Quest Board · redesign · for GMs

Seven ways Quest Board could work for the GM

Seven different ways the app could be organised, drawn as grey sketches so the question is structure, not style, plus today's app for comparison. Every version shows the six screens a GM lives in: home, the campaign, a session, Prep, the table, and review. Regions only a GM sees are tagged GM.

1 · Look Six screens per version, desktop on the left and phone on the right, plus a seventh: the shared screen everyone would look at if the table were in one room. On a phone, tap through the screens one at a time. The dashed line is where the first screen ends; what sits below it is scrolling.
2 · Rate each one Under every version there is a five-point scale and a box. Say what you would use and what would get in your way at the table.
3 · Answer four questions At the end: pick your two favourites and answer four short questions about how you run a game now. Twenty minutes, thirty if you read every callout.
Your answers save as you go, under the name you give at the bottom, using the key on the link Ryan sent you. Come back on this device any time to change them. If saving is unavailable, a "Copy my answers" button appears instead.
below this dashed line you would be scrolling 1 a note, explained under the drawing the part that is different in this version GM only GMs see thisif … only in that state
C0

Today, as built (v4.3.0)

Today's app, as built: the nav bar, the long campaign page, the session page, Prep, the Shelf with its toolbar hidden on phones, the wiki. The callouts point at what the audit measured, not at what works.

If the table is in one room: The only shared screen is a laptop showing the players' Table view: a newest-first list in 14 px text. Recording exists only through the Discord bot.

Home

Dashboard as built: one narrow column — heading and three form toggles, then "Needs you" if anything is pending, then the campaign list.

Quest BoardCampaigns…Marahidden below smProfileAdminadmin☀Sign out4
Your CampaignsImportJoinNew Campaign
New Campaign form if New Campaign · Join form if Join · Import form if Import — each toggle closes the other two1
Needs you absent when nothing is pending2
  • Session in progress S12 — Under the Saltworks Ashes of Varn
  • Vote on a time S13 Ashes of Varn · 3 times
  • RSVP S12 — Under the Saltworks Tue 19:30
  • Transcript to reviewGM S11 — The Amphora Ashes of Varn
  • Suggested wiki updatesGM 5 waiting Ashes of Varn
Ashes of VarnGM
Pathfinder 2e Linked
Next session in 3d 4h3
Saltmarsh IrregularsPlayer
D&D 5e
Next session in 6d 2h
Archived Campaigns if any
Hidden from the default active list
Deleted Campaigns if any
Restorable until they are purgedRestore
Help: Running your first campaign · Joining a campaign
Quest BoardCampaigns…Profile☀
Your Campaigns
ImportJoinNew Campaign
Create / Join / Import form if toggled
Needs you
  • Session in progress S12
  • Vote on a time S13
  • RSVP S12 · Tue 19:30
  • Transcript to reviewGM S11
  • Suggested wiki updatesGM 5
Ashes of VarnGM
Pathfinder 2e
Next session in 3d 4h
Saltmarsh IrregularsPlayer
D&D 5e
Next session in 6d 2h
Archived Campaigns if any
Hidden from the default active list
Deleted Campaigns if any
Restorable until purgedRestore
Help: Running your first campaign · Joining a campaign
  1. Three inline form toggles sit above the attention list in the DOM, so opening New Campaign, Join or Import pushes "Needs you" down the page it is meant to head; each toggle also silently closes the other two.
  2. "Needs you" is conditional and renders after the heading and the forms, never first. Its fetch swallows its own errors by design, so a broken attention feed and an empty one are indistinguishable — nothing on the page says which you are looking at.
  3. The countdown is the only forward-looking fact on the dashboard. It re-renders every 60s but never re-fetches, so it will keep counting down to a session that has since been rescheduled or cancelled.
  4. Outside a campaign the bar carries no campaign links at all — the switcher is the only way in, which is why every campaign sub-page starts at depth 1 or worse. The whole right-hand cluster (name, Profile, Admin, ☀, Sign out) is unpadded text links, among the smallest tap targets measured.

