Tools & Platforms

A portable, offline-first DM and worldbuilding tool. Build worlds, run sessions, share with others and play together, all in one app. License: CC BY-NC 4.0 · Free to use Everything core works **without an account**. You only need one to play online, publish to the marketplace, or download other users' content. /images/general-media/1791564204_7DEx9r3t.webp Worldbuilding - Era Timeline: Split your world's history into eras on a timeline bar and move between them. Each era keeps its own map, pins, nested location maps and day-by-day timeline pins linked to cards and sessions. You can show the same city before the war and after it. - Templates & Packages: Every world is built on a template (D&D 5e is built in) and pulls content from packages. A package is a bundle of cards you can install into any world, link to other packages, or share on the marketplace. Custom templates are coming. - Codex: Schema-driven cards for NPCs, monsters, spells, items, locations and more. Every reference is a tappable link. Pin cards to the top, preview any card with a long press, and search by name, tag, category or text. - World Map: Pins, grid and scale, drawing, fog of war, and nested maps you can walk into (districts, dungeons, taverns). - Mind Map: An infinite canvas with linked nodes, workspaces, freehand drawing and undo/redo. /images/general-media/1791564252_TB7zwrCp.webp Running the Session - Second Screen: Give the table its own view. Pop out a window onto a second monitor, cast to a TV or projector, or project into every connected player's app. You choose how battle maps, images, cards and PDFs go out. Fog of war and hidden tokens stay hidden. - Battle Map: The session screen *is* the map, with the encounter panel and event log on top. It has layers, fog of war, AoE templates, 5e diagonal rules, creature-sized tokens, shapes and text, a DM-only layer, hidden tokens, movement trails for the round, and two maps joined into one. - Combat Tracker: Initiative, HP (with hit-dice rolls), conditions, turn order and an event log. - 3D Dice: Dice roll across the screen with named styles. Skills and saving throws roll from the character sheet with one tap. - Soundpad: Layered ambience with gapless loops, fades and ready-made soundpacks. - PDF Library: PDFs kept inside the world, opened in tabs and shareable with players. /images/general-media/1791564292_BnuuXJTS.webp Characters - Full 5e rules: Species, class, subclass, background and feats fold into one sheet. Each sense, resistance, proficiency, trait and always-prepared spell shows where it came from. Also covers multiclassing, spell slots, class resources (Rage, Bardic Inspiration, sorcery points…), weapon mastery, and short and long rests. - Character Builder: Pick species, class, subclass, background, ability scores, skills, starting equipment and feats from the SRD and any installed pack. - Level-Up: HP, proficiency bonus and hit dice update automatically. ASIs, feats, subclass and spell picks wait as pending choices. /images/general-media/1791564330_JBRRDNZ4.webp Playing Online - Online worlds: Put a world, package or character online and it stays the same on every device you sign in on. Players see the pictures even when the DM is offline. - Players: Join with an invite code, claim a character, move your own token on your turn, and send dice rolls to the DM's log. Shared cards update when the DM edits them. - .dmtz files: Export a world, package or character to one file and import it anywhere. No account or network needed. Content - SRD 5.2.1: Built in and works offline. - 19 one-tap packs: Tome of Beasts (1–3, 2023), Creature Codex, Monstrous Menagerie, Black Flag SRD, Deep Magic, Tome of Heroes, Vault of Magic, Tal'Dorei and more. - Ready-made worlds: 99 Devils of Uzrah's Palace (Shadowdark), Army of the Damned, The Cold Bounty, and soon our own campaign Aegis Act . - Marketplace: Publish worlds, templates, packages and characters as versioned snapshots with content previews. - Social: Profiles, follows, an activity feed, direct and group chats, and game listings with applications.

Codex Cryptica is an AI-assisted worldbuilding and campaign management tool built around a living knowledge graph instead of a folder of loose documents. Every character, faction, location, and event you create becomes a linked entity, so your world stays connected and explorable as it grows. Genre-agnostic across fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, horror, post-apocalyptic, western, steampunk, and more.

