Live video chat will make your online board game night run much more smoothly. In my experience, Zoom is the most consistent service and works on almost any device. One person in your group will need a paid subscription if you want to host an event longer than 40 minutes.
I will usually split my screen with a small, tiled video chat window on one side and the board game on the other. This lets me see everyone and the game at the same time.
I do this by going fullscreen in my game then dragging the Zoom window on top of the fullscreen window. Discord recently added screen sharing and video calls to their apps.
If your playgroup already has accounts then you can use that to chat during your games. Here are my favourite websites and apps to play board games online.
I ranked them based on a few different criteria important to me. Board Game Arena is my top pick for playing board games online. It enforces the rules of each game automatically, runs directly in the browser, and there are a few games available for free.