Campaign

CampaignDetail: a 3-column grid at xl, 2 from lg, 1 below — and nothing is hidden at any width, so the phone gets every panel in DOM order.

Quest BoardAshes of VarnSessionsPrepGMWikiHighlights1Profile☀Sign out
← Campaigns / Ashes of Varn
Getting this campaign going GMuntil all 4 done
2 of 4 still to do · Set the campaign's timezone · Invite your players · Connect Discord · Schedule your first session
Ashes of Varn
Pathfinder 2e Linked · Europe/London
Analytics2EditArchiveExportDeleteGM
Edit Campaign — name, system, timezone, Discord channel + test rows if Edit
Members (6)
  • Mara GMEdit
  • Idris Idris ValeEdit · Delete
  • Wren + Add characterUnlink
  • Tobiah Tobiah RellEdit · Delete
  • Kestrel KestrelEdit · Delete
  • Juno Juno of the WeirEdit · Delete
Add a memberInvite players
Invite link + code if Invite players
Session Search
Find a session
Stat conversion GMif a system is linked
Step 1 — link a game system. Step 2 — convert an NPC or creature.
Sessions
Upcoming (2)Completed (9)Cancelled (1)
+ New SessionGM3
New session form — title + suggestion chips, date and time, propose times if + New Session
  • Confirmed S12 — Under the Saltworks Tue 19:30 · 4 of 6
  • Proposed S13 vote open · 3 times
  • Completed S11 — The Amphora Ready for review
Recurring Series GM
Every Tuesday 19:30 · next 3 generated
Quests
  • Find the amphora's owner
  • Who lit the Chapel lamp?
Loot & XP
ItemToSession
Lantern shardWrenS11
420 XP · 60 gpPartyS11
Campaign JournalWiki 5
HighlightsPrepGM
  • S11 — The Amphora GM notes
  • S10 — The Bell GM notes
Milestones
  • The Chapel bell rings S9
  • Halloran's bargain S11
Timeline
S9 — The Bell
Halloran's bargain
S11 — The Amphora
S12 — Under the Saltworks
Modals: merge a cancelled session's notes · delete campaign (type the name) · erase member recordings (type the name)4
Quest BoardAshes of Varn☀
← Campaigns / Ashes of Varn
SessionsPrepGMWikiHighlights
Getting this campaign going GM
2 of 4 still to do
Ashes of Varn5
Pathfinder 2e · Europe/London
AnalyticsEditArchiveExportDelete
Edit Campaign form if Edit
Members (6)
  • Mara GMEdit
  • Idris Idris ValeEdit · Delete
  • Wren + Add characterUnlink
  • Tobiah Tobiah RellEdit · Delete
  • Kestrel KestrelEdit · Delete
  • Juno Juno of the WeirEdit · Delete
Add a memberInvite players
Invite link + code if Invite
Session Search
Find a session
Stat conversion GM
Convert an NPC to a stat block.
Sessions
Upcoming (2)Completed (9)
+ New SessionGM
  • Confirmed S12 Tue 19:30
  • Proposed S13 vote open
  • Completed S11 Ready
Recurring Series GM
Every Tuesday 19:30
Quests
  • Find the amphora's owner
  • Who lit the Chapel lamp?
Loot & XP
Lantern shard → Wren · 420 XP · 60 gp
Campaign JournalWiki 5
  • S11 — The Amphora
Milestones
  • The Chapel bell rings S9
  • Halloran's bargain S11
Timeline
S9 — The Bell
S11 — The Amphora
S12 — Under the Saltworks
  1. Inside a campaign the bar gains four links — Sessions · Prep (GM) · Wiki · Highlights. Analytics is in no nav bar anywhere in the app.
  2. …because its only entry point in the whole product is this one text link, two-thirds of the way down the left rail's info panel.
  3. "+ New Session" lives inside the Sessions tab bar and "Edit Campaign" is a disclosure inside Panel 1 — the two things a GM opens this page to do are both below the fold on desktop, and much further down on a phone.
  4. Three confirmation tiers coexist on one page with no rule distinguishing them: typed-name modals (delete campaign, erase member recordings), plain native confirm() (remove member, delete character, archive, regenerate invite code, delete milestone), and none at all. This file has the most confirm() calls in the app.
  5. The grid is one column below lg and nothing here is hidden at any width, so the phone gets the entire left rail — info, edit form, six members with their per-character rows, the invite panel — before the session list. Answering "are you in for Tuesday?" means scrolling past the whole roster; milestones and the timeline land last of all.

