Running a campaign
The campaign from the inside: its tabs (World, Rules, Map, Journal, Combat, Players, Table, Music, Chat, Settings), inviting and managing players, the GM Screen, the generators and session music.
This guide is for the GM: how a campaign is organized on the inside, its tabs, the GM Screen and the generators. Building the map and the combat turn on the map have their own guides (Map editor and Combat at the table).
You create a campaign from your dashboard and pick a system (D&D 5e or any custom system). You can have co-GMs who run it with you.
The campaign tabs
At the top of the campaign you have the tabs. The GM sees all of them; players see almost all of them (no Settings).
| Tab | What it's for | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| World | The campaign wiki: lore entries you can link with [[double brackets]] (typing [[ suggests entries and NPCs), and each entry shows «Linked from»: which entries, NPCs or journal entries point to it. Visible or hidden from players; a link to something hidden shows dimmed to players. Filter by category or by your own tags. A World «Map» is the same map as the Map tab (same pins; Open in the Map takes you there); on an image the GM can also drop Place pins (the pin button over the image). Inside an entry, whatever you write between :::secreto and ::: is GM-only (players never receive it) and ` | text | stays blurred until the player taps it. Each entry has its properties infobox (Ruler: [[Queen Aldis]]`), other names to link it by, and flags texts that mention it without a link. Templates set which properties and text each category starts with. You can also create your own categories (Filters → Manage, or when adding an entry): «Faction», «God», «Ship»… each on top of a standard one, with its icon and color; they show up as filters, have their own template, and deleting one doesn't delete its entries (they go back to the base). The graph button draws the World as a web: each entry a dot (with its portrait), each link a line and each relation a curve in its own colour. Search and centre, tap a dot to see its card alongside, and Focus here puts it in the middle with what surrounds it in rings. With Design, the GM builds the World from the graph itself: double-click empty space to create an entry (hidden if you like), and drag from an entry's + to another to relate them; drop it on empty space to create the new one already related. What you arrange is saved as a view (with its filters and focus): keep several, mark one as main (it opens when you enter) and share it with players. Right-click an entry (or use its card on mobile) to show it as a card (image, category, title and excerpt) and resize it from the corner; the same menu turns every entry into a card or a dot. Views remember which ones are cards and their size. NPCs (and creatures) and History entries (a faction, a guild) can carry their attitude towards the party (hostile, wary, neutral, friendly or allied), visible to players or hidden; the graph's Attitude button colours the dots by it. Besides the usual relations, the GM creates their own («Owes money to» / «Lends money to», «Rival of»…) with an inverse and a colour, in Relation types (Design mode) or by saving an «Other…» as a type; deleting a type keeps its relations with that name written in. Relations say what one thing is to another («Child of», «Member of», or your own) and can be secret. The export button downloads the whole World (with the Journal and images) as a .zip that opens as an Obsidian vault. With Public wiki (the globe) you share a read-only link for outsiders: they see what your players see, nothing hidden, and you can take it down or change it any time. You can also add a password. The Timeline (the calendar) orders events and eras with your own calendar (months with their days, era, the current campaign date), linked to entries and optionally secret. You can have several timelines, each with its own calendar (the world's history in years, the campaign's chronology in days, another people with other months): pick which one to see at the top, and deleting one moves its events to the main one. On a World map the GM can also draw zones (a click per vertex; they snap to neighbours to share borders) and organise pins and zones into layers you toggle on and off. With Edit borders you drag zone vertices: a vertex two realms share moves both borders at once; a side's midpoint adds a vertex and right-click removes it. | ||
| Rules | The system manual and the table rules. You can upload your own rules PDF. | ||||
| Map | The world map (not the combat one): places, routes, scale, the party, art on top and maps inside maps. A map here and a «Map» entry in World are the same one: what you do in one shows in the other. Its guide is The world Map. | ||||
| Journal | The adventure log, with folders and search. Everyone writes it together, or only the GM. Each entry can be public (the whole table) or private: «My journal» is each player's personal diary, and the GM can read everyone's. | ||||
| Combat | The tactical battlemap: maps, tokens, initiative and vision. Its guide is Combat at the table. | ||||
| Players | Who is at the table, their sheets, awarding experience, and managing members. | ||||
| Table | The session's video call: built-in voice and video (see below). | ||||
| Music | The ambient music everyone hears (see below). | ||||
| Decks | The table's cards. Only shows up if the table plays with cards (see below). | ||||
| Chat | The campaign chat, where rolls land too. | ||||
| Settings | Name, cover, system, co-GMs, privacy and deletion. GM only. |
Inviting and managing players
From the Players tab (or the Invite player button):
- Invite: by link or by searching for the user. They can also ask to join from Find a Game and you accept or reject (respecting the open seats).
