Time, story, and dice

Reference. Part of the GM reference. For the steps of a task, read the GM guide.

Time and rests

The Time panel shows the in-game day and watch, for example “Day 3, Dusk”. A day has six watches: Dawn, Morning, Midday, Afternoon, Dusk, and Night. Under the watch, a line and a thin bar show the time spent inside that watch, for example “3 hours 30 minutes in”. At the start of a watch the line reads “Start of the watch”. Only a GM tab shows the buttons. A walk of the party also moves the clock on, by the time that Party movement lists for each map.

A short rest ends with a message that names the pools it restored and the new time, for example “Short rest: 1 hour. Second Wind and Action Surge restored. Now Day 1, Morning.” When no character is hurt, the short rest opens no dialog and goes straight to that message.

The three buttons do nothing while a fight runs, and their tooltip reads “End the fight first”. A rest in a fight would heal and refill the party while the turn order stayed where it was, and effects that end at a turn boundary, such as Shield, do not end with game time.

When time passes, every condition, timed stat change, and concentration with a round count loses that many rounds. One that runs out ends. So Bless cast between fights is gone after a rest, while an effect that lasts 8 hours still has 4 hours left after one watch.

A rest that lifts a dying character above 0 HP clears the death-save tracker. A character that is already dead keeps its exhaustion level.

Quests

A row of buttons at the top of the Story tab names the Quests, NPCs, and Handouts cards with the number of entries in each. The Quests count includes the quests in a folded group. A click on one opens that card and scrolls to it. Each card also has a chevron button in its top-right corner that folds the card to its title, and the browser remembers which cards you folded.

The Quests panel in the Story tab lists active and completed quests.

A folded quest is one line: the status mark, the title, the count of objectives done (such as “1 of 4”), the chevron, and the eye. A click on the title or the chevron opens the quest. The open details list the objectives, each with a checkbox that marks it done, and several objectives can be done at once. Each objective also has controls to hide it from players or reveal it, to move it up or down, and to remove it. A click on a link chip shows the linked place on the map.

When you mark a GM-only objective of a revealed quest done, a dialog asks whether to reveal the objective to players. When you mark the last open objective done, a dialog offers to complete the quest. Completing a quest shows a toast and writes a travelogue line. The line of a quest that players cannot see is GM-only. Reopening a quest writes no line.

The Unlocks field of the quest dialog lists the other quests that this quest leads to. When you complete a quest that unlocks hidden quests, the dialog lists each of them under Also reveal, ticked. Clear a box to keep that quest hidden. Each revealed quest gets its own travelogue line. This dialog also comes up when you click the status mark of such a quest. The Player view never shows the Unlocks list. A deleted quest leaves every Unlocks list.

The reward fields of the quest dialog are Reward gold (gp), Reward XP, and Pay. Pay is either “To each living character” or “As a total, split evenly”. A total splits among the living characters and rounds down. When you complete a quest with a reward, the dialog shows the three fields with the reward filled in, and you can change them first. The gold goes into the gold field of the Coins row of each character. A dead character gets no share. The travelogue line reads, for example, “The party receives 50 gp and 300 XP each.” Set both amounts to 0 to remove the reward.

On a window wider than about 1,090 pixels, the Quests panel grows with its list, and the Story tab scrolls around it. On a narrower window, the panel scrolls once its list is taller than most of the window. A click on a control keeps the scroll position, and a revealed or hidden quest keeps its place in the order.

The Player view lists only revealed quests. It shows the objectives that are not hidden, and it hides the notes and the links.

NPCs

The NPCs panel in the Story tab lists the friendly and neutral creatures near the party. Each row shows a disposition badge, the location, and the chips. In a GM tab, New NPC and From bestiary sit below the list. From bestiary opens the Add from bestiary dialog (see Encounters tab) with the tile of the party as the default place.

In a GM tab, the Here and All switch above the list picks its scope. Here lists the NPCs near the party, as in the table. All lists every friendly and neutral creature in the campaign, on any map, so you can look up an NPC without moving the party. A Player tab has no switch. The party meets a placed NPC when it lands on the tile of that NPC. The meeting writes one travelogue line. If you move the NPC, it counts as not met until the party lands on its new tile. A move onto the party tile keeps the NPC met, whether it comes from Move to the party in the edit dialog or from the buttons below.

In a GM tab, each row of the NPCs panel has two more controls. The Travels with party toggle makes the NPC a companion, and it shows a check mark while it is on. A companion moves to the party tile each time the party moves, into and out of child maps too. A companion at 0 HP stays behind. Turning the toggle on also brings the NPC to the party, and turning it off leaves the NPC where it stands. Each change writes a GM-only travelogue line. The arrow button, “Bring to the party”, moves the NPC to the party tile once.

Long notes show two lines, and More shows the rest. The condition chips and the exhaustion pips of an NPC row show only while the NPC is in the running fight, or while it still has a condition or a level of exhaustion.

An NPC stands on any map at a column and a row, or it stays unplaced. An unplaced NPC appears everywhere. Columns and rows count from 1, the same as the numbers along the map edges.

The notes of an NPC are GM-only. The Player view lists the NPC with its role and disposition, without its notes.

Handouts

A handout is read-aloud text or lore, with an optional picture.

A handout starts hidden. The eye toggle reveals it to players or hides it again. A badge beside the title reads Shown or Hidden. A shown handout lists its text under the title. In a GM tab, a long text shows three lines, and More shows the rest. A Player tab shows the whole text.

When the party, or a character on their own tile, steps onto a tile with a hidden handout, the GM tab shows a message such as “The party stands on ‘Dorn’s Manifest’.” with a Reveal button. The message comes after any encounter dialog. Each handout gives this message once per session. A parchment note on the tile marks each hidden handout on the map, and only the GM sees it.

The GM sees every handout of the node where the party stands. A line under each row names the tile of the handout and the characters who see it.

A Player tab lists a handout under the current spot only when all of these conditions are true:

• The GM revealed it.
• It is campaign-wide, or bound to the node of the party, or bound to the tile where the party stands.
• It has no chosen characters, or the tab plays one of them. A spectator tab never lists a handout that has chosen characters.

A Player tab also lists every other revealed handout for its character in a Revealed earlier group below the handouts of the current spot. The group comes from the campaign, so a Player tab that opens late, or opens on a new device, lists the same handouts as a tab that was open all along. A handout leaves the group when the GM hides or deletes it. An erase stroke, a smaller node size, or a regeneration of the node can remove the tile of a handout. The handout then binds to the whole node. An undo of the erase or the regeneration binds it to its tile again.

Travelogue

The Travelogue in the Log tab records events automatically, newest first. Each entry shows the in-game day and watch when it happened, such as “Day 1, Dusk”. A line from a fight adds the round, such as “Day 1, Dusk, round 2”. Hover the time to see the local time of the entry. An entry saved without an in-game time shows the local time instead. The combat log shows only the round, such as “Round 2”.

The two counts are separate. A long fight or many dice rolls remove only older Roll and Combat entries, and the story entries stay.

The note box at the top of the Travelogue adds a Note entry of your own, such as a ruling or a name that the players made up. Type the text, and click Add note or press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac). Tick GM only to keep the note out of every Player tab. The box shows only in a GM tab.

Dice tray

The Dice Tray collapses to a d20 icon with the label Roll dice. The full tray builds a roll from steppers, and it does not read typed dice expressions.

The tray shows the latest result at its top. The total is large, and the dice faces and the modifier sit beside it in small type, as in “d20 (5) + 3”. A roll with a target ends with a line such as “vs 15: fail”. Every roll also goes into the Travelogue under the name of the roller. The name is “The GM” for a GM tab, the character name for a bound tab, and “A player” for a spectator tab.

A hidden roll goes into the Travelogue as a GM-only line, such as “The GM rolls in secret: d20[4]=4 + modifier=3 -> total: 7”. A Player tab reads only “The GM rolls in secret.” Use it for a Perception check that the players do not know about, or for the save of a foe. The box applies only to the Roll button. An attack, a save, or a check that the app rolls logs its own line, and the box does not change it.

An attack or a death save from the app opens the tray and shows its roll there. The dice counts and the modifier keep what you set, so your next Roll is your own roll and not a repeat of the attack. An attack judges against the AC of its target for that roll only, and the DC field keeps the value that you typed. A save or a skill from the character sheet rolls in the tray without opening it. A roll that names its own mode uses that mode for one roll only, and it leaves the d20 mode as it was.