How to play D&D in Tabletop Simulator

It is VERY important you know how to use and control Tabletop Simulator before using this mod. This is NOT a guide on how to use Tabletop Simulator, or how to play D&D, it's how to SETUP to play D&D in Tabletop Simulator.

I recommend playing the tutorial on the main menu first (The tutorial is the Lightbulb button in the middle) you can also press the '/' or '?' key to bring up the control instructions.

There are also PDFs in this mod that you can read over that will help you learn to play D&D if it's your first time i.e. the Player's Handbook which is located on the DM's (Player Color black) side of the table.

If you have not already, go subscribe to the D&D Table mod, this has everything you need to setup and play D&D.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887122859
First, the host needs to click 'Create' on the Main Menu, and then click 'Multiplayer'.

Next, they decide set who can join: Public, Friends, or invite only.

The host should be the person with the most stable internet connection and best proximity to all the other players, as their connection will affect all the players who join. It's also preferable, but not mandatory, that the host is the DM. Otherwise, the host can Right-Click on the DM's name, and Click 'Promote' to give them higher permissions while in game.

For instance, if you have someone in Germany host, and everyone else is in the US, all the US players will have high latency, even if the German host has good internet. If the host ever disconnects or their game crashes, EVERYONE will also disconnect.

Once the host has started the game, they should have the game selection UI pop up. Near the workshop section, should be the D&D Game Table mod, if it's not there, click on the Blue Workshop button to pull up all the mods you are subscribed to and search for it there.

Left click the thumbnail of the mod, and click load to start loading the mod. Once the host has fully loaded in, THEN, the rest of the players should join.

To invite players, on the top right of the screen where the player names are, the host can click on the 'Plus' button to invite people on their friend's list. Or, players can click the 'Join' button on the main menu and join that way.

Player's can also join by pressing 'SHIFT + TAB' to bring up the steam overlay and right click on your friends, then click 'Invite to Game' or if you're the player click 'Join Game'

When you load in, select one of the outer colored circles to become a player. This choice only affects where you sit at the table, so pick your favorite color or seat!

The two circles in the middle are Black and Grey. Only the player who wants to be the DM (Dungeon Master) should pick the Black color. Anyone who doesn’t pick a color or clicks on the Gray color, will become a Spectator.

Nearly everything in the D&D game table mod is in a bag or an infinite bag. If you played the tutorial you know how to drag items out of bags, like drawing a card out of a deck of cards. Infinite bags will always spawn the same item that was dragged out of it. Bags have a finite amount of stuff in them. You can tell which is which based on their icons when hovering over them. Infinite (left) have an infinity symbol, regular bags (right) have a bag icon.

This is important to bring up because a lot of cards and boxes are nested inside other boxes. Such as all the classes and their subclasses.

I strongly encourage the DM to play around and look through the boxes in this mod if you are unfamiliar where everything is.

However, if the DM knows exactly what they want, but is having trouble finding a particular item, they can Right-Click a regular bag, and select the Bag Explorer option to bring up a UI that makes it easier to search nested boxes.

You can search the name of the card you are looking for and drag the name to the area you want to spawn it. Any player can use Bag Explorer, not just the DM. BUT, be aware only one person can use it at time.

In this mod, dice rollers automatically spawn dice when you click on the buttons on the roller strip. The icons show D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, and D20s. Every time you press one of the buttons, it spawns one of those dice. You can mix and match, and when you want to, press Roll to roll the dice.

Text will then show up for everyone, showing who rolled, and what number they rolled. The dice will then automatically add up the totals. Press Clear when you want to clear the area of the dice.

You can type a number in the box between the D20 and Roll button. This number will be added to the total after rolling dice. This is used for adding modifiers to dice rolls, a common occurrence in D&D. If you want to quickly save the amount of dice you roll, such as rolling eight D6s for Fireball, You can spawn the amount of dice you want to save, and Left Click one of the save slots on the bottom. Every time you press that save, it will spawn additional dice of what was saved. To clear a save Right Click that save. Instead of rolling percentile dice, you can click on the Roll (Prob) button to have a random percentage show up instead. Pressing this button shows up for everyone. When you press either the Roll (Adv) or Roll (Dis) buttons, you are having the dice roller show which of the dice rolled was the highest (Advantage) or lowest (Disadvantage) of all the dice rolled. These buttons are commonly used when rolling two D20s for Advantage or Disadvantage. This dice roller will only show the DM and the player who pressed it the total of the dice rolled. If the DM uses this dice roller, only they will see the result.

To start creating player characters, head over and find the Character Creation Box. Then pull out the Character Sheet box. Inside there are Standard and Dark mode versions, pick your favorite.
Below will describe more in depth what each sheet does.

Also included in the Character Creation box is a checklist on how to make a character. You can click each box to check off when you completed a step.

This is the character sheet you will be looking at the most as a player. It has automatic calculations for all the Abilities, Skills, etc.

