioned by readers in my previous posts. Without further ado, here are this week’s tools.
Role Gate
I have just started my first game in Role Gate so I have no real experience with it. However, it is designed so that you and your group don’t have to deal with the one thing that always kills all groups: finding a time when everyone can play together. I have started dozens of groups, and I’ve had one that got past one level up because schedules changed and no longer matched up.
Essentially, the understanding I have is that a chat is started between the DM and the players and when they have a chance, the players and DM respond to the messages. For example, the DM may send out a message saying that a kobold is attacking player A and then an hour later, player A sees this message and is able to respond with his reaction.
This tool sounds great for people who really struggle to find groups that have a schedule that works, but it’s not for everyone. Of course, one of the big advantages besides the lack of requiring everyone to be present at once is that it is very system neutral and so you can use any system you like, even if it’s not D&D.
Dungeon Fog
Dungeon Fog another tool that was recommended by a reader on one of the previous articles. I have not had too much time to play with Dungeon Fog yet, but it looks like a great tool if you’re wanting to create digital battle maps. You can easily create your own battle maps of various sizes with plenty of assets like crates and tables available even to free users. You can even edit the lighting.
The catch is that if you’re a free user, it looks like you can only create one map at a time. It does look like in addition to creating maps, you can share maps with your players and they can in turn import their characters to use on said map. This would be very handy, but I don’t know if Dungeon Fog supports character sheets or just tokens.
Various Apps
There are a lot of apps out there to help players of Dungeons & Dragons, but here are some that I think are useful. For players, Fight Club 5th Edition can be a little tricky to navigate, but it is full of classes, races, and even has a place for spells. If you run with more than one character though, you’ll need to pay $2.99 to get the premium version of the app.
If you are a DM and not a player, DM Tools lets you create monsters (or import via a JSON or XML file), track initiative, import your friends’ characters from the Character Sheet, build encounters, and just keep track of your campaigns. I’ve used this tool more than anything else as a DM and it has been a great help.
If you’re more about creating custom classes, races, or really anything, Custom Builder is for you. I haven’t used it as I tend to just use stock options, but I imagine it has a bit of potential.
If you’re willing to spend money, I’d probably recommend D&D Beyond’s mobile site for the character sheet over these apps, but these work in a pinch and the DM Tools app is really helpful.