Session

SessionDetail for S11 "The Amphora" — completed, transcript ready for review. Same 3/2/1-column grid as the campaign page.

Quest BoardAshes of VarnSessionsPrepGMWikiHighlightsProfile☀
← CampaignS11 — The AmphoraPrep this sessionGMShelf →GMAt the table →1
Previously on only while confirmed / in progress
S11 — The Amphora
The AmphoraThe Drowned TideGM
Completed5
Tue 19:30 · Europe/London
Your time: 14:30 · America/Denver
RescheduleReopen for votingconfirmed / in progress only
Cancel sessionMark completedDetach from seriesGM2
Are you in? confirmed / tentative only
YesMaybeNo
  • Idris · Yes
  • Wren · Maybe
  • Juno · No answer
Recordings erased if a member erased theirs
Recording GM
01:42:07
  • Mara
  • Idris
  • Kestrel · present but silent
StartStoplive over SSE — the only one in the app
Transcript & Summary Ready for review
Session Summary
EditTranscript ▾Approve summaryRetry processingGM
Queued behind 2 sessions — about 6 minutes while processing4
Post-session processing
  • Transcript & summary Ready for review
  • Suggested wiki updates Ready to review
  • Campaign storyline Done
  • Journal entry Done
  • Next-session titles Queued
  • Recap email Failed
Highlights
  • "We do not open the amphora." ApproveGM
  • "Halloran knew the tide by name." Approve
Time slots vote mode
Member
Tue 19:30
Wed 20:00
Sat 18:00
Idris
Yes
Maybe
No
Wren
Yes
No
Yes
Juno
Session Notes
Shared notes for this session…
Loot & XP this session
Lantern shard → Wren · 420 XP · 60 gp · read-only here
My Notes
Private to you
GM Notes GM
Shared with the players
Attendance GM
  • Idris Present
  • Wren Present
  • Juno Absent
Add to Calendar
Google Calendar
Quest BoardAshes of Varn☀
← CampaignS11 — The AmphoraPrep this sessionShelf →At the table →
Previously on confirmed / in progress
S11 — The Amphora
Completed
Tue 19:30 · Europe/London
Your time: 14:30
Cancel sessionMark completedGM
Are you in? confirmed / tentative
YesMaybeNo
Recording GM
01:42:07
StartStop
Transcript & Summary Ready
Approve summaryRetry
Post-session processing
  • Transcript & summary Ready
  • Suggested wiki updates Ready
  • Campaign storyline Done
  • Journal entry Done
  • Next-session titles Queued
  • Recap email Failed
Highlights
  • "We do not open the amphora." Approve
Time slots vote mode
Voting grid
Session Notes
Shared notes…
Loot & XP this session
420 XP · 60 gp
My Notes
Private to you
GM Notes GM
Shared with players
Attendance GM
  • Idris Present
  • Juno Absent
Add to Calendar3
Google Calendar
  1. Breadcrumb, title and three link chips share one flex row with no flex-wrap and no truncate on the title, so a long session name plus "Prep this session", "Shelf →" and "At the table →" has no defined overflow behaviour at any width — and it is the first thing a phone renders.
  2. 12 native confirm() dialogs live in this file alone — cancel, mark completed, detach from series, withdraw approval, reopen for voting, remove a timeslot — including "Approve summary", which posts to Discord and publishes quotes to players. None uses the typed-name pattern the campaign page reserves for its irreversible actions.
  3. Collapsed to one column the middle column's deliberate "Are you in? first" ordering survives, but the left rail's GM lifecycle buttons land above it and the right rail — attendance, and the only "Add to Calendar" — lands below every panel, including both notes boxes.
  4. Two independent 5s polls run here plus the app's only SSE stream, and there are no spinners anywhere in the product: every busy state is a text swap ("Approving…", "Transcribing…"). The queue note and elapsed timer exist because a silent "Processing…" read as broken.
  5. The status pills on this page carry no dark: prefix, so they render in their dark palette in light mode too — and this file's status map has no in_progress entry at all, so a session actually being played shows an undefined badge.

