Starting a D&D stream or already on board? Discussion!

Hey everyone, I'd love to hear your thoughts and experience about streaming your D&D games online. Digital, tabletop, whatever!  What preparations did you make in regards to setting up your stream with graphics? Did you go all-out and set up social media to gain an audience? What difficulties did you experience or are still experiencing? What's your motivation? Anything like that! I'm eager to get a conversation going.

I don't stream, but I do record and post privately to Youtube for archival purposes. There are several reasons for this. First, my players are all long time friends, and tend to discuss matters that don't need to be in a broadcast (family updates, health, etc.). If we were to stream, it would change the level of intimacy. Second, I have strong feeling on the rebroadcasting of copyrighted material. I use a lot of stuff from google searches for maps and scenes and tokens. If they are freely available, I have no problems with private usage. However, re-broadcasting is a no-no, even if the channel is not monetized. I frankly even have problems with game lore podcasts who show image after image after image from Deviant Art or Google Images, with no attribution, playing music in the background again with no attribution. I know they are exploiting a loophole, but it would make me feel uncomfortable. That being said, I can speak to some of the technical solutions I employ. We use Skype for video/audio and OBS to composite everything. I run the game in two windows, the second being a dummy player with control of all PCs, so that the video feed shows a composite player view, rather than the GM view with all its hidden stuff. If I know there's a prop illustration that will be used, I sometimes keep those on hidden panels in OBS, and toggle them on as needed. Programming OBS is difficult with Applescript, but it can be done, so I use that so I can keep something on hotkeys even when the program is not in the front. If I were streaming the game professionally, the first thing I would do is delegate the recording to a non-player, so that the switching of scenes, views and resources would be smoother and less distracting to the GM (me). As it is, I use Applescript to size windows consistently so as not to disturb the OBS panels, and to reveal and hide windows at need. It requires a lot of juggling. (Skype, OBS, and three browser windows (the third is for the game notes).

I stream pretty much daily. Most of it is art streams where I make my maps on stream, but I also stream my player sessions twice a week. <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/tabletop_twitch" rel="nofollow">https://www.twitch.tv/tabletop_twitch</a> What preparations did you make in regards to setting up your stream with graphics? Learning OBS took only an hour or two, it's not super complicated. I'd say making a layout that worked was the most difficult part. Took many iterations over a few months until it was decent. You want something that portrays all necessary information to the viewers, and does so in a way that's not messy and is graphically pleasing. Did you go all-out and set up social media to gain an audience? Yeah, I set up a Discord immediately and pushed that. With about 1000 followers, it's grown to quite the community. People use it to talk about the channel, but also to organize groups of their own or to help each other learn to be a DM or Player. What difficulties did you experience or are still experiencing? I'd say finding my "groove" was the most difficult thing. When it comes to streaming, you have to stand out both in terms of quality and content, or else you'll just be "another drop in the ocean". It took a while to find my niche and build a viewer base, which ended up revolving around map making and drawing. Now that I have found my area, it all kind of fell into place. What's your motivation? It's fun, I enjoy it and my viewers seem to as well. That's all I need. ...and the side cash doesn't hurt either.

I've been running a Pathfinder / 5e / starfinder(recently) stream since early 2016 over at <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/markofthedragon" rel="nofollow">https://www.twitch.tv/markofthedragon</a> uploading sessions to YouTube afterwards for retention and looking back at a campaign after we finish one. What preparations did you make in regards to setting up your stream with graphics? When I first started, I just ran Roll20 in a Full Screen and that was the entirety of it.&nbsp; Very amateur.&nbsp; Later on as we went and I got a better handle on the OBS software, I created an overlay border and character portraits.&nbsp; I changed layouts about a year or so ago, adding a webcam, logos, rotating portraits/stats, and capturing the chat panel separately so I can enlarge it for easier reading.&nbsp; Current Example: Did you go all-out and set up social media to gain an audience? Not at all.&nbsp; My original purpose was just to play around with it, and to record our sessions just as a fun way to look back at earlier games.&nbsp; Even now I don't really do much to promote it... I'm not really looking for a lot of viewers and certainly not to make any money off it. Currently I'll announce on Twitter when a session is starting, and I've long since setup a Discord Server to use for voice chat and a place to talk about the games between sessions.&nbsp; We also use Discord for just general chat and other games too though. It's small, but used by anyone to setup their own games, public voice chats, etc.&nbsp; Just a nice little group of friends and shared interests. I don't actually like to "Promote" my stream really. It feels too skeevy like a used car salesman. If people ask about it or show interest I'll point them that way, but that's about it. Links in a forum or chat when talking about it is about the extent. What difficulties did you experience or are still experiencing? Audio, Audio, Audio!&nbsp; The biggest obstacle to a good stream is establishing good audio quality.&nbsp; Streamers have a difficult enough time with this on their own, but when you introduce 4+ other people with their own audio setups you can't control... it can be really rough.&nbsp; There's pretty much just nothing you can do about it, except control the volume (Which is why we use Discord, so you can control individual's volume) At some point I wanted to get all the players on webcams, but most folks are not super comfortable about that.&nbsp; Otherwise, the hardest thing I have yet to figure out how to manage, is interacting with Twitch Chat while I'm DM'ing.&nbsp; I basically just tell chat that I see their messages but won't be able to reply right away as I don't want to break character while running a game. What's your motivation? It's hard to say, honestly.&nbsp; It's fun to play around with the technology, and I've definitely noticed a little extra "energy" from players when they know a stream is running... like they're putting on a show and put extra effort in.&nbsp; I've always been of&nbsp; the opinion that if viewers show up, great, but no big deal if not.. so I'm not trying to "make it big" or anything like that.&nbsp; It's just a fun little hobby. One material aspect that I've found very nice to have is that when you're streaming (and posting to YouTube) it's a REALLY great thing to be able to watch the previous session to remember what's going on or to clarify notes or something.&nbsp; It's also a super-great sense of accomplishment to FINALLY finish a year+ or so long campaign and be able to look back at 50+ sessions to where your characters were cute little level 3s struggling instead of the level 16 demigods you've become :)

