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GM quickstart

From a blank page to your first night at the table. You need a browser and a group. No Discord required.

1. Make the campaign

Open Campaigns and choose Create campaign. The form has three parts:

  1. Choose your ruleset. The system your table plays.
  2. Choose your world. Start from a template, reuse one of your own worlds, or begin with a blank world and pick its genre, tone, and technology level.
  3. Name your campaign. Add a premise if you have one (it's optional) and pick a format: Campaign, Arc, or One-shot.

Hit Create campaign and you land on campaign home, the Characters page. That's where the rest of this guide happens.

2. Follow the first-night strip

At the top of campaign home sits a short checklist called Your first night. It has four steps, and each one ticks itself off when the real thing happens. You never check a box by hand.

  • Invite your players
  • Get a PC on the roster
  • Open the DM screen
  • Run your first session

Collapse it when you want the room, or hide it for good. Only you and your co-GMs see it.

3. Invite your table

Choose Invite players on campaign home. Make a table link and drop it in your group chat, or send invites by email. A table link seats up to eight players and stays good for a week.

The full rundown, including what your players see when they open the link, is in Inviting players.

4. Let the players roll their own

Characters are usually the players' job. Once someone joins, they build their own PC and it shows up on your roster. If you'd rather start a sheet yourself, the same page lets you.

5. Prep on the DM screen

Open DM Screen from the campaign navigation. It's a grid of modules you arrange your way: notes, dice, initiative, reference, and more. Your notes live in the Notes module, so that's the place for the evening's hooks, NPCs, and the thing you swore you'd remember.

6. Run the session

A session goes live when you start play on the canvas, or when the Nexus bot joins your Discord voice channel. The first-night strip notices on its own.

Want a date on the calendar first? The campaign's Schedule page is where you set the next session. Players answer yes, maybe, or no there, and reminders go out by email and notification.

7. Keep the recap

After the session, write what happened in Notes while it's fresh. Future you will be grateful.

Tables that play over Discord with voice transcription on get a head start: Nexus writes a recap from the transcript into Notes and shares it with your table when the session ends. It won't be perfect, so give it a read and fix what it got wrong.

What about Discord?

Optional, every step of the way. Skip it and nothing breaks. Once the first-night strip is done or hidden, and before your first session wraps, campaign home offers a small Play over Discord? card; Not for us puts it away for good. After a finished session it becomes a one-line tip instead. The campaign's Settings page always has a Discord entry if you change your mind.

If your group already lives on Discord, Discord setup for GMs covers reminders, transcripts, and the in-channel Activity.