i used to play D&D all the time when I was a teenager but sadly I haven't been able to play for nearly two decades. Anyways, I'm wanting to correct that as i want to run a game for both my wife and my 15 year old son. I actually met my wife though D&D so she's familiar with the game and my son played some with his friends using discord over the summer. So none of us are new to the game, but I'm definitely out of the loop of modern gaming, which leads me to here looking for help.
I'm looking for digital solutions to run our game, both for ease of play and just because I love technology and want to make use of it.
Here's my goal: I'd like like to run the entire game from my iPad Pro in terms of all the DM aspects. Notes, modules, pdfs, die rolling, etc. But I'd like to have battle maps, visual aids, and ambient sounds/music playing on our big screen tv in the living room. My gaming PC is hooked up to my tv so I'd have access to whatever software that could fit my needs. I'm thinking my wife and son could use the mouse to move tokens and navigate combat and whatnot while I'm running things on the iPad.
But I'm at a loss as to what software/website/app I'd use to accomplish this. I've researched this a bit and I've discovered Foundry, Roll20, D&D beyond, And Fantasy Grounds as potential solutions but I have no idea which if any of these would adequately address my needs.
Btw, assuming it matters, I'm heavily leaning towards 5th edition but I'm also open to trying Pathfinder.
As a secondary question, are any of the published modules appropriate for two players? Or will I have to crate custom adventures for them since the party of So small?
Thanks for any help!
First. Books. How about free ones. It is called the "Old School Revival". People recreating old rulebooks, some without any changes, or mods that the author likes.
Basic Fantasy by Chris Gonnerman is a good one. 100% free too. It's based on the early 80's BX rules, but uses ascending armor class and races are separate from classes.
https://www.basicfantasy.org/ (https://www.basicfantasy.org/)
Another one is Sci-Fi. Stars Without Number. It's not all of that game, but it is 90%. What is missing are GM materials for world building. You won't miss it.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/230009 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/230009)
Or even official 5th edition rules. They're supposed to be just free rulebooks to get started, but they have enough detail to run games.
https://dnd.wizards.com/what-is-dnd/basic-rules (https://dnd.wizards.com/what-is-dnd/basic-rules)
And here is a super rules lite game called Pocket Fantasy. It's got a dungeon builder and bestiary included, and the whole game runs on just a single 1D6 dice roll. I do recommend getting the other free additions for more classes and magic gear.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/189191 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/189191)
You can do most of what you want for free.
Owlbear Rodeo is free and allows one to use gestural or standard mouse, or a Wacom tablet to draw or use image on a battle-board, with miniatures.
If your Wife and son have pads as well, they can link in and use the same board to make moves on the fly.
It's very smooth for using a finger or pen on your tablet (arguably the best iteration of this style), has a built in die roller box with dice that act like the real thing.
Then, you can use Google Slides, to set up a collage of images, with the slides linked to specific audio, and cast that to your TV, using a cheap Chromecast device (some TV's have the feature built in).
You can run your OneNotes or something similar from your pad, or just use an actual notepad to jot down notes (just like the old days: still works).
Really, the only thing you might need to spring for is a Chromecast stick which is dirt cheap these days.
You could reverse to make the PC and tablet, whatever works.
Roll20 has a lot of this as well (as well as the other VTT's), but for an actual game, it's overkill and most features aren't necessary.
You could do it all from an iPad. If it was me, it would be using GS casting to the TV in far background (or behind you, the DM) with relevant setting images on low light, ambient music to suit the mood, and a decent sized iPad in the centre of the table, with OB running when needed, to be used by all and physical dice, books and plain-old notepaper.
You don't want the electronics to detract from the traditional hobby style approach too much. Sometimes just a few candles under low light, with just the dice and books at hand does wonders for the imagination of a table.
/sp
Roll20 is free (with limited upload capacity, but fine to start) and would give you what you need, it sounds like. I'd suggest buying the 5e D&D Essentials Kit on Roll20 as it is designed to accommodate small player groups with the Sidekick rules and is also a good intro to the system - you get a level 1-6 sandbox campaign that can easily be augmented with your own stuff.
See https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/bundle/4386/essentials-kit-deluxe-edition
This looks like a good deal https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/bundle/14718/dandd-dm-starter-bundle/ - buying the Monster Manual on Roll20 is well worth it, as you get all the monster art tokens with integrated stat blocks etc.
Take a look at Role VTT for the simple but nice side and Foundry* VTT for the awesome quality side.
*Foundry can have a steeper starting learning curve but you can dial complexity and automation through the adding of modules. No coding required.
I should note none of the sites are that tablet friendly except possibly Role
I used Owlbear Rodeo during the shutdowns. It is a great tool. You can download any map if it is a photo, and just use it. You can draw your own maps, you can make custom tokens with pictures of whatever characters, monsters, or objects that you want, of whatever size you need.
There is a "Fog of War" application that allows you to reveal the map as it is explored.
There is an initiative tracker, and digital dice.
It is pretty bare bones, but it did everything I wanted it to do, with very little fuss. It does not have character sheets.
If you want digital character sheets that track damage, modifiers, and such, you'll have to search for whatever game you are using. My wife uses Fightclub digital sheets, they have character sheets for several different systems.
I likewise used Owlbear Rodeo during the lockdowns, ran a group through Dwimmermount for more than a year, with DungeonScrawler for simple old-school dungeon maps.
Owlbear Rodeo 1.0 was free / patreoned, but they're shifting to a subscription model for 2.0
In 2022 we shifted to a multi-DM playthrough of Candlekeep, and my co-DMs wanted to use Foundry VTT. This is much fancier, but embedding the rules also has downsides: if you want to use rule variants you need to do some really complex configuration, and the more complex the content is the more it makes sense to start buying content from other people, which can add $$ or temp people to start pirating.
Still a lot cheaper / less obnoxious than Roll20 requiring me to re-buy every 5e book in "digital format".