Prep

CampaignPlanning ("Prep"), GM-only: a six-group tool palette, the active tool, and the Generation History rail — the most breakpoint-differentiated page in the app.

Quest BoardAshes of VarnSessionsPrepWikiHighlightsProfile☀
← Ashes of VarnPre-generating name suggestions…hidden below lgSession Shelfhidden below sm3
Tools1
Session Prep
Story Arcs
Quests
NPCs
Names
At the Table
Session PrepBeat PlannerSeries Titles
sub-tabs are hidden below md2
Session Prep
Generate a structured prep sheet for an upcoming session — a strong start, scenes, secrets & clues, NPCs, and open quests — grounded in the session's prep notes and the campaign wiki.
Session
S12 — Under the Saltworks · Tue 19:30
Notes for this session
The tide gate is jammed; Halloran wants the amphora back…
What I want from this session (this sheet only)
A hard choice at the tide gate
Generateusually under a minute on a warm model
Prep sheet
Save to this sessionAdd to shelfSave as wiki articleAppend to entryCopy
Generation History
  • Session Prep 2m ago
  • Rumor Mill 18m
  • Instant NPC 1h
  • Read-Aloud Description yesterday
own column only at lg; a full-width row below the palette at md4
Quest BoardAshes of Varn☀
← Ashes of Varn
Tool
Session Prep ▾ — all 13 tools, grouped
Session Prep
Generate a structured prep sheet grounded in the session's prep notes and the campaign wiki.
Session
S12 — Under the Saltworks
Notes for this session
The tide gate is jammed…
What I want from this session (this sheet only)
A hard choice at the tide gate
Generate
Prep sheet
Save to this sessionAdd to shelfCopy
Generation History
  • Session Prep 2m ago
  • Rumor Mill 18m
  • Instant NPC 1h
No "Session Shelf" link and no prefetch status here — both are hidden below their breakpoints5
  1. The palette is this page's only navigation and is hidden below md; the phone gets a native select in its place. That select is the single mobile-only element in the entire audited component set — one of them against fifteen desktop-only rules — so this is the one page where a hidden control was given a substitute.
  2. The sub-tabs (Beat Planner, Series Titles under Session Prep) are hidden below md with no counterpart, but the select's groups do list all 13 tools, so nothing is stranded — only the sense of which group you are in.
  3. The "Session Shelf" link is hidden below sm and the prefetch status text below lg; five distinct hidden/shown rules run on this one page, and these two vanish with nothing in their place — so a GM on a phone cannot reach the shelf from Prep.
  4. Generation History is a persistent scratchpad but only earns its own column at lg; between md and lg it becomes a full-width row under the palette and the tool, which is below the fold at the width most laptops actually use.
  5. Switching the Beat Planner's session dropdown with unsaved notes fires the app's only "you will lose these if you continue" confirm inside a widget — a fourth, undocumented confirmation shape.

Table

SessionShelf, the GM's live board during play. Both frames are the shelf — the phone one is what a GM actually gets below the sm breakpoint.

