Is there a digital D&D that is turn-based and go at your own pace?
I miss playing D&D with a group, but hanging out for 5+ hours at a time every week just doesn't fit into my schedule. However, I was thinking about how some mobile games have handled this - Words with Friends has (had?) a mode where you would get notified when it was your turn, and you could play whenever you had free time. I think there's at least one chess game that operated this way as well.
I can't imagine many human players would appreciate long waits between moves, when D&D is designed to be very immersive. So I'm being realistic and wondering what options there are as a single player.
Baulder's Gate 3 is fun, but I don't expect anything with that level of graphical fidelity. And something I could play on my phone would be ideal (but not a dealbreaker if I can't).
Are there options like this out there, or do I just have to accept that D&D doesn't have a place in my life?
Try searching for "play by post" games. People set up discord servers to do exactly what you're looking for.
There are also forums set up which are far superior for asynchronous play in my experience, rather than having to scroll endlessly through Discord messages. I've been playing a variety of TTRPGs via play-by-post for a couple of years now, and it's great for gaming at your own pace.
Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 are available in enhanced editions that work on desktop and mobile, and you can even sync the same save file between your computer and your phone.
But it sounds like what you might really be looking for is a play-by-post RPG (you'll also want to search "play by mail" and "play by email", plus the abbreviations PBM or PBEM). Don't be misled by the names, a lot of them do the same thing in Slack or Discord or whatever kind of persistent chat the group decides on. There are plenty of people who don't have a whole evening to set aside but could spend 10 or 15 minutes per day typing up their character's actions.
WilderMyth very much has this "D&D Session" feel to it. You can play it multiplayer (I think).
This is one of my friends and I's favorite games. Such a unique experience
Yeah it has multiplayer and it largely works well. The UI gets pretty flustered when multiple people try to take actions at the same time though, so designating someone to control the overworld map can cut down on frustration.
If you have a group already and struggle to find time, look into digital tabletops? I've had great success with Foundry VTT.
In my case, it was a ~2 hour drive to and from the table each way, so with that kind of travel time (and setup, and chit-chat, and preparing food) we would often do 6+ hour sessions just to feel like we "got our time's worth" out of the ordeal. All in all, this was always exhausting, no matter how prepared I felt coming to the table.
Since moving to a virtual tabletop, it's cut out much of that extra time and allowed us to slim sessions down to 2-3 hours comfortably. This has a positive feedback loop because players are more likely to remain engaged if the timing of the game stays tight, as opposed to zoning out with another tab open if they are waiting 20+ minutes for their turn to act.
Apologies, not here to answer your question. I'm more curious why your games ended up at 5+ hours every week?
My group meets up at 7pm and plays until 10pm once a week which fits pretty well into our adult lives. We get a pizza and have it as a short break and treat.
2.5 hours is plenty of time to sit down and get the game going, then get some decent process if everyone is eager to play.
Not OP, but my group usually meets at around 5 p.m., eats for 30 minutes, and then continues playing until 9 p.m. We meet only about every third week, so we need to catch up a bit, get into the role, and then start playing. This usually takes a little while before everyone feels confident and gets in the game. And we don't even progress very much. The point is that it really changes a lot depending on the group dynamic and the frequency between games.
Yeah you're totally right. I'll admit I've had groups where catching up and/or slow gameplay really slows down the actual progress. With the group I mentioned above, we meet otherwise for other social stuff during the week, so ttrpg night is for ttrpg, we sit down to play so we know we want to get through some content and there's little chatter.
If that's your one contact with your friends that week, then it's more difficult. Honestly, if it was me at that point I would start to consider if it was the freinds or the game I was more interested in. It's a conversation I've had with a lot of people in the last few years and the answer is sometimes surprising.
This was part of the issue for me. No one in the group wanted to even discuss things about life beyond surface level ("have you played video game X yet?") and would dismiss other topics. Even the text group we had was purely D&D discussion.
