How to Play Text Based Dungeons and Dragons Online

It can be hard to get all of your gaming group together at the same place and time every week to play a session of the pen-and-paper role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, especially if the group members live far apart. You can solve this problem by playing online, using chat rooms and dice rolling programs to bring the game onto your home computer.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Choose a program that offers a virtual table top setting such as "OpenRPG" or "Fantasy Grounds" (see Resources). Pick one that allows you to use features such as online dice rolling and shared character sheets so that there will be no chance of cheating.

2. Prepare the overall campaign ahead of time and type out all of your story ideas, non-player character statistics and treasure into a word document so that you can reference it quickly during the game.

3. Let all of the players know what sort of characters they will be allowed to play in the session and have them roll up all of their statistics before the game begins so that they can quickly transfer them to the online setting.

4. Use the chat feature of the program you have chosen to relay information to the players such as what their characters see and how the other non-player characters in the story are acting.

5. Have the players respond with their character's actions in the chat room in an orderly fashion to simulate the experience of playing pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons like it would be played in a living room.

Tips & Warnings

• The players may get out of control or overzealous in quickly typing out their actions, so don't be afraid to ask the group to stop what they are doing or slow down so that you can respond to everyone's questions and statements.
• It is harder to use things like music, pictures or props to create the mood of the game in an online setting, so make sure that you can properly describe the feel of your campaign solely through text before starting.

Resources

• Open RPG
• Fantasy Grounds