There are tons of virtual tabletops that make this easy to do over discord. Check out Owlbear Rodeo, Alchemy or Foundry VTT, in reverse order complexity.
Also roll20
Roll20 is okay, but IMO it’s worse than all of those others mentioned.
Ah ok. I’m in my first campaign along with several other newbies and we’re using roll20. Going to let them know about the other options.
Foundry is by far the best IME, but it requires a bit more work for the DM to set up initially.
I love foundry but “a bit more” is a wild understatement.
It depends on your comfort level with technology. It only took me an afternoon to set up the first time, and the updates are fairly straightforward.
And after Foundry would be MapTool, of course.
Even without a gameboard, and even without finely tracking movement at all, you can still have players with movement builds and make them feel powerful. Describing opponents like longbow users and warmages as being within range of a move action “for you, but not for the others” is just one basic way to make them feel fast. Things like difficult terrain being an effective nonissue for them is good to keep in mind. Just remember to describe how fast they are in combat, and give them fun things to do with that speed.
There are so many free(mium) alternatives for playing RPGs and specifically 5e over the internet that playing virtually without a map is almost a conscious choice*.
You’ve gotten some good advice, but I want to add that if you’re feeling masochistic you can use the discord bot Avrae to do your maps in discord chat.
Joking aside, Avrae is great and I really recommend you check it out if you aren’t using it… but using it for maps is kinda miserable. Using a dedicated virtual tabletop like Owlbear Rodeo will serve you much better.
I open a map on paint.net, overlay a grid on it if it hasn’t one already, and place player/enemy tokens on it. Then I stream it to all the group.
It’s 100% free and it’s relatively quick to set up and run.
I’ve played in a DnD group using Discord before. Google Sheets works surprisingly well as a gameboard. It also allowed us to move characters and point stuff out remotely, since it supports simultaneous live editing.
That sounds creative, yet horrifying
Owlbear. Rodeo.
What anime is this
I think this has to be Attack on Titan, right?
That would be correct
Removed by mod
No It’s not. Hardest part is finding a group
Second hardest part is getting that group to consistently show up lol
It’s a little bit of learning at first, but it’s fun once you get the basics. Or if you have a good DM who is patient.
dnd has the advantage of being the easiest ttrpg to get a group for, but i wouldnt recommend the 5e itself if you can help it. It’s primarily designed to milk money from you first and foremost.
In case anyone else wanted to use this meme template, I found this: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/365536424/Yelena-disgust-face