- Create and assign sheets: you create a sheet for the system and link it to a player (they become its owner), or leave it "unassigned" to link it later.
- Let them choose: if you prepare several "unassigned" characters (one-shots, intro tables, conventions), turn on the table rule "Players choose their character" (Settings → Table rules). Anyone who joins without a character will see the pregens, will be able to open them to read them inside, and will keep one. Each player takes one; if you want to give them a second one, you assign it yourself. With the rule off you hand them out, as always.
- Award experience: you grant XP to one or several sheets at once.
- Kick: you remove a player from the table; their sheets are unlinked (not deleted). The player themselves can leave the game from here. (The GM can't be kicked: for that you delete or transfer the campaign.)
The GM Screen
The GM Screen button opens the whole campaign in tabs, with search (Ctrl K), the Notebook, the Journal, your system's compendium and the tools for running the game. It has its own guide: GM Screen. In Immersion Mode, the «GM» button opens the same tools as floating windows over the scene.
What gets used most:
- GM notes: three lists: session notes, Secrets (what players mustn't see) and Plots (threads and hooks). Each note is edited in place, pinned, reordered by dragging and shown at the table.
- D&D Bestiary (or your custom system's bestiary): every creature with its stat block, to drag onto the map or show.
- Places: a mini-map with markers, each with its sheet, visible or hidden.
- Sessions: Reminders (title, date and a heads-up to players) and each session's log.
- Players, Tables, Rolls, Dialogues, Board, Timeline, Adventure, Items and Services, Resources, Music and sound and the Generators (below).
GM generators
In GM Screen → Generators (and also in /creaciones). Everything can be copied or sent to the chat of the campaign:
- NPC name: first name, last name and a trait; pick a gender.
- City or town name: procedural place names.
- Adventure hook and Personality trait: from a table.
- Loot: a found item.
- Shop generator: you choose the shop type and how many items; it produces stock with prices (±30% of the base) that you can send to the Items and Services catalog.
- Currency converter: converts between currencies; with a campaign, it uses the custom currencies you defined in the system's Economy.
Card decks
The Decks tab doesn't show up in every campaign, since most don't play with cards. It appears when the system brings its own decks, when there's already one at the table, or when you turn it on yourself in Settings › Table rules › card_decks. Use that last option to put a poker deck into a system that doesn't bring its own (Savage Worlds-style initiative, for example).
Putting one on the table (Put deck button): the system's own, or one of the classics: poker with 52 or 54 cards, Spanish deck with 40 or 48, tarot with 78 or only the 22 major arcana. When you put it down it's copied: editing the system afterwards does not reshuffle the game in progress.
With the GM menu of each deck:
- Deal 1, 2, 3 or 5 cards to each player. You're not in the deal; if you want a card, you draw one with a click.
- Shuffle (gathers the discard pile first, like at a real table), gather the discard pile, gather everything (hands included) or rebuild the deck entirely.
- Look at the deck: the top 8, only you. Tapping one you can give it to someone or send it to the bottom. That's how you plant the card you want to come out.
- Save the shown cards (end of round) and remove the deck from the table.
Giving a specific card. Dealing is random; to hand over a particular card (the Ace of Spades, say), tap it wherever it is (in the deck while you look at it, in the discard pile, on the table or in someone else's hand) and choose who gets it. From right there you can return it to the top or the bottom of the deck.
The Corruption pile. If your system uses it (Never Going Home), the player takes a card, only they see it and the card goes to a pile that only you read: what came out and who got it. It neither enters their hand nor passes through the discard pile, which would give away whose it was. Those cards are out of play until you return them to the deck with the pile's own button.
What players see. For other people's hands, how many cards there are, not which ones. For the deck, nothing: the order lives on the server and doesn't travel to anyone's browser except yours, so the cards never leave the server rather than being hidden by the interface. What's shown is seen by the whole table and, if there's an active combat, it offers to send its value to the Initiative.
Every move is announced in the chat, with a switch at the top to silence it. Drawing says how many, never which.
If the system includes the Card hand widget, players hold their hand on the sheet itself. A card can also change their numbers: if the creator gave it effects, they apply while they hold it (see Sheet design).
Voice, video and music
- Table (video call): opens the session call. Camera and mic are turned on and off from the bar. It's Roliando's own room, so you don't need anything external.
- Music: as GM you broadcast a track and it plays in sync for all players; they only listen. Music is reused across campaigns from your Library.
- Soundboard: effects you fire yourself. One click plays it and another click stops it; each effect can loop (rain, a campfire) at its own volume, and they group into folders. With Remote control you drive it from your phone or a Stream Deck («Website» action with «Access in background» and each effect's URL). Anyone with the link can fire your effects: if it leaks, regenerate the key.
Next step
With the campaign running, next comes the map and the fight: see Map editor, Combat at the table and Walls, vision and cover.