Running a game

1. 1

   Name it, and let the address follow

   The address is the bit after /g/. Leave it blank and it is derived from the name, which is usually what you want.

2. 2

   Say what it is mostly about

   D&D, Minecraft or General. This is not cosmetic — it decides which tabs the campaign gets, and the section below says what each one gives you.

   It also decides the two boards the campaign starts with, shaped to fit what you picked, so there is somewhere to post before anyone thinks to make one. Nothing to build here — rename, add or remove boards later from the campaign’s settings.

3. 3

   Write the page that says what this is

   A single wiki page describing the premise, where everyone starts and what sort of game it is going to be does more for a new player than an invite does. If the blank box is the obstacle, the wiki has starter templates — character, location, faction, item, session log and event — and each one comes with real links in it, so filling one in leaves you a short list of the next pages worth writing.

4. 4

   Then invite people

   In that order. An empty campaign is a bad first impression and an easy one to avoid.

Every campaign gets the wiki, the timeline, maps, the lore graph, roleplay boards and the member list. What the system decides is the rest:

D&D

Adds the bestiary — every monster in the SRD, droppable into a fight — and the party roster, which reads live hit points, armour class, passive perception and conditions off everybody’s sheet.

Minecraft

Adds server details with the address and the rules, and the world layer: nations, places, wars and treaties and seasons. Drops dice, handouts and session polls, which describe a table that meets on Wednesdays.

General

Everything shared, plus a sheet you design yourself, and one further question about what kind of campaign it is.

A General campaign picks a mode, because “General” on its own says almost nothing:

Tabletop game

A game with characters and rules. Sheets, dice and a party roster, for a system this site does not have a bespoke sheet for.

Worldbuilding

A world built for its own sake, with nobody playing anybody. The wiki, the timeline, the maps and the powers in it — and no character sheets at all.

Play-by-post fiction

Prose first. Boards, threads and characters written as people rather than as statistics. Dice are there if you want them and nothing assumes you do.

None of this is a decision you are stuck with. Changing the system or the mode changes which tabs are offered and deletes nothing — a campaign that switches finds everything it wrote still there.

Invite links are made on the campaign’s members page, by you or by a co-GM, and copied straight from there. Each one can be given an expiry in days and a maximum number of uses, and can be revoked at any time. A link with one use and a week’s life is the right shape for inviting one specific person; an open one is right for pasting into a Discord channel you trust. Whoever opens it is shown the campaign’s name, confirms, and is in immediately with no approval step — that is what makes it different from the directory. Every link also has a short code under it, for reading out when somebody cannot click the thing you pasted.

Listing the campaign puts it in the public directory, where strangers can find it and apply. Only the owner can do this. It publishes exactly three things — the name, the description and the recruitment pitch — plus a count of how many members there are. Not the wiki, not the threads, and not who is in it: listing your game never publishes anybody else’s association with it. You can also stop accepting applications while leaving the listing up.

Applications arrive on the campaign’s applications tab, which carries a count so you are not expected to keep checking. An applicant may attach a character; you can read that sheet while the application is open and not after it is decided. Accepting adds them as a player. Either answer notifies them.

The player board. The other direction — people advertising themselves rather than waiting for a listing. It is at players looking for a game, and answering a notice sends that person an invitation.

The people already in your Discord are a fourth case, and none of the three above is quite it: you are not recruiting them, you are moving them. They still need an invite link to have accounts here — but if you are also bringing the channel over, doing that first is worth it. Anybody who signs in here with Discord is then matched to their own writing automatically, and the archive arrives with your table already in it rather than as a wall of names to point at people later.

GM

Runs the campaign. Can do everything, including deleting the group.

Co-GM

Helps run it: moderates posts and threads, curates the wiki, admits people.

Player

Plays. Posts in scenes, edits the wiki, keeps characters.

Observer

Reads only. Can follow the campaign but cannot post or edit anything.

Roles are set on the members page. Observer is the useful one nobody expects: someone who reads the campaign and writes nothing anywhere in it — a player between characters, somebody deciding whether to join, a friend following along.

One thing only the owner can do, besides listing: delete the campaign. Deleting your account names any campaign you are the sole owner of on the confirmation screen, so nothing disappears by surprise.

Four things can be prepared without being visible, and all four work the same way — the hidden thing is absent from what a player’s screen asks for rather than greyed out on it, because “there are six things being kept from you” is its own spoiler.

Wiki pages can be marked GM-only. Maps can be, and so can individual pins and drawn borders on an otherwise visible map — a GM-only border is drawn dashed for you so you can tell at a glance it is not something the party knows. Timeline events, nations and places have the same setting. And handouts are written whenever you like and revealed when you choose, which notifies everybody.

Secret dice rolls are the fifth: a GM can roll where the result is not shown, and the roll is still recorded exactly like any other.

You and your co-GMs can lock a thread, archive it, and remove posts. Reports raised inside the campaign go to a queue on its moderation tab with a count beside it, so something being reported does not depend on anybody remembering to look. Site staff have a separate queue for things that go beyond one table.