← Session/Session ShelfS12 — Under the SaltworksCopy from…Find Ctrl KTable viewRecordingEnd-of-session sweep
every control in the bar above is hidden below sm — no hamburger, no second row, no substitute1
Previously on
All 8The tide gate 3Chapel stair 2Unfiled 3
Shown to the table (2) if anything revealed
Keeper Halloran
The tide gate
Keeper Halloran
Wiki×3
Strong start
Generated
The Drowned Chapel
Wiki2
Rumours at the Saltworks
Generated
Order of the Lantern
Wiki
If they split up…
Note
Loot parcel — tide vault
Generated
Idris Vale
Wiki
On stage 3 / 8floats over the board's right edge
The Drowned Chapel
‹›Reveal to tableClose1-9Esc4
← Session/Session Shelf
Previously on
All 8The tide gate 3
Shown to the table (2)
Keeper Halloran
The tide gate
Keeper Halloran
Wiki×
Strong start
Generated
The Drowned Chapel
Wiki
Rumours at the Saltworks
Generated
Order of the Lantern
Wiki
If they split up…
Note
Loot parcel — tide vault
Generated
Idris Vale
Wiki
No session switcher, no Find, no Table view, no Recording, no sweep — the header toolbar is gone and nothing replaces it5
  1. All six header controls are hidden below sm with no mobile counterpart anywhere in the file: session switcher, "Copy from…", Find, Table view, Recording, End-of-session sweep. The board itself is touch-capable, so the one part of this page that works on a phone is the part whose chrome disappeared.
  2. An unplaced card cascades to 24 + (index mod 4) x 280 pixels across a page with no horizontal scroll, so the fourth column starts at 864px: clipped on a 1024px laptop, off-screen entirely on a phone. The only way to a card past the edge is to drag the ones in front of it.
  3. The card-remove × is the one clearly destructive action in the product with no confirm at all, and it is also the smallest target measured — a bare glyph with no padding, in a card header.
  4. Ctrl-K, 1-9 to spotlight, [ and ] to cycle, Esc to clear: all of them shortcuts for controls that are themselves hidden below sm, so the keyboard path and the visible path fail at the same width.
  5. The player's Table view is the single-column page that does work on a phone — it polls every 8s, re-polls on focus, and keeps the last good reveals with "Connection lost, retrying…" rather than blanking. The GM's only link to it is in this hidden toolbar.

The shared screen, if the table is in one room

The only shared screen is a laptop showing the players' Table view: a newest-first list in 14 px text. Recording exists only through the Discord bot.

Quest BoardAshes of VarnSessionsWikiHighlightsIdrisProfileThemeSign out1
A laptop propped at the end of the table · signed in as one of the players
← SessionAt the table — S12 "Under the Saltworks"Connection lost, retrying…
Previously on collapsible
Revealed cards · newest first2
The Drowned Chapel
shown at 19:52
Keeper Halloran
shown at 19:31
The tide gate
shown at 19:08
Nothing here says who is in the room, nothing says the room is being recorded, there is no clock, and there is no code to pair with — somebody signs this laptop in and finds the page3
The text is the size it is on a phone, because it is the phone page
  1. The whole app comes with it — campaign switcher, Profile, Sign out — because the only way to get this onto a television is for one of you to sign in on it, in front of everyone.
  2. On a screen across the room this is still a web page at reading size: the card that matters is the top of a list, set at the size you would hold in your hand. From two metres away nobody at the table can read it.
  3. The screen never says who is here and never says the room is being recorded, and there is nothing to write on. If you are at the table without a phone, this is all you get.

Review

The two review-and-wiki pages the audit measured: WikiArticle on the desktop frame (fixed category rail, fixed infobox), WikiProposals on the phone frame (the GM's approval queue).