Everyone in the group was at a different point in life as well. I was (and still am) working full time. The GM was effectively in early retirement due to disability. The 3-4 others were working part time or not at all. So I think we ultimately didn't mesh very well.
Understood! Thanks for replying. Hope you find something that fits what you want!
I totally agree, that’s why we end up playing regular board games just as often :-)
I enjoyed solasta, which has single and multi player. It is a slightly simplified 5E campaign(s) that you can play single or multi player. In multiplayer, it gets around the long turn waits by having it behave like a real time game when out of combat, and then becomes turn based when combat starts, like if someone in your party is detected by enemies.
I'm with you on not having the schedule for 5 hour sessions. I played through the solasta campaigns single and multiplayer, enjoying them both ways, and found that you could make good campaign progress in 1-2 hours multiplayer once you get in the swing of things.
Not D&D at all, but a great PC and mobile game that supports turn based play with notifications over the course of a day is wingspan.
Several folks have mentioned Play by Post roleplaying. I have a little experience with PbP, I GM'd a duet PbP of Monster of the Week and I've been in a few PbP games of Dungeon World that were varying degrees of successful. Most of my PbP has been either on forums or Discord (the longest PbP I've been in - the Monster of the Week game - was on a dedicated Discord server) but I've also messed around with Rolegate which is built specifically for asynchronous roleplay.
Do you know what you're looking for?
It seems like it's not so much the social experience you're after, otherwise you'd have crossed off anything single player.
Is it the story? The combat? The open ended chose your own adventure? The setting?
I've got suggestions but I'd need to know a bit better what you miss about DnD specifically to help.
The open-ended-ness is absolutely a preferred factor in this. Even though I know such a thing is probably not going to happen for single player games like BG3 (even if they give many possibilities).
The social aspect can be very enjoyable, but it really depends on who I'm in the same room with (virtually or physically).
I also enjoy the chaos that dice rolls bring. Sure, most games have some level of RNG these days, but the stakes are often higher in D&D.
I'm going to give play-by-post a shot soon-ish. I found a discord server that seems to be structured well. Just need to go through creating a character and reading all of their material before getting started.
But I'm still very interested in other ideas!
Yeah sounds like play by post is worth a try!
You might also enjoy some of the more open ended rogue likes too, I found they can scratch that itch of wanting to explore a world with a lot of freedom. Something like Catacysm DDA or even good old Dwarf Fortress.
I can highly, highly recommend solo TTRPG play. There are a wealth of tools for it. Hit me up if you'd like more info. Otherwise, there are some great YouTube videos that cover it in depth.
Would this at all fit what you're looking for: Friends & Fables D&D 5e AI Game-master
I tried it out for a few minutes and seemed novel and decent enough to warrant a try. I will always prefer people over AI anything. The human element, flaws and all, is the fulfilling part. That said, sometimes circumstances keep us from getting together to play at a table. I'm going to play with Friends & Fables some more, let me know what you think if you try!
Is this the one on Discord? I looked over some of the past adventures on there, and if I remember correctly, there were instances where characters that had just died were showing up doing stuff in subsequent turns. Didn't seem to have the continuity stuff down yet, but that was a year or so ago and I may have overlooked something.
They do have a discord bot, but they have a newer web version that I think is supposed to be improved. That doesn't surprise me, but I haven't used enough to see things like that.
Looks pretty cool! Admittedly a monthly subscription is a bit of a turn-off, but I understand the logic behind that. It'd be nice if something similar existed that someone could run on their own computer.
totally get, i'm exhausted by subscriptions. i really hope "Things as a Service" falls out of favor some day.
looks like there is a free trial for browser based app which to my understanding has better AI, but i could be wrong
there's also a free discord bot you can play with! here is a link for you to click
Hey, that discord implementation is neat. I played it to the end of the trial, haha.
Certainly makes the monthly fee more tempting. But I doubt I'll go through with that.
For 15.00 a month they can go sit on a big fat one. Sheesh