Saga20 is the campaign tool that keeps up with your table. It is a full world builder, a campaign wiki, a session summarizer, a character sheet system and a shared player portal, and all of it runs off one action: hit record. Play the session, upload the audio, and Saga20 works out who spoke, writes the recap, and pushes what happened into every world page it touched. Characters, locations, factions and items each keep their own page, their own timeline, and a link back to the session where it happened. Most world builders need you to update them. This one updates itself. It works for every TTRPG system, from D&D across all editions to Pathfinder 1e and 2e, Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk RED and Vampire: The Masquerade, with character sheets built into the app. The app is quickly growing in popularity and is already being used and trusted by thousands of GMs. Description Every campaign wiki dies the same death. Immaculate for four sessions, then the group plays a long night, nobody writes it up, and a month later the wiki describes a campaign that no longer exists. Saga20 fixes that at the source. The session is the input, and the world updates because you played, not because you did homework afterwards. Underneath the automation is a proper world builder. Characters, NPCs, locations, factions, items, deities, starships, corporations, clues, house rules: anything in the campaign gets a real page, with rich text, images, custom icons and cover art, organized into folders and templates and custom entity types for whatever the world needs. Search reaches every page instantly. A campaign graph draws who knows whom. Interactive maps carry routes, regions, pins and the party's current position. Build it all by hand if that is the fun part, or you can import an existing world across from Obsidian, Notion, Google Docs or World Anvil and carry on from there. You can then upload session recordings to automatically update your world wiki. Anyone at the table can record, on a phone, a dedicated mic, Discord or Zoom, and nobody else has to install anything. Saga20 generates the Session Notes including choices, clues, quests and consequences that happened during the session then automatically updates the world pages so you'll always have an up to date wiki without having to spend hours after every session.  It is not only the GM's tool but a tool for the entire table. Players can read the campaign and session notes without an account, or choose to claim their own characters, keep their character sheets on the same page as the story, and arrive at the next session actually remembering the last one. The wiki can be themed to match the setting and published on its own link. Prep, play, notes and the whole table, in one place.

Archivist is a TTRPG note taker without the busywork. It automatically builds recaps and campaign memory from Discord, audio, or a GM's notes: less admin, more story. Groups record live with the Archivist Discord bot or import audio, transcripts, play-by-post threads, or raw notes. Minutes later, Archivist delivers a session recap and updates a searchable compendium of characters, items, locations, and factions. Players and GMs can ask Archivist, the campaign chatbot, about anything that happened, right from Discord. Story highlights, player quotes, Hero Awards, trading cards, and one-click Session Handouts capture the best moments. It works with every TTRPG system, includes unlimited player seats, and never saves audio or trains on campaign data.

VVD is a visually driven world-building and campaign management platform launched in 2024. Created by an independent developer, it positions itself as a streamlined, "distraction-free" alternative to complex wikis like World Anvil. In 2025, the platform gained massive popularity on social media for its "clean UI" and its strict No-AI pledge, promising that all art and assets on the platform are created by human artists.  Description VVD is built for the "sparks of inspiration." It uses a card-based system to organize NPCs, locations, and magic items, allowing users to connect them visually through an interactive graph. Unlike traditional folder-heavy organizers, VVD feels like a digital corkboard or a personalized Wikipedia that prioritizes aesthetics and ease of use. It is a web-based tool, meaning it requires an internet connection, but it is highly optimized for mobile devices, making it a favorite for GMs who need to jot down world-building notes on the go.

