Campaign Management Tools

[nyvinter]

I've always kept my notes and the player notes separate. Encouraged them to take their own, had my own notes. I used pen and paper for years. Several years ago, I dove into digital tools. Both because a torrent of new ones were appearing, and because part of my day job required me to explore knowledge organizational tools, so there was a lot of overlap.

This is how I do it too.

I do my prep in Obsidian now so that's where all my notes as a GM is. But I don't want the players to access mysteries they've yet to uncover.

I did set up a second Obsidian vault for player stuff and made an open site for worldbuilding things they should know and have access too. Handouts and maps and NPCs, I'm doing in Foundry and the Campaign Codex module — trying to limit places the players would need to look for things. And I know none of them would really use and add to a campaign manager themselves. (Even if some of them are extensive notetakers.)

 

[zarionofarabel]

I use this crazy newfangled device called a pen, and this other absolute cutting edge device know as a piece of paper. Then I use the pen to write notes on the paper! It's crazy!

 

[Reynard]

I use this crazy newfangled device called a pen, and this other absolute cutting edge device know as a piece of paper. Then I use the pen to write notes on the paper! It's crazy!

Funny.

Completely ignores the OP.

But funny.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Funny.

Completely ignores the OP.

But funny.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

I have made progress towards utilizing more tech in tracking stuff, but mostly just transcribing written notes in a word processor. I do have a notepad on my phone that's full of idea notes just because a number of times in recent years (I'm getting old) I had a good idea, didn't write it down, then later couldn't remember it, which frustrates me. So now I have a notepad thing on my phone that I just plop notes in to as soon as I can when I think of something that I think is a good idea. Whether on not I actually end up using said ideas is debatable, but it's nice to at least have them available.

I just wanted to contribute to the thread cause I'm pretty sure I posted in all of your other threads, but I'm woefully behind the times. Sorry.

 

[Reynard]

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

I have made progress towards utilizing more tech in tracking stuff, but mostly just transcribing written notes in a word processor. I do have a notepad on my phone that's full of idea notes just because a number of times in recent years (I'm getting old) I had a good idea, didn't write it down, then later couldn't remember it, which frustrates me. So now I have a notepad thing on my phone that I just plop notes in to as soon as I can when I think of something that I think is a good idea. Whether on not I actually end up using said ideas is debatable, but it's nice to at least have them available.

I just wanted to contribute to the thread cause I'm pretty sure I posted in all of your other threads, but I'm woefully behind the times. Sorry.

If I was running in person, a hand written "lore book would not be a bad idea. But since I am running it online, I need a central repository for information.

 

[HippyCraig]

Chech out worldanvil. They have what your looking for you can allow specific user access to single or multiple pages. Each page has a dm section only visible to you regardless of access unless you make someone a code. They have maps with pins links to word bubbles or complete articles. And a bunch more. It is a paid service but there’s a free tier and others that give you access to more tools

Hope that helps

 

[SkidAce]

Chech out worldanvil. They have what your looking for you can allow specific user access to single or multiple pages. Each page has a dm section only visible to you regardless of access unless you make someone a code. They have maps with pins links to word bubbles or complete articles. And a bunch more. It is a paid service but there’s a free tier and others that give you access to more tools

Hope that helps

I've used World Anvil and Kanka.

They both get the job done and will do all the things @Reynard has asked about.

There are differences in style and how css and html are handled, and things such as templates.

In the end "I" felt Kanka gave me more room to make it my own, but that is my preference.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I use Obsidian as my all purpose note system. Games, recipes, etc. It's markdown format text files (no lock-in as its readable by lots of stuff) plus wiki-linking, plugins for making document relationship maps, RPG calendars, daily journals. etc and it has support for images and mermaid charts.

I have found that a chart does wonders for simplifying my thoughts around complex (or confusing) plots. It makes it clear where there "single points of failure" that players will miss (I live by the rule that every plot needs 3 ways for players to make progress). I run a lot of 1990s era Shadowrun modules, which are horribly organized, and having a "plot map" makes life so much easier.

I run Obsidian on top of Dropbox so its accessible and synched across all my devices.

For players I have a Google site and just copy/paste from Obsidian.

We play in person but I have Discord for dice rolling, in-game IMs, and some "play by post" when we are at down-time and doing shopping, training, crafting, etc.

 

[kenada]

I take notes in a notebook during the session. Since I use Scrivener for prep, I’ve been trying to transcribe them into it. I can’t say yet how well that’s going for me (transcribing notes) because we’ve only had two sessions in my Fabula Ultima game so far (and we meet infrequently and irregularly, so playing more can be difficult). In the past, I’ve used my 5-words commentary posts as a complement to my session notes ….

Since Scrivener is writing tool, it doesn’t really have a way for my players to input data. When I used Obsidian Portal years ago, my players rarely if ever contributed content, so that’s not something I really worry about anymore.

 

[Piperken]

Can't offer much in terms of new tools; as far as information bits I've found these helpful:

• News This is a running document which has official announcements, sometimes an advertisement or two tied into current doings, and public response to activities the party was involved in, as well as street level rumors.
• Mind Palace Houses current quest, most recently completed quest, other/side missions (mainly individual characters'), known facts about factions and npcs, contacts and their degree of relationship at the party and individual character level (this is a google doc, with a tab for each).
• Faction Response Sheet Notes by session when an action occurred, the doer, and what that faction's response will be in a certain period of time
• Session Prep Sheet I keep this to a page.