• You can increment all numbers by pressing on the '+' or '-' buttons.
  
• You can press on the bullet points to add proficiency bonus to skills, click again to make it expertise in that skill (adding proficiency bonus twice), click once more to reset it.
  
• You can click to increment or type in the values of the Maximum HP, Current HP, Temporary HP, and expendable resources of your character.
  
• Pressing the Long Rest button sets your current HP equal to your Max HP, does the same for your expendable resources, and sets your Temporary HP to zero.
  
• The item bag sections are Placeholders for item cards. Drag an item card onto a slot for it to automatically position itself. This area is for quickly referencing items, essentially like a hot bar.

The action bar is used to help players keep track of what they can do in combat. On a card they receive, whether it's a feat, spell, class card, etc. It will indicate a symbol of what type of action they can use that feature as. The player can then write down the name of that feature under the icons.

When it's that player's turn, they can click the action icon to make it disappear, so it's easy to tell when they used that action on their turn. That player can then reset the icons by clicking the Reset button, or clicking the icon again to bring it back. Make sure to lock the action bar so the player doesn't accidentally delete the written text.

This sheet is meant to store the item cards that are not as important to have on the item hot bar on the main character sheet. You can also input your character's physical traits, push, pull, carry weight, and track their currency. This is a token that is meant to be placed on to the Inventory Sheet. It's meant to be used to display and image of your player character. To change the image, the Host must right-click on the token, click Custom, then either paste the image url of the image or click on the folder icon and browse for the image they want to import. Click Cloud after importing for every player to be able to see it. This sheet is for tracking number of spells, and their relevant calculations, saving throw, attack bonus, etc. This sheet is used for keeping track of spell slots for player's who have classes that can cast spells. This is a simplified character sheet that can be used for sidekicks or new players.

When creating a character, your class features are shown on cards. Head over to the Classes box and drag out the class you plan on playing. We will be using the Fighter class box as an example. Inside every class box, has their:

• Creating a level 1 *Class
  
• Class Table, showing what they get at each level
  
• Bag of Equipment Cards
  
• Spells, Weapon Masteries, Feats, Special options, if any
  
• Subclasses, each class gets one at level 3+

Whatever character level that player is, drag out the relevant cards that are that level and lower. For example, if they are level 5, drag out all the cards that say "Class Features: Level 1" up to level 5. The player can drag them over to their player area and arrange them however they wish.

Consult the character creation checklist for which cards you need to make your character. Steps 1 to 3 can be done in any order.

Backgrounds, Species, and miscellaneous feats are located in the Character Creation box.

Spells are also shown as cards for ease of reference. Every spell card has:

• Casting time, whether it's an Action, Bonus Action, 1 minute, etc.
  
• Range: how far it can target.
  
• Duration: how long it lasts.
  
• Spell components: Verbal: needs to be spoken to be cast, Materials needed, Somatic: hand movements.
  
• Spell school its categorized as, Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, or Transmutation.
  
• What classes can cast the spell initially, any class, background, feat, or card that says otherwise can also allow you to cast the spell.

Be aware, if you are dragging spells out of the Spells box, it may lag because there is a stack of every single spell in the game being dragged out. It's recommended to instead use Bag Explorer if you know what spells you are looing for.

Every player needs a mini, and the DM needs several hundred. Head over to the Miniatures box on the DM side and go through it. You can have your players look at what minis they want and you can choose the minis of the NPCs they interact with.

You can also use Bag Explorer to search by name and drag them out that way instead. All creatures are named respectively, i.e. Owlbears, Goblins, etc.

Once you have a mini, it is my personal preference to color the minis the same as the player's in game color, however it's up to you what color tint you change them to. To change their color, Right Click them > Click Color Tint, and chose any color you want. The DND mini injector is a tool used to help keep track of initiative, HP, and movement of miniatures during combat. Below I try to give a simple explanation of how it works, if you want a more in depth guide, check out the original mod by ColColonClearn and/or the video tutorial below.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2454472719&searchtext=dnd+mini+injector

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWwq8VGAHL0

Once you have the minis for your players and creatures its time to set them up for when combat starts. Drag any mini onto the DND mini injector on the DM's side. Only the DM can see and interact with the text on the injector tool.

After you place the mini on the injector, it will spawn a UI above the mini like the one below. I will step by step go over what each of these do.

If you have trouble pressing the buttons on the mini's UI, you may need to hold Right Click and slightly change your camera view till you can press one of the options. You can press the red bar to turn the UI off at any time.

If an option is colored Red, it means it's selected / on. If it's gray, the option is turned off.

