![]() While tabletop games are traditionally played with pen and paper around a table, increasingly they are being played online. With more phone apps coming out every year, even people playing in person are adding more tech to their games. Discord is one of my favorite tools for playing RPGs: the versatility of the tool makes it essential for online play, and can enhance table play for secret conversations, organizing campaign notes, or even just adding cool music. What follows are 5 amazing tools to enhance your RPG experience on Discord. 1) Avrae The most useful capability of Avrae is that you can import characters made on D&D Beyond or through a google sheet, and automatically generate macros for them. It makes it very easy to do text-based combat over Discord using simple commands like “/attack”. Other useful tools on Avrae include an initiative tracker, advanced dice rolling (2d6+4 drop the lowest or reroll), and the ability to look up spells, monsters, items and more from the database. With just a few simple text commands, you have access to all of the 5e SRD and can easily simulate most aspects of a campaign right from the Discord app. Though it’s the most comprehensive bot for Dungeons and Dragons, the weakness of Avrae is in its focus. Avrae is only usable with Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, and focused particularly on 5e. If you’re playing Pathfinder, or any other system, you won’t be able to use it. 2) Dash Delta The Dash Delta bot has slightly different functionality, but supports multiple systems including: 5e, 3.5, Pathfinder, and Starfinder. While you cannot import characters, it still has a complex inline dice roller and the ability to look up spells, monsters, and items. One thing it does differently than Avrae is you can generate random character or tavern names, gossip, and weather. For example, when I type in “/ generate tavern-name”, it gives back “The Kobold and the Barbarian.” When I type in “/generate weather”, it returns “Today the weather is wet with a flurry of snow. The weather has been like this for several days. The weather is causing the sun not to go down. The locals are loving the weather.” This is a great tool for any GM that wants to roll some random table without clicking through various browser tabs, book pages, or links. 3) RPG Bot RPG is a system-agnostic bot that allows you to create a character right in discord by answering a few questions. One unique feature is that it allows you to add pokemon to your inventory, and even set the stats of the pokemon. Perhaps the most useful function is the bot has an extensive inventory and economy system. Using this bot, servers can accurately portray an economy system that includes character inventory, an auction system, loot, a lottery, and a market. It even allows you to “pay” other characters through whatever fictional currency system your server is using. This is a great addition to any RPG server that either focuses on Pokemon or which wants to simulate a large, out of session economy to immerse its characters even further into the world. 4) D1-C3 D1-C3 is a bot specifically designed to enhance Star Wars RPG games. This bot supports Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, and Force and Destiny. This bot is able to track initiative and manage the destiny points of your players, as well as roll any combination of SWRPG dice. The bot is made by the same company creating the new Genesys game, so it reflects their design philosophy and will work with that system as well. 5) Branch Branch is useful for those who want to add some thematic and environmental music to their campaigns. Branch will play the audio from any youtube video you select, and so can be used to curate a playlist for your campaign. Whether its music for battle, taverns, or a PC death, you can use simple discord commands to play them at the appropriate time, and control the volume for each of your players. It’s not a perfect app, as there are a few glitches and it needs some more features to make it even better, but it updates daily. You may not use much technology in your game, but if you do, consider using these discord bots to lighten the load of being a DM. Ryan Langr is a DM, player, and content creator of Dungeons & Dragons 5e. His passions include epic plot twists, creating exceptionally scary creatures, and finding ways to bring his player’s characters to the brink of death. He also plays Pathfinder/3.5. In his real life, he is a stay at home dad, husband, and blogger of many other interests. Picture Reference: Discord logo from https://www.podfeet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/discord-logo.png
me
24/10/2019 09:55:08 pm
where are the links?
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Simon Landmine
19/3/2020 11:00:57 am
As an alternative to Branch, there is a rather nifty Discord Soundboard bot out there, which is the only one that I've found that enabled me to play background music from the mp3s on my machine at my players - which meant it was possible to implement TableTopAudio's excellent range of free ambient and musical tracks, as well as assorted free effects (the shotgun-pump-and-fire.mp3 has had a fair bit of use in my Feng Shui 2 campaign).
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Kyle Trenton
25/3/2020 09:38:43 am
What's the name of that soundboard bot? I tried to just google "soundboard bot", and got about 1000 different options. Thanks!
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Simon Landmine
25/3/2020 10:02:41 am
Sorry - I meant to come back and confirm, but forgot with everything else going on.
lou
20/4/2020 03:51:16 pm
Can you drop a link for the BRANCH bot. No luck googling it but I am new to discord so many not be looking in the right places. Thanks!
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28/6/2020 07:31:13 am
If you’re looking to play PbtA games specifically, check out ApocaBot! It lets you save simple character sheets, has custom commands for basic moves, and supports a bunch of different PbtA games on Discord.
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Gerardo Antonio Barcenas Cervantes
17/12/2020 01:36:21 pm
Is there a bot that can add npc's to the rp server?
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steave1425
19/3/2021 06:39:45 pm
Maybe InCharacter?
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David L.
12/4/2021 03:07:39 pm
I found a bot called TupperBox that lets you specify a name and avatar, pairing it to a particular text string. If you use that text string when sending a message, TupperBox will replace your message with the same thing from that name.
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