I'm running a 5e Tomb of Annihilation campaign with a group I've been DMing for a couple of years now through different campaigns. ToA is our first time streaming: <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/cosmicsillinessprinciple" rel="nofollow">https://www.twitch.tv/cosmicsillinessprinciple</a> I also upload the sessions to a YouTube Playlist: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnY3rc5bnds" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnY3rc5bnds</a>... What preparations did you make in regards to setting up your stream with graphics? I made an intro slideshow for that time right before you're ready to go live but want to start the stream anyway, along with two overlays, one that is a main title with the character statblocks, and one that's got cutouts for showing the map & chat from Roll20. I even did a couple for our Christmas Special. Here, enjoy: <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1O6FGR7wxu4UGUwlSonKLenlVHPMNTpyq" rel="nofollow">https://drive.google.com/open?id=1O6FGR7wxu4UGUwlSonKLenlVHPMNTpyq</a> Did you go all-out and set up social media to gain an audience? No. I do tweet about it before we go live. This is probably how we have gained our 12 followers. :-) To be honest, though, my 5-10 views and 0-1 likes per week aren't the reason I do it. <a href="https://twitter.com/cosmicsilliness/status/9617438" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/cosmicsilliness/status/9617438</a>... What difficulties did you experience or are still experiencing? I wouldn't call them "difficulties" per se. But here are a couple of challenges: 1. I run the stream, DM the game, manage the Twitch chat (as it is), remix / lightly edit the recordings, upload them to youtube, do all the promotion, etc. And the first three are happening during the session. Basically it'd be way easier with another me or two. Hmm, I think there's a Michael Keaton movie about that. 2. OBS is a hog. When you're streaming, you can either broadcast your DM screens or run two instances of Roll20, one for you to DM with and one to stream. Throw in an OBS bug where if it isn't recording the entire monitor (and instead is only recording certain windows) it pegs your CPU at 50%. That's fun. Both are surmountable. I could get friends / players to monitor Twitch chat. I could buy another monitor or a computer just for streaming. Or get someone to manage all of the above. Am I likely to? Who knows? It's working well enough right now. What's your motivation? At first it was just to try it out. Now I think our biggest benefit is that players can go back and watch the recordings on YouTube to flesh out their notes, or find out what happened in a session they missed. Also, it's kinda fun.

MarkOfTheDragon said: What difficulties did you experience or are still experiencing? &nbsp; Otherwise, the hardest thing I have yet to figure out how to manage, is interacting with Twitch Chat while I'm DM'ing.&nbsp; I basically just tell chat that I see their messages but won't be able to reply right away as I don't want to break character while running a game. What's your motivation? It's hard to say, honestly.&nbsp; It's fun to play around with the technology, and I've definitely noticed a little extra "energy" from players when they know a stream is running... like they're putting on a show and put extra effort in.&nbsp; I've always been of&nbsp; the opinion that if viewers show up, great, but no big deal if not.. so I'm not trying to "make it big" or anything like that.&nbsp; It's just a fun little hobby. I agree with all of the above.

I just wanted to say, I've been following this thread and have been grateful to read about other people's experiences. I am planning to begin a new Roll20 campaign for my own players in the next month or so, and intend to stream it on Twitch. Since I have Amazon Prime, I also have a Twitch Prime account. I've also already purchased a license for X-Split, but still need to experiment with using it. I want to get a new microphone too, looking at the Yeti. Like MarkofTheDragon above, my players are not really interested in being on video. So I'm not going to worry about that part, and instead focus on good audio.

Brett E. said: I just wanted to say, I've been following this thread and have been grateful to read about other people's experiences. I am planning to begin a new Roll20 campaign for my own players in the next month or so, and intend to stream it on Twitch. Since I have Amazon Prime, I also have a Twitch Prime account. I've also already purchased a license for X-Split, but still need to experiment with using it. I want to get a new microphone too, looking at the Yeti. Like MarkofTheDragon above, my players are not really interested in being on video. So I'm not going to worry about that part, and instead focus on good audio. I don't have experience with X-Split, so I'd be interested in how you like it. As far as the Yeti goes, I like mine a lot. But the biggest difference we had was switching to Discord for our voice chat. Even the folks who didn't have really nice mics sound much better on Discord, plus you can individually set each person's volume. Also, good luck with the new campaign!

Bryan said: But the biggest difference we had was switching to Discord for our voice chat. Even the folks who didn't have really nice mics sound much better on Discord, plus you can individually set each person's volume. Actually, we already switched to Discord a couple of months ago. :-)&nbsp; Up until that point, I was using Ventrilo. But it seemed to be getting worse and worse over time, although in fairness that may have been the fault of the hosting service I was using and not the application itself. At any rate, we are all very happy with Discord and have no plans to switch back.