Your first session
This is the path a new table walks, in order. Each screen has a guided tour the first time you see it, replayable from Help, so nothing here is required reading; it is the shape of the evening.
1. Create the campaign
New campaign on the home screen opens the campaign creator. The steps:
- Premise. A title, and who runs the table: the AI, the AI with a person steering it, a person, or a person with AI help. Optionally a world pack, which renames races, classes, spells and monsters to fit a specific universe.
- Setting. Pick one of the world portals: high fantasy, dark fantasy, mystery, horror, cyberpunk, steampunk, post-apocalyptic, or write your own theme. A sentence or two of premise (leave it blank and the AI invents one), how the narrator should talk, and the table language the story is written in.
- Party. Players, starting level, difficulty, campaign length, the dice policy, how hit points grow, and starting gear or rolled wealth.
- The table. What is on at the table: the living world, bonds, romance, the narration voice and pace.
- Advanced. Variant and house rules, prep brought in from a workshop, and live voice. All optional.
- Review. The cover reads it all back. Press create.
In a hurry? Quick start on the home screen makes a one-evening adventure with four ready-made heroes in two clicks; the lobby offers the heroes.
A campaign gets cover art: uploaded, or painted by the image backend if one is available.
2. Build a character
From the lobby, or from Characters on the home screen, the builder walks six steps: Identity (name, portrait, background), Ancestry, Calling (class, subclass at its level, skills, fighting style, expertise), Ability scores (throw six sets of 4d6 into a tray and place them, take the standard array, or point buy), Spells and gear (cantrips and spells, recommended picks first, then the class's starting equipment; Gear alone for a class that does not cast), and Finishing touches. Each panel says how many picks remain, and when Continue is held the reason sits beside it with Show me, which takes you to the missing pick. Every description is one press away, and every option names the book it comes from.
Characters live in your library and can be filed under several campaigns. A campaign can also let you play more than one.
3. Fill the lobby
The lobby shows the cover, the room code panel and the party list. Share the code (how). Each player picks or builds a character and presses Ready. The party lead can edit the campaign's settings here, import prep from a workshop, hand the Dungeon Master seat to someone, and start the game once everyone is ready.
4. The first turn
The table opens on the chronicle: the Dungeon Master's narration, your party's words, and the rolls, all in order. Under it is the message box with four modes: Do for an action, Say for words in character, OOC for out-of-character talk, and Direct for an instruction to the Dungeon Master (party lead only). Type what your character does and send. The Dungeon Master narrates, asks for rolls, and starts fights when they happen.
The first time the table opens, a spotlight tour points at each control. The first fight has its own tutorial, which explains the Hand: your options as a fan of cards.
5. Dice, rolls and turns
When the Dungeon Master asks for a roll, a roll card appears. The app rolls for you unless you chose typed physical dice or a paired Pixels die for that shape. Rolls tumble as 3D dice if you left that on, and on a phone you can hold them until you shake. The dice menu in the header also has a tray for rolling your own dice, with Roll in secret. In combat, initiative runs along a rail of portraits, a banner calls each turn, and the Hand shows what you can do with the numbers from your sheet.
Where to go next
- The table, Combat and the Hand and Dice.
- Create a campaign and The Setup tab for party leads.
- Human DM mode if a person is running the table.