The short answer: add Avrae for dice, character sheets, and initiative. Add a scheduling bot (Sesh or Apollo) so the game actually happens. Then pick one recording bot: Craig if you want raw audio, or a notes bot like Loreify if you want the session written up for you. Everything below was checked on each bot's own site in October 2026.
| Bot | Job | Cost (Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Avrae | D&D dice, character sheets, initiative | No paid tier listed |
| Dice Maiden | Fast dice for any system | Free, open source |
| Craig | Multi-track voice recording | Free; supporter tiers $1–$8/mo |
| Loreify | Records the session and writes the notes | 7-day free trial, then from $7/mo |
| Archivist | Session recaps and campaign wiki | 30-day trial, then from $10/mo |
| Kazkar | Narrative chronicles and lore wiki | Free tier with 10 hours of recording |
| Sesh | Events, availability polls, reminders | Free; Premium from $6.99/mo (billed yearly) |
| Apollo | Event signups and reminders | Free; Premium $7.99/mo or $69.99/yr |
| Kenku FM | Music and sound effects into voice chat | Pay what you want |
| Tupperbox | Post as your character | Free; optional Premium |
Avrae is the bot most people mean when they search "D&D Discord bot". Its footer credits D&D Beyond, and it does three things well:
If you link your D&D Beyond and Discord accounts, Avrae can use any content you've bought on D&D Beyond. It can also import characters without making the sheet public. If your DM links a D&D Beyond campaign to a channel with !campaign, rolls from the character sheet show up in Discord in real time.
Commands use a ! prefix by default (!help lists them). If another bot in your server already uses !, change it with !prefix.
Cost: avrae.io doesn't list a paid tier. Official book content follows your D&D Beyond purchases.
Dice Maiden is the pick if your group plays more than D&D. It's a plain dice roller with slash commands (/roll 1d20+5, or /r for short), exploding dice, keep/drop, success counting, and built-in aliases for 30+ game systems. The original Ruby version is in maintenance mode. New work happens in a Rust rewrite that was still getting commits in October 2026.
Cost: free and open source (GPL-3.0).
A note on Sidekick: older lists still recommend Sidekick. Its GitHub README says the bot has had connection problems since February 2021 and recommends switching to other bots. Use Dice Maiden or Avrae instead.
There are two kinds of recording bot. One gives you audio files. The other gives you written notes. Pick based on what you'll do with the recording.
Craig records a voice channel with a separate audio track for each speaker, so you can level or cut each person on their own. Start with /join, mark moments with /note, and finish with /stop. Downloads come as FLAC or MPEG-4 AAC, or as an Audacity or Adobe Audition project.
Free recordings can run up to 6 hours and are kept for 7 days. Supporter tiers on Patreon are $1, $4, and $8 a month. They add longer storage (14 or 30 days), a 24-hour record limit (Tier 2 and up), auto-upload to Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox, and transcripts in WebVTT, SRT, or plain text (Tier 3 only).
Craig is the right tool for podcasts and actual-play shows. It doesn't write recaps or track NPCs. For that, see Craig Bot Alternative for D&D.
Loreify is our app, so read this one with that in mind. The Loreify bot records your voice channel, and when you stop it the session is transcribed and turned into notes. A summary posts back to your Discord channel with the session recap, NPCs met, quests, loot, and a share link to the full notes. Players without a Loreify account can open that link.
The commands:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/loreify-record | Start recording your current voice channel (optional title and campaign) |
/loreify-pause / /loreify-resume | Pause and resume capture |
/loreify-stop | Stop and start processing |
/loreify-cancel | Throw the recording away without generating notes |
/loreify-status | Check the current or recent recording |
/loreify-ask | Ask a question about your campaign's lore, optionally only visible to you |
/loreify-campaign-create | Create a campaign, with a custom dictionary of names for transcription |
/loreify-settings | Set the default campaign, consent mode, and transcription language |
The bot never starts recording on its own. Servers can require each player to click a consent button before they're recorded. The full notes in the app also include a timeline, unresolved threads, quotes, and a lore map that grows each session. Setup is covered in the Discord help guide.
Cost: 7-day free trial, then $15/month, $120/year, or Casual at $7/month for up to 2 sessions. See pricing.
Archivist records live with its Discord bot, or takes audio uploads, transcripts, and pasted notes. It produces narrative recaps, a compendium of characters, places, and factions, a timeline, and a quest log. Players can ask questions about the campaign from Discord.
Cost: 30-day free trial (no card, 2 sessions). Paid plans run $10/month (4 sessions) to $60/month (40 sessions).
Kazkar starts with /summon and stops with /banish. A few minutes later you get a narrative chronicle, a lore wiki, and a relationship graph. Its site says audio is deleted after processing.
Cost: free tier with 10 hours of recording and 3 campaigns.
Scheduling kills more campaigns than dragons do. A bot that runs availability polls and sends reminders fixes most of it.
Create an event in one message. Sesh handles time zones, sends reminders, and runs availability polls that people can vote on in Discord or on the web. Events can be added to Google Calendar.
Cost: free for basic events and polls. Recurring events, custom RSVP options, and two-way Google Calendar sync need Premium: $6.99/month billed yearly for one server, or $12.99/month billed yearly for three.
Apollo posts an event with one-click signup buttons. It handles capacity limits, waitlists, and reminders. Premium can also give attendees a role when they sign up.
Cost: the free plan covers unlimited events, up to 5 recurring events, and 1 reminder per event. That is enough for one weekly game. Premium is $7.99/month or $69.99/year and adds unlimited recurring events, up to 5 custom reminders, and automatic Google Calendar sync.
Music bots that stream from YouTube come and go as platforms change their rules. A setup you control lasts longer.
Kenku FM isn't a bot you invite. It's a desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux that plays audio into your Discord call through a bot you create yourself (the docs walk you through getting a token). You can play local music and sound effects, share audio from sites like YouTube and Spotify through its built-in browser, and trigger sounds from an Elgato Stream Deck. It's open source.
Cost: pay what you want.
Jockie Music runs up to four music bots that act as one, so a second bot joins when the first is busy. That helps servers that run more than one game at once. Its site doesn't list prices. It links to a Patreon.
Tupperbox lets players post as their characters. You set up a profile with a name and avatar, then wrap a message in that profile's brackets and Tupperbox reposts it as the character. It's handy for play-by-post games and in-character channels between sessions.
Cost: free. Premium raises limits and adds extras like profile cards and custom embeds.
Most groups need three bots, not ten:
If you keep notes by hand, start with our free D&D session notes template. For the first game of a new campaign, use the session zero checklist. For the rest of the toolkit, see the DM tools we recommend.
Avrae, for most groups. It rolls dice, imports D&D Beyond characters, and tracks initiative in one bot. Add a scheduling bot and, if you want a record of each session, a recording or notes bot.
Avrae's site doesn't list any paid tier. Content beyond the free rules depends on what you've bought on D&D Beyond and linked to your Discord account.
Craig records multi-track audio for free (up to 6 hours, kept 7 days). Loreify, Archivist, and Kazkar also record from Discord, and they turn the recording into written notes.
Yes. Loreify, Archivist, and Kazkar transcribe the voice channel and write recaps automatically. Craig's top supporter tier adds transcripts, but not summaries.
Sesh and Apollo both have free plans with reminders. Sesh's availability polls help when finding a time is the hard part. Apollo's free plan includes up to 5 recurring events, which covers a weekly game.
Yes. It handles standard notation like /roll 1d20+5 and /roll 4d6 k3 for stats. It doesn't import character sheets the way Avrae does.
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