When this option is selected, the mini's name will change to be the same color as the mini's color tint on the initiative, shown on the right side of the screen. If a color is pressed on the UI, the mini will be highlighted that color and their name in initiative will be that color instead. Otherwise, a mini's name on initiative will be white.
When this option is turned on, it spawns a token and a line that increments when the mini is picked up and moves further away. This is used to track how far a character moves on a turn.
This option is a preference setting that changes how the measure movement increments during diagonal movement. When turned off, every diagonal space is 5 feet. When turned on, the more mathematically accurate rule from the Dungeon Master's Guide is used where movement alternates between 5 feet and 10 feet for each diagonal space. This option prevents a mini from sliding down sloped surfaces. Bar Edit Buttons. Check the Bar edit button allows the bars to have '+' and '-' buttons on either side of the bars.

Below Zero and Above Max. Checking these options allows a mini's bar's value to go below zero and above its maximum value respectively.

Hide Bars. Checking these options will turn off the UI or turn on the UI of the HP bar and two more bars colored Blue and Yellow. These additional bars can be used to track other resources. The Max sections below them change the max values of the respective bar.

Minis roll initiative automatically. Checking the 'Initiative Include' option will add that mini to initiative when the injector's Roll button is pressed.

The 'Initiative Mod' is a bonus value added to that minis initiative when rolled. Otherwise, you can enter a manual initiative in the 'Initiative Value' if rolling is disabled. 'Initiative Value' resets to 100 each time initiative ends.

When you are ready to start combat, hit the Roll button to start initiative. This rolls for EVERYONE, players and NPCs. If they were injected, their HP values will be shown on the injector tool and their initiative roll will be shown on the right side of the screen for every player. During combat, you can move to the next character's turn by pressing the red arrows. When it's someone's turn, a ping arrow and sound will indicate which mini's turn it is. If you lose track of which mini's is should be, you can press the Refresh button to ping that mini again.

When combat is over, you can press the Reset button to clear the screen of the iniative.

There are two ways to use maps for D&D on this table. The easiest way, is find the 'Customize Board' on the right side of the DM Screen, and click it.

This will change the grid area in the middle of the table white and will allow you to change it's image. You can Right Click the white area > Custom > and paste the Image URL or folder browse for a map you want to use in the 'Diffuse/Image' area.

The harder, more complex way to create maps, instantly spawning images and props in a thorough interconnected hub, is called One World.

While One World may be a little complicated, you can make maps that link to other maps and spawn objects on top of images. And there are a vast amount of mods on the workshop that people make to share and allow you to import and play with.

For a simple video tutorial, see Tattle Tale's video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOVAI_0dPVw

For an in depth guide, watch ColColonCleaner's video.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EvakLCmzZE&ab_channel=ColColonCleaner

When you want to have players enter a dungeon or a new area, and not be able to see the entire map, you can use Fog of War, which is an area that darkens the center of the table, and the players can see, but the DM can. On the DM side press the Fog of War button to spawn one on the table. To reveal the area in a Fog of War, you must set either the minis of your players or a designated object to reveal it. To set it, go to Toggles > Reveal Fog of War. You can then customize the range, height, and even set a visual indicator of the range.

If you set a reveal color, only that player and the DM will see what is revealed with that setting for that object.

Make sure any map or objects that you have is set to 'Ignore Fog of War', or else your players won't see the objects at all, sometimes the reveal area doesn't reveal all objects unless they're right on top of them.

To delete, reset, or further customize a Fog of War area, you can select the Fog of War tool. Either press the 'F3' key five times, or go to the UI on the left side and the third down option, select the fifth option, Fog of War. See below. Left click the Fog of War to customize or select delete.

The hidden zones are enabled to prevent players from viewing other player's areas.

The color tint can be annoying to some people. To turn the color tint opacity down go to: Menu > Configuration > Interface > Misc. Settings > Hidden Zone Show Opacity.

Turn the Hidden Zone Show Opacity slider all the way down.

There is also a tool to turn them off on DM's side.

There is a circle token on the DM's side that prevents players from picking up and moving items that are not theirs from another player's colored area. To turn this off, press 'F' to flip the token over to the 'OFF' state. The blindfold and promote board are for setting permissions of players in game. Left click the blindfold to blindfold EVERY player except the DM.

If you want to blindfold a particular player, use the promote board. The promote board can also be used to switch a player to a different color, or promote them, giving them higher permissions.

The light saver tool allows the DM to change the lighting of the table, to set a given mood.

To change the lighting to one of the presets, simply click on the name of the button. If you want to create your own lighting preset, you need to do the following:

The weather effect tool allows the DM to add cool effects to set the mood for a particular scenario.

That's a large chunk of how to play D&D using this mod.

This is the first steam guide I've made so it may be a bit sloppy and I haven't included every single explanation of everything in the mod. But, I encourage you to tinker and learn for yourself how things work. The best way to learn is to go into the mod and mess around with things.

For some of the stuff I didn't mention, there should be notecards in game explaining, or tooltips that appear if you hover your mouse cursor over the item.

Of course, if there are any issues, if you have any suggestions, or just want to give any feedback. Don't be afraid to leave comments on this guide or on the workshop.

Have fun, and good luck on your D&D journeys!