I'm not smart enough to set it up through command line and I haven't found a program I can get working yet. Probably a really dumb question but if we all connect to the same vpn sever would that work? Playhide should work but I can't seem to download it off github. Any advice or should I just put in the work to figure out cmdline?
A VLAN is very different from a VPN.
With VLANs, you can separate traffic that goes over the same physical wire.
With a VPN, on the other hand, you can connect devices from anywhere on the planet, as if they were in the same LAN, which bypasses firewalls, NAT and all that crap. Presumably, you want a VPN.