Quest BoardAshes of VarnSessionsPrepGMWikiHighlightsProfile☀
← Wiki /New articleEdit articleAdd to shelfHistoryRephrase with LLMGenerate backstoryGenerate stat blockDeleteGM1
Find an article
Characters
Idris Vale
NPCs
Keeper Halloran
Places
The Drowned Chapel
Factions
Order of the Lantern
Load more
hidden below md2
Keeper Halloran NPC
Also known as the Tidewarden
He keeps the chapel lamp lit, and has never said for whom.
Version history if History · Open draft review if a draft exists — it replaces the three LLM buttons
Character Timeline if the entry has events
Lit the lamp again S9
Bargained for the amphora S11
GM notes GM
private — players never see this
Private notes player
Secrets, plans, and private character context…
Relationships
  • Ally of Idris Vale
  • Member of Order of the Lantern
Character Owners
Primary owners can view private notes.
Infobox3
TypeNPC
StatusAlive
FactionOrder of the Lantern
Ally ofIdris Vale
SessionsS11 — The Amphora
256px fixed, sticky from lg
Quest BoardAshes of Varn☀
← Campaign / Wiki / Suggested wiki updates4
Suggested wiki updates 5GM
Suggested articles 3
PlaceThe tide gate
from S11 — The Amphora
Review merge…ApproveEditDiscard
card, type colours and the inline edit form are hardcoded dark5
NPCSister Weir
from S11 — The Amphora
Review merge…ApproveEditDiscard
ItemThe amphora
from S11 — The Amphora
Review merge…ApproveDiscard
Suggested relationships 2
  • Keeper Halloran — member of — Order of the Lantern Approve
  • Idris Vale — owes — Keeper Halloran Discard
  1. Up to eight conditional GM buttons share one row with no flex-wrap — the equivalent row on the wiki home page does wrap. None is styled as the primary action; only "Delete" is differentiated at all, by a red outline, so the reading order of this row is left-to-right accident.
  2. The category rail is hidden below md and it holds this page's only copy of the wiki search box, so on a phone an article offers no search and no category navigation at all — only the body's own links and the back button. The wiki home page moved its search into the main column for precisely this reason; the article page did not follow.
  3. The infobox — type, status, faction, the sessions an entry appears in — is a fixed 256px aside and the last child of the article row, so below lg it stacks beneath the whole body, the timeline, both notes boxes and the relationships. This page is also the one place the product still raises a native alert(): a failed Delete.
  4. This queue is the GM's only route to approving generated wiki content, sits at depth 3, and has no nav entry: it is reached from the wiki home page's sidebar (itself hidden below md) or its main-column button.
  5. Ten dark: utilities against seven hardcoded-dark lines — the proposal cards, the type colours and the whole inline edit form are dark unconditionally, so in light mode this page is a light shell wrapped around dark cards. The sharpest light/dark inconsistency measured.

Your take on C0 Today, as built (v4.3.0)

C1

Campaign Desk

Today's structure with a real second level: a sidebar on a desk, a tab bar on a phone, one layout grammar for every page, and a Review queue that gathers every transcript, suggestion and highlight awaiting you. Members move to their own page so the campaign page is sessions first.

If the table is in one room: The Table view page gains a Big screen toggle: the latest reveal full-bleed, earlier reveals as a strip. The Recording panel gains a Source selector (Discord voice, this device, a file).

Home

Outside every campaign: what is waiting for you, when you next play, and the campaigns themselves as a side column.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
Dashboard
Needs you 41
Ashes of Varn
  • ReviewGM S11 "The Amphora" · transcript ready Review
  • SuggestionsGM 3 wiki updates from S11 Open queue
  • Vote S13 · 3 candidate times Vote
  • RSVP S12 · Tue 19:30 Are you in?
Saltmarsh Irregulars
  • Vote S4 · 2 candidate times Vote
This week 2
  • Ashes of Varn · S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed Tue 19:30 · in 3d 4h · 4 of 6 in Are you in?
  • Saltmarsh Irregulars · S4 Vote open 3 of 5 answered Vote
Recent recaps
  • S11 "The Amphora" Halloran named a price at the chapel door
  • S10 "Nets and Knives" The saltworks crew turned on their foreman
Campaigns 3
Ashes of Varn
GM · 6 members
Saltmarsh Irregulars
player · 5 members
+ New campaign
Join with a code
Help
Getting startedRecording & transcriptsLink your Discord
Quest Board
Dashboard
Needs you 4
Ashes of Varn
  • Review S11 transcript
  • Suggestions 3 wiki updates
  • Vote S13 · 3 times
  • RSVP S12 · Tue 19:30
Saltmarsh Irregulars
  • Vote S4 · 2 times
This week
S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed
Ashes of Varn · Tue 19:30 · 4 of 6 in
Are you in?
S4 Vote open
Saltmarsh Irregulars · 3 of 5
Vote
Campaigns
Ashes of Varn
GM · 6 members
Saltmarsh Irregulars
player · 5 members
+ New campaign · Join with a code
Recent recaps
  • S11 "The Amphora"
  • S10 "Nets and Knives"
No tab bar here 4 — the second level belongs to a campaign
  1. Attention is grouped by campaign, so a count seen here is the same count that campaign's Review tab carries — one source of work met in two places, never two lists to reconcile.
  2. This week answers the only question a group asks every week — when do we play and what does it want from me — without opening a campaign at all.
  3. The right column is the same aside grammar used on every page in this concept: secondary, skippable, and never carrying the primary action.
  4. Home deliberately has no tab bar; the second level exists only inside a campaign, so its absence is how you know you are above them all.

