Quick start: host a world on your device
The app carries a complete server. When you host, your device is the table: it keeps the campaign, rolls the dice, runs the rules and, if you switch it on, calls the AI. Friends connect to it through a private tunnel the app opens for you. This page walks the whole path once; the platform sections go deeper.
See Install the app. The title screen shows Begin your world.
Letters, digits, underscore and dash, up to 24 characters. This is the name friends see at the table. The world is created on your device and you are its owner. No password is asked for; you can add one later in the world's Account settings.
The Story AI screen asks once for the whole device. A human Dungeon Master means no AI at all. Your OpenAI API key switches on the AI Dungeon Master and pictures for every campaign on this device, billed to your key. On a desktop you can instead install a local model sized to your hardware, or use an agent you already have. Change it any time from the Story AI button on the home screen.
New campaign opens a short wizard: the premise and who runs the table, the setting, the party, the table's feel, advanced options, and a review. With an AI storyteller, Quick start seats four ready-made heroes in a one-evening adventure, and Solo adventure skips the lobby for a one-player game. The campaign opens in its lobby.
The lobby shows a Room code panel with a QR code, the code itself, and Copy, Link and Share buttons. Opening the lobby on your device world also starts sharing online: the app opens its tunnel and the invite shows Shared online once the public address is up. While shared, the code reads as two halves, for example ABCD2345-EFGH6789: the first names your device, the second the table. Send either the code or the link.
They type the code into their app or scan the QR. On your world they only pick a name. Everyone builds a character in the lobby and presses Ready. You, as party lead, press start.
What sharing does, and does not do
- The address is temporary. A share lives while your app is open and sharing. Stop sharing, close the app or lose the connection and the code goes dark; friends see the host as offline and rejoin the moment you are back. Your room code stays yours while a share is stopped, so nobody else can claim it. If another device is holding it, the lobby and the invite dialog say so and offer a new code.
- The world stays on your device. Campaigns, sheets and the chronicle are on your disk. The tunnel carries only game traffic between your app and your friends' apps.
- Voice works through the tunnel. A device world uses mesh voice, browser to browser, so there is no media port to open.
- Same room, no internet. On a desktop, Share on this Wi-Fi opens the world to your local network instead. The app shows a plain
httpaddress and its QR code; friends type it into their app or a browser. Anyone on that network can reach the sign-in page while it is on. - On Android, sharing keeps a notification up. "Your world is shared" with a Stop hosting action. It is what keeps the phone from putting the server to sleep in the background.
- On macOS, sharing online is not available yet. The tunnel helper ships for Windows, Linux and Android. A Mac can host for itself, share on its Wi-Fi for a table in the same room, and join any shared world.
Playing alone needs none of this. Skip step 5. A solo adventure or a campaign with only you in it runs entirely on the device, offline, with no notification and no tunnel.
Next
- Your first session: characters, the lobby and the first turn.
- Hosting from your computer and Host a world on your phone for the platform details.
- Where an AI key lives if you chose the OpenAI door.