Sessions, handouts and fights

A session is a poll until it is not. Propose several times, everybody marks each one, and you confirm the one that works.

1. 1

   Propose some times

   Each proposed time carries a length, and times are shown to everybody in their own timezone rather than in yours. More slots is better than fewer — three options usually settles it in one round where two do not.

2. 2

   Everybody answers every slot

   Yes, Maybe or No, one answer per person per slot. Answering three slots individually is what makes the result readable: a slot with four yeses and one maybe is a decision, and “whoever can make it” is not.

3. 3

   Confirm one

   The GM calls it and everybody is notified. Sessions whose last proposed time has passed drop to the bottom of the page rather than disappearing, because “when did we play that” is a question people ask.

4. 4

   Write it up afterwards

   A recap goes on the session. If you also give the recap an in-world date it becomes a timeline event as well — which is the entire difference between a campaign that has a history and one that has a pile of session notes. Leaving the date blank writes the recap and nothing else.

A letter, a map fragment, a portrait, a page from a diary. You write it whenever you like and reveal it when you choose, which notifies the party.

Until then it does not exist as far as the players are concerned — an unrevealed handout is absent from what their screen asks the database for, not greyed out on it, and its title does not surface in their search results. “There are six things being kept from you” is its own spoiler, which is why the split into prepared and given costs a player nothing: their prepared list is always empty.

D&D campaigns get a page listing everybody’s character with the four numbers you actually reach for while running:

Passive perception

Whether they notice.

Armour class

Whether it hits.

Hit points

How close somebody is to going down.

Conditions

What is currently on them.

Every one of those is derived from the player’s own sheet by the same code the sheet uses, so the roster cannot quietly disagree with the thing it is summarising. Players add their own characters from the character’s page with Playing in; either they or the GM can stand one down.

Every monster in the System Reference Document, searchable by name and filterable by challenge rating, with the full stat block — armour class, hit points, senses, and every trait and action as written.

Its real use is the button that puts one into a fight. A monster added to a thread’s initiative order that way rolls its own initiative from its own Dexterity and arrives carrying its armour class and hit points, so there is no second tally being kept off-screen. Running the fight itself.

The SRD is a subset of the published game. It has fireball and owlbears; it does not have beholders or mind flayers. The same content is at a public address that works without an account, which is the link to send somebody who is not in your campaign.