World Anvil is the largest and most feature-rich world-building and campaign management platform. Launched in 2017, it has evolved into a massive "All-in-One" suite that combines a wiki-style lore presentation, interactive mapping tools, and software for novel writing. While it is known for a steeper learning curve than rivals like Obsidian, it is unmatched in its ability to present a "public-facing" version of your world. In late 2025 and early 2026, the platform underwent a major "Athena" UI overhaul, introducing the Articles & World Manager and Quick-Inline Creation, which significantly streamlined the speed of entering new lore. Description It is built to organize, display, and even sell your world. The platform provides hyper-specialized templates (e.g., Traditions, Military Units, Flora/Fauna) that prompt you to fill in details you might otherwise overlook. In March 2026, World Anvil introduced a significant Dashboard Upgrade, allowing users to drag, drop, and hide widgets to create a personalized "writing cockpit." While the sheer number of buttons can be intimidating for beginners, its ability to manage secrets, interactive maps, and professional-grade manuscripts in one place is currently unrivaled. System Overview & Key Features The Athena 2.0 Dashboard (March 2026 Update) The newly released dashboard customization allows you to tailor your entry point. You can now pin "Recently Edited" articles, word count goals, or community prompts as modular widgets. This update effectively turned the homepage into a personalized HUD for your creative workflow, cutting down the "where do I click?" frustration of previous versions. Advanced Article Management A new "Article Management" tab was added in early 2026, allowing for the creation and editing of articles on the fly without leaving your current category view. This "focus mode" is a godsend for large-scale projects where you need to spin up ten minor NPCs or locations at once without losing your place in the world-tree. Interactive "Deep-Link" Mapping World Anvil’s map system remains its "killer app." You can place pins that link to other articles, and as of 2026, it supports multi-layering for vertical dungeons and "Region-Hiding." This allows you to show players the town square while keeping the "Thieves' Guild Basement" layer hidden behind a private subscriber permission. System-Specific Statblocks Beyond just text, World Anvil hosts thousands of community-made statblocks. Recent 2026 additions include a dedicated Cult Worksheet for Call of Cthulhu 7e and adversary blocks for the Cosmere RPG, allowing GMs to integrate mechanical data directly into their narrative articles. Manuscripts and Novel Writing The "Manuscripts" module is a full-featured writing suite that sits alongside your wiki. It allows you to drag world-building "secrets" directly into your writing notes. As of March 2026, co-owners of a world now have shared access to manuscripts, making it a viable tool for professional co-authors and writing teams. The Worldbuilding "Social Media" Unique to World Anvil is its social ecosystem. The "Global Feed" allows you to follow other creators, participate in monthly "Worldbuilding Showdowns," and compete for the annual Worldbuilding Awards. It’s less of a tool and more of a global "Writing Room" for the hobby. Additional links worldanvil.com - Official website and lore-hub blog.worldanvil.com - Development news and world-building tutorials

Obsidian is a free, locally-stored Markdown note-taking application that the TTRPG community has widely adopted as a campaign wiki, session planner, and lore database. Originally designed as a personal knowledge management tool, it stores everything as plain text files on your own machine with no subscription required. Description Unlike purpose-built platforms such as World Anvil, Obsidian was not designed with TTRPGs in mind, which means it arrives without templates, stat block support, or any TTRPG-specific structure out of the box. GMs who want those features need to install and configure community plugins themselves, which carries a steeper setup cost than dedicated alternatives. For those comfortable with that process, however, the result is a highly customizable system with no ongoing fees and no vendor lock-in. A thriving plugin ecosystem has filled most of the gaps, and the tool has become a genuine alternative to subscription-based worldbuilding platforms for technically comfortable Game Masters. The plugin ecosystem extends well beyond what is listed here, with community tools covering everything from database-style note querying and cross-device sync to interactive maps and combat automation. A full directory is available at community plugins.