Campaign

The campaign stays the container, but gains a persistent second level and stops being a settings form.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
Ashes of Varn 1
Sessions
PrepGM
Tableplayer
Wiki
ReviewGM5
More
Highlights
Analytics
Members
Settings
Ashes of Varn
Dungeon WorldGM Mara6 membersEurope/LondonEditGM2
Next session
S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed
Tue 19:30 Europe/London· 12:30 your time (America/Denver)· in 3d 4h3
Idris, Wren, Tobiah, Kestrel in · Juno and Mara pending
Are you in?Prep this sessionGMOpen session
Sessions
Upcoming2
S13Vote open3 candidate times · 3 of 6 votedVote
S12 "Under the Saltworks"ConfirmedTue 19:30 · 4 of 6 RSVP'd
Past11
S11 "The Amphora"CompletedHalloran named a price at the chapel door
S10 "Nets and Knives"CompletedThe saltworks crew turned on their foreman
Party
Mara · GMIdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno6 membersInviteGM4
First run if new campaign
Invite players · Schedule S1
Discord delivery
#varn-table · last post ok
Quick links
Storyline
Suggested wiki updates 3
Export · Archive · DeleteGM
Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾
Ashes of Varn
Dungeon WorldGM MaraEditGM
Next session
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Confirmedin 3d 4h
Tue 19:30 Europe/London
12:30 your time
4 of 6
Are you in?PrepGM
Sessions
  • Vote open S13 Vote
  • Confirmed S12 Tue
  • Completed S11 "The Amphora"
  • Completed S10 "Nets and Knives"
Party
MaraIdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJunoInviteGM
More
  • Members
  • Wiki
  • Highlights
  • Analytics
  • SettingsGM
Sessions
Prep
Wiki
5Review
More5
  1. One persistent second level per campaign is the whole concept: prep, the wiki and the review queue are reachable from anywhere inside Ashes of Varn without returning to this page first.
  2. Edit is a button, not the inline form of today, because this is a page you read every week and change twice a year.
  3. Both timezones sit on the one fact a distributed group gets wrong, with the countdown next to them because that is what actually gets read.
  4. The party is a strip rather than a column of per-member character forms; moving those to More → Members is what lets this page end above the fold.
  5. On the phone the sidebar becomes the bottom tab bar, so the second level survives at 224px instead of collapsing into a hamburger, and the review badge stays visible while you scroll.

Session

One ordered column in lifecycle order, with an aside for the actions that lead away; on the phone that aside becomes a sticky action row.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
Ashes of Varn
Sessions
PrepGM
Tableplayer
Wiki
ReviewGM5
More
Highlights
Members
Settings
S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed
Tue 19:30 Europe/London· 12:30 America/Denver (yours)· in 3d 4h
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo4 of 6 answered
  • Idris Idris Vale Yes
  • Wren Yes
  • Tobiah Yes
  • Kestrel Maybe
  • Juno no answer yet
Pick a time if proposed3
Who
Tue 19:30
Wed 20:00
Sat 14:00
Idris
Yes
Maybe
No
Wren
Yes
No
Yes
Juno
Maybe
Maybe
No
Notes
My notesprivate
GM shared notesGM writes
Previously on
Halloran named a price at the chapel door.
Open quests: The Drowned Chapel · Find the amphora's owner
Recording if confirmed or in progress
01:42:07In progressStop
MaraIdrisWrenJunopresent, silent
Post-session processing if completed
Transcript & summary · wiki updates · storyline · journal · title ideