How to Play Dungeons and Dragons Over Discord
It is possible to play D&D over Discord - and it’s fun, too!
For years, people played Dungeons & Dragons at a table in homes, libraries, and convention centers. But with the dawn of the internet, many started playing online using tools like Discord. We started Young Dragonslayers during the pandemic and have exclusively run D&D games online, several of them using Discord, so we have a few tips and tricks to share about how to get started playing D&D on Discord.
Can You Play D&D On Discord?
You can find many online D&D groups on Discord
All the things you really need to play D&D are a pencil, paper, dice, books, and some friends to play with. Even without an internet connection, you could totally go lo-fi and play D&D over the phone (I did this once with friends who lived out in the country, and it actually worked pretty well)! But there are so many amazing tools built specifically for playing D&D online (we’ve shared some of them), and Discord is among them. Servers, chats, bots, calls, and channels can all be used to craft an ideal Discord server for playing D&D.
An Overview of D&D Discord Servers For Beginners
Discord can seem puzzling at first, but we’ll tell you how to set up a Discord for DnD
The first D&D campaign I ever ran was on Discord (starting in 2020, of course), and I had no idea what Discord was or how to use it! There are so many different tools and options available that it can make Discord really intimidating for folks who haven’t used it before. Here’s an overview of what you’ll need to know to make Discord servers for D&D.
A server is a concept that will be familiar to many video-game players, but there are also several other analogues: if you’ve been part of a Slack group, Facebook group, Google Classroom, Microsoft team, or even a Zoom call, you’re familiar with the basic idea: a group of people brought together by a piece of technology for a place to communicate and play together. On Discords, servers can be private or public, and they can have as many or as few elements as the server creator wants to implement.
The only mandatory element of a server is a text channel, a place where users can sent text, video, pictures, gifs, and more. Some servers only need one text channel, which ends up more like a group chat, and some can subdivide into multiple (For example, I had to made a channel specifically for memes). Voice channels are deceptively named as they have the option to share video as well as audio. Like text channels, there can be multiple, but most D&D servers will only one for the main game and occasionally two so the extra can act as a breakout room of sorts.
In Discord, you can assign roles to different users in a server. These can be simple tags, like what pronouns someone uses, or important groups, like Player or Dungeon Master. In Discord, you can give different roles access to different parts of the server - for example, in my Discord, only Dungeon Masters can post in the “announcements” text channel. (Having that role was super helpful when I lost my voice and needed to pull in a substitute Dungeon Master!) If you’d like to get fancy with your D&D Discord server, you can also add bots, automated programs that can do all sorts of helpful things in your server, from posting polls to blocking certain words.
How To Set Up A Discord D&D Server
We’ll have you running a D&D session on Discord in no time
To set up a discord server for your D&D group, create a Discord account on their web site, then either open the browser version or download the app (we recommend the app for the fewest bugs, but you can still use most tools on the browser version). Then click “Create Your Server” along the left-hand side, select “Create My Own,” followed by “For me and my friends,” and give your server a name. It’ll create a basic server for you with one text channel and one voice channel. If you’d like more channels, you can click the “+” next to “Text Channels” on the left side. Here are a few that I usually add to new D&D servers:
Announcements - Where the Dungeon Master can remind people of upcoming games, scheduling changes, etc.
In-Game Info - Where players post character sheets, spell descriptions, homebrew content, etc, and Dungeon Masters post NPC statblocks, item descriptions, NPC art, etc.
In-Character Chat - Where players can type what their characters do or say (this is a great option for nonverbal players or side conversations)
Dice Rolling - Where all players can roll digital dice or post the results of their physical dice rolls
Art and Memes - Where all players can post art and memes related to the campaign
Bot Stuff - Where you can control bots, if you use them, and where bots can post messages
I usually leave the “general” channel for random discussion, pictures of cats, and whatever else people might want to talk about that’s not related to the campaign, and I leave the “general” voice channel as the default place where people play games.
To invite your friends to your brand-new server click the down-arrow next to the name of your server, then “Invite People.” You can send a direct link to your Discord friends, or copy a link to send out. By default, this link expired in a week and can be used any number of times; if you want a link that lasts forever or to limit the number of people who can use it, click “Edit Invite Link,” select your preference, and click “Generate a New Link.” Once your friends have joined, presto! You have everything you need to play D&D on Discord!
Running D&D on Discord with Bots
You can activate bots for D&D on Discord
If you want to up your game with your D&D Discord server, you can add bots. These are helpful little programs that can help perform particular functions in your server that you’d otherwise have to do manually.
While Discord has supported the use of bots in its servers, they are all made by third parties, so be sure to do your research and keep an eye on what permissions you’re giving Discord bots for the sake of your (and your players’) privacy and safety. Here are a few that I’ve used and found helpful for my Discord D&D servers:
Use Avrae for a Suite of D&D Tools for Discord
Avrae is a genuinely incredible D&D bot that makes games, math, and character sheets run smoothly. It can integrate with D&D character sheets from D&D Beyond, Dice Cloud, and Google Sheets, roll specific checks and spells, track initiative, and bring up in-game information like spell and item descriptions. There’s a bit of initial setup to learn the commands and get everything synced but, especially if you’ll be playing exclusively on Discord, it’s totally worth it.
Roll Dice on Discord with Dice Maiden
If Avrae is way more options than you want to mess with, you can pick a simpler bot like Dice Maiden to manage your dice rolls. It rolls any kind of dice you want and gives you bonus options like adding numbers, rolling with advantage and disadvantage, reroll dice below a certain threshold, and more.
Check Out The Discord Moderation Tools in Dyno, MEE6, and/or Carl-Bot
All of these are miscellaneous bots with a variety of tools to make your server more robust. I’ve used Dyno to manage roles, create polls, and lock/unlock servers, MEE6 to generate messages, moderate servers, and record sessions, and Carl-Bot in larger servers to manage members, moderate spam, and manage roles.
You can browse the Discord app directory to find these and other bots to fit your server; from there, click the blue “Add” button and select your D&D Discord server from the drop-down list. Then, choose what permissions you want to give the bot from the drop-down checklist and click “Authorize.” From there, each bot has its own setup options for you to choose from.
Join Our Online D&D Groups on Discord!
Discord is a great tool for playing Dungeons & Dragons online, but it only works if you have people to play with! If you’re looking for a group to play D&D on Discord with, we’re here to help. We’re a bunch of professional Dungeon Masters running online Dungeons & Dragons groups for teens. Our games use tools like Discord, Zoom, and D&D Beyond, and we customize each group and game to your preferences and play style so you can play the game you love, make some new friends, and have a great time!