GM-Copilot Studios provides automated, B2B-grade document digitization and VTT conversion for tabletop publishers and indie creators. The Masterwork Engine is a deterministic ingestion pipeline that converts TTRPG PDFs directly into Foundry VTT JSON and UVTT formats with zero AI hallucinations. Using Lean 4 mathematical verification and OpenCV spatial mapping, we eliminate manual data entry for stat blocks, action economies, and roll tables. We offer transparent volume pricing starting at $79 for indie zines up to $1,000 per 1,500 pages for enterprise backlist vaults.

enCounter is a free, open-source encounter and initiative manager designed for tabletop RPG game masters. It provides a dedicated DM Console for preparing and running encounters, along with a separate Player Display that can be shown on a second monitor, television, or gaming-table screen. Game masters can track initiative, rounds, hit points, combat status, conditions, resources, hidden enemies, and other encounter information while controlling exactly what players can see. enCounter also supports reusable character and creature libraries, Saved Encounters, Scene and Combat presentation modes, visual countdown timers, encounter backgrounds, portraits, and local Soundscapes with music, ambience, and prepared sound cues. The Player Display can switch between STAND BY, Scene, and Combat modes, allowing it to be used before and during combat. During initiative, the active visible combatant is automatically centered for players, while the DM Console can follow the current turn without interrupting other encounter edits. enCounter supports multiple tabletop RPG system profiles as well as generic TTRPG play. It runs locally on the user's computer, supports Windows and Linux portable releases, and includes local backup, export, and import tools. The project is currently in Alpha and is actively being developed based on real tabletop use and community feedback. enCounter is released under the MIT License and is available free of charge.

R3TCON is a local-first canon and continuity system for writers, worldbuilders, TTRPG creators and narrative game developers. It helps creators manage characters, places, events, relationships, timelines, knowledge and world state as a setting grows, then checks those records for contradictions. R3TCON can flag issues such as impossible journeys, conflicting dates or events, characters appearing after their established death, or characters knowing information they have not yet learned. It does not use generative AI to write or rewrite a creator’s world. Instead, it shows what conflicts, why it conflicts and which established canon is involved, leaving the final decision with the creator. Existing material can also be imported, allowing established campaigns and worlds to be brought into R3TCON without rebuilding everything from scratch. R3TCON is local-first and designed around creator ownership, portable world files and deterministic continuity checking.

SCRY is a campaign manager for DMs who play on Discord. Record a session and it drafts the recap and the wiki updates for you to approve, then keeps a separate player wiki that only shows what the table has uncovered. Works with D&D 5e, Pathfinder 2e, Call of Cthulhu, Daggerheart and homebrew. Free for one campaign.

GM Assistant automates session notes for tabletop RPG game masters. Record your session however you like, then upload the audio to get structured session notes, NPCs, locations, and story recaps in minutes. No manual note-taking required. Works with any TTRPG system, including D&D 5e, Pathfinder, and Call of Cthulhu, and recaps can be shared with your players by link. Pay as you go or subscribe, your choice. GM Assistant documents your game; it never plays it. No AI-generated content in your campaign, never an AI game master, no training on your data, and your audio is deleted the moment processing finishes. Unlike generic meeting transcribers, GM Assistant is purpose-built for tabletop RPGs, producing the most accurate and detailed session notes you can get from a campaign recording.

DexArcana is a set of free browser tools for Dungeon Masters, so there's nothing to install. Its Dungeon Master Screen keeps turn order, fog, dice rolls, notes and cue cards on one page during a session, and players don't see the Dungeon Master's notes. The screen also has a dice tray with d4 to d100, plus advantage and disadvantage on the d20, and encounter tables under Extras: roll one and the monster or NPC drops straight onto the open map. A soundboard and ambience layers are there too. The map builder lets a Dungeon Master lay down floors, walls, furniture and lighting to make a battle map without drawing skills. Fog and lights decide what players see, and maps can be exported as PNG or JSON. The world notebook links lore entries so places, people and factions stay connected. Players join from their own Player Screen, where they keep their sheet, the party list, chat and dice. Players need a free account to join. Every tool is free on every plan. Paid plans only add saving space: Dungeon Master is $5 a month and Guild is $12 a month. The free plan needs no card. It works for in-person tables using a second screen and for online games.

HeroLog is a multifunctional, cross-platform application designed for tabletop RPG players and Game Masters. The app offers a wide range of tools to make role-playing games easier to manage, more organized, and more immersive. HeroLog is designed to be an all-in-one RPG companion, bringing multiple useful tools together in a single application.