How are you doing? Are you finding ways to keep yourself mentally and emotionally strong during this pandemic? Social distancing makes our hobby a little more challenging for those of us who normally play our tabletop games face-to-face. I am a very social gamer and prefer to play games around a table, chatting, enjoying snacks, and just being together. I have had to learn new ways to keep my gaming groups together while we are physically distant. Many of you already play games online, but for some of you, this is a very new experience. I thought I would share the online tools I have found useful for playing RPGs and board games with my friends and family online.
ONLINE COMMUNICATION TOOLS
I use this tool both for text/audio/video communications and playing some play-by-post RPGs.
Still using this tool even though it is slowly being discontinued.
This is a new free tool I have just started using so cannot say how well it works. I am hoping it could work as a free replacement to Zoom.
This tool exploded in popularity and is still trying to resolve some security issues, but really is stable. Issue is, free accounts are limited to 40 minutes so unless you have a paid for account, this likely will not work for you.
ONLINE ROLEPLAYING
Great resource for classic and current roleplaying games in PDF format.
If you play D&D 5e, this is the best online resource. Even the free account is worth it.
Quickly becoming my preferred online rpg platform. Only using the free account myself.
Roll Advantage Token Stamp creates tokens that work on Roll20.
Avrae Discord Bot which connects Discord to D&D Beyond.
ONLINE BOARD GAMES
I know people who use this for RPGs and board games. So far I have only tried playing board games on it.
Another great platform for online board games.
What online tools have you found useful for your gaming during this time of social distancing?