know.

CookbookHobbies and playNo. 52

A tabletop campaign settinga players’ guide on one link, the game master’s secrets kept apart

Recipe No. 52 · Hobbies and play

For: A game master running a homebrew fantasy campaign

You get: A players’ guide on links, and a shelf of secrets they never see

Time: Twenty minutes after each session

See it in know.sh

The players’ guide on making a character. Try the dice: type 4d6 drop lowest, roll with advantage, or roll a full set of ability scores.

Tidewrack — at the tablePlayers’ guide

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Character creation

Observation, key section, 1 element, 1 note, 270 words

Rules. Characters are made with the fifth-edition rules in the SRD 5.2, starting at first level. Any species and class in the SRD is welcome; for anything from elsewhere, ask first.

Ability scores. Roll them at session zero, at the table where everyone can see: 4d6, drop the lowest die, six times, then give the six numbers to the abilities in any order. If you would rather not trust the dice, take the standard array instead: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8. Each score’s modifier is the score minus 10, halved and rounded down, so 16 gives +3 and 9 gives −1.

Advantage and disadvantage. With advantage, roll two d20s and keep the higher; with disadvantage, keep the lower. If you have both, they cancel and you roll one d20.

Practice dice. The roller below is for practice and for the odd roll between sessions, such as a downtime check by message. It opens the same way every time, so the rolls that make your character happen with real dice, at the table.

A place as the players read it by link: what a traveller sees, a handout card of what the party has learned, and a margin note for the game master.

Tidewrack — at the tablePlaces of the Tidewrack

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Kessrin’s Ferry and the toll house

Observation, key section, 1 note, 236 words

What a traveller sees. A flat-bottomed ferry on a hawser across the mouth of the Brenn, where the coast road ends and the Salt Road begins. On the near bank, a stone toll house with shuttered windows and a bell on a post. Ring it, and someone comes, eventually.

What people say. In Brenmoor they say the toll house has never once been empty at night. Rumours are written as you heard them.

An assistant answering from the session log alone, with the session behind every point, and stopping at what the party does not know.

ChatGPT, connected to know.sh · reading Session log

You

Using only the Session log and the table shelf in know.sh: what has the party learned about the Ashen Court?

ChatGPT

From the session log, the party knows four things about the Ashen Court:

  • It seals its letters with ash, not wax. Brisa found a sealed letter in the ferryman’s strongbox (session 11), and Old Tobiah told the party that only the Court uses ash (session 12).
  • Magistrate Orlaith Venn serves it. She called herself “a servant of the Court” when she paid the party’s fine at Lantern Quay (session 13).
  • It takes a toll at Kessrin’s Ferry that the Saltwardens call unlawful. Captain Dace Morrow said so, and would say nothing more (session 14).
  • No one the party has met has seen its members together. This is still open, in section 19.

The party has not learned where the Court meets or what it wants; nothing on the table shelf says either. Shall I add a Question section to the log: “Where does the Ashen Court meet?”

From your library

  1. Session log, 11: Session 11 — the ferryman’s strongbox
  2. Session log, 12: Session 12 — Old Tobiah’s price
  3. Session log, 13: Session 13 — the fine at Lantern Quay
  4. Session log, 14: Session 14 — Captain Morrow’s warning
  5. Session log, 19: Has anyone seen the Court together?

How it works

Every campaign has two versions: the harbour town your players know, and who really runs it. Your assistant files your notebook onto two shelves, one for the table and one behind the screen that never gets a link. Each place carries a handout card of what the party has learned, and the players’ guide has a dice roller.

  1. Hand your assistant the notebook

    Ask it to file your world on two shelves, at the table and behind the screen, with a section per place, faction and person. Where your notes leave a gap, it files a Question.

  2. Give each place a handout card

    Ask for a card element at the top of each player-facing place and NPC: where it is, who keeps it, what it costs, and what the party found there, with the session it happened in.

  3. Put a dice roller in the guide

    Ask your assistant for a dice roller widget in Character creation: dice notation, advantage and disadvantage, and ability scores rolled as 4d6 drop the lowest, with every die shown.

  4. Check for spoilers, then share

    Ask your assistant to leave a proposed note on any table section that gives a secret away. Then press Share on each player document, add a password, and post the links in your group chat.

Try this prompt

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, file my campaign notes on two shelves: “Tidewrack — at the table”, with a Players’ guide, Places of the Tidewrack, Factions and faces and a Session log; and “Tidewrack — behind the screen”, with Secrets and fronts and NPCs behind the screen. Give each place, faction and person a section. Player-facing sections describe only what a traveller would see. Where my notes leave a gap, file a Question.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, add a dice roller widget at the end of “Character creation” in Players’ guide on my Tidewrack — at the table shelf: a box for dice notation such as 2d6+3 and 4d6 drop lowest, buttons from d4 to d100, a d20 with advantage and disadvantage, and ability scores rolled six times with their modifiers. Show every die, strike the dropped ones, and seed the numbers.

Made with

ShelfYour AI assistantElementsProposed notesPublic linkLook up

See also