Tutorial: your first session as GM

Tutorial. Do the steps in order. Each part builds on the part before it.

In this tutorial, you load a ready-made world and walk a party across it. Then you find an enemy, fight it, and set up a second screen for your players. The full walk takes about twenty minutes. At the end, you know where each part of the app is.

Before you start

You need the app open in a browser. To start it on your computer, follow Local setup on the documentation home page.

Warning: Load example replaces the campaign that is open now. If you have a campaign of your own, click Export first to keep a copy of it. The confirmation also says whether Undo can restore the campaign.

1. Load the example world

1. Click Load example in the header.
2. If a confirmation opens, click Load example in it. The app asks only when a campaign is already open.

The map shows Briarwick Vale. It is one of nine regions of a generated continent that is called The Marches. The party stands on the road beside the town of Briarwick. The campaign already has quests, NPCs, enemies, and a party of four level-4 characters.

2. Look at the world tree

The world tree shows how the world is built. A node is one map, and a tile on a map can lead into another node.

1. Click Build in the mode switch.
2. Find the World tree on the left side of the screen.

The top row is the world map, The Marches. The nine regions are below it. Each region contains its own places. For example, Briarwick Vale contains the town of Briarwick, and The Barrowdowns contains Thornhold Keep and the Barrow of the Old King.

1. Click the chevron beside Briarwick Vale. Its towns, keep, and barrows open below it.
2. Click Briarwick. The map shows the town.
3. Click The Marches at the top of the tree. The map shows the world map again.

3. Move the party

1. Click Play in the mode switch.
2. Find the party token on the map.
3. Click a tile two or three cells from the token.

The party walks to the tile, and the fog clears around its new position. A tile stays revealed after the party leaves it.

If a dialog says that walls or obstacles block every path, click Cancel and pick a closer tile.

4. Enter a town

1. Find the settlement marker of Briarwick. It is one tile south of the place where the party started.
2. Move the party onto that tile.

The map changes to the map of the town. The party stands on the border of the town, on the side that it came from. An arrow that reads Leave to Briarwick Vale sits at each edge of the map that is near the party.

1. Walk one or two tiles inside the town.
2. Click one of the Leave to Briarwick Vale arrows.

The party walks back out to Briarwick Vale. It stands beside the town tile, on the side of the arrow that you clicked. The tile link does this in both directions, so you do not make a separate exit.

1. Click the Log tab in the sidebar. The travelogue records each map that the party enters and each place that it discovers.
2. Click the Session tab to come back.

5. Find an enemy

1. In the Session tab, find the Encounters panel.
2. Click the Nearby encounters tab. It lists the creatures near the party, with their HP and their column and row.

In the example, a Goblin Scout stands beside the burned farmstead, east of Briarwick. A red diamond marks its tile on the map. Markers show only near the party, so move closer if you do not see the diamond.

1. Move the party onto the tile of the Goblin Scout.

A dialog that reads Encounter! names the creature, its HP, and the map. The dialog also names any other foe on a tile next to the party, because those foes are part of the same encounter.

1. Click Not now. The creature shows in the Active encounter tab. The other button, Set up combat, opens the setup dialog of the next section at once.

The Active encounter tab also shows one line for you alone. It rates the fight against the party, for example “Trivial: 50 XP”.

6. Run the fight

1. Click Start combat in the Active encounter tab. The Set up combat dialog opens.
2. Click Roll initiative. Each combatant gets a d20 plus their DEX modifier.
3. Click Start combat.

The combat screen replaces the map and uses the full width of the window. It has four areas:

• The turn ribbon across the top shows the round and the initiative order. It also has the Back to map, Next turn, and End combat buttons.
• The column on the left shows the combatant whose turn it is, with their attack and spell buttons. The dice tray is below it.
• The board in the center shows one card for each combatant, with the party on one side and the foes on the other.
• The combat log is on the right.

1. When a party member has the turn, click the Goblin Scout card. The card becomes the target.
2. In the left column, click one of the weapon buttons.
3. Press Enter in the attack dialog.

The attack roll goes into the combat log. If the attack hits, the app subtracts the damage from the HP of the goblin.

1. Click Next turn. Play the turn of the goblin in the same way, with a party member as the target.
2. Continue until the goblin drops to 0 HP.

A banner says that the party is victorious. The fight stays open, so the party can heal and you can read the log.

1. Click End combat.
2. In the End the fight and award XP dialog, click End and award. Each character gets an equal share of the XP.

The map comes back. The Encounters panel still lists the goblin at 0 HP. The app keeps the record of a defeated foe instead of deleting it.

7. Manage a character

1. In the Party panel, click Mirelle. The character sheet opens in the Sheet tab of the sidebar.
2. Find the HP bar. Under it, Damage and Heal move HP by the amount in the field between them, which starts at 1.
3. Find the Slots row. Mirelle is a cleric, so the sheet shows spell slots.
4. Click a filled slot pip. The pip empties, and the slot is spent.
5. In the Session tab, find the Time panel.
6. Click Long rest.

The spent slot comes back. A long rest restores HP, spell slots, and the other resources of every character, and it moves the clock forward.

8. Set up a player display

The Player view is what your players see. It hides your notes, the exact HP of each foe, and every tile that the party has not revealed.

1. Click Save in the header.
2. In the Party panel, click Spectator tab below the roster. A new browser tab opens in the Player view.
3. Put the new tab beside the first one.
4. Go back to the first tab and move the party one tile.
5. Click Save.

The Player tab follows the move without a reload. The Player tab shows only what you have saved. With this setup, one laptop can drive a display at the table, and you do not need a server.

9. Save your work

1. Click Save, or press Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac). A message confirms the save.
2. Click Export. The browser downloads the whole campaign as a .json file.

The campaign is stored in the local storage of this one browser. The exported file is the only copy outside it. To load the file again, click Import.

Next steps

You have done each part of a session: build, play, fight, and save.

• To build a world of your own, follow the tasks in the GM guide.
• To find what a control or a rule does, read the GM reference.
• To see what the example campaign contains, read The example campaign in the GM reference.