Online Campaign Managers

 I have found myself crawling into an online campaign manager and am surprised how it has captured me completely, enthusiastically as the new way to chronicle my campaigns. If you would have asked me would I use a digital record for campaigns let alone think it could be used in session I would have said no. I would wax on how the physical journals with homespun maps and weird characters was all part of the creative process, blah, blah, blah. The fall was swift and rapid. I was looking for a way out of my three ring binders, that is for sure. But my quest had only progressed as far as trying different types of notebooks and drawing pads. Part of the quick commitment came from my noodling with Roll20. I hated it. I could not see how it was going to help me run the game I want to. So, when I started banging away on my new kanka account writing up session notes from the latest run I went fuuuuuuck. I am going to throw out a bunch of old thinking.

Specifically, being unwilling to see the benefit of online tools for my online games. Because I was not getting any with virtual tabletops. What I like about the campaign organizer, the campaign wiki I think it is called, I don’t have to search through a three-ring binder to find shit. Cause it piles up and the binder gets thick and becomes horribly inefficient in session. This is the virtual note board of interlocking world-building pieces and I’ve so far found a spot for everything. Cutting and pasting in stats and details from PDF content makes these things at my fingertips. Only redundant task I have found slightly wearisome is attaching pictures to entries, but I can not do it because the return on investment, the visual payoff is high.

So, I get all the things in the wiki set for the current session coming up and take a look. Start at the Dashboard and drill down into the data I am going to want in game. I like how it works. I see myself running a session from its screen. I think it is going to give me a bit more focus on the situation at hand and roleplay more before a calling of the die.

Oh, and now my game is on the cloud. I can pop in and tinker on the game wherever I am. So my favorite materials, maps and images are all at my beck and call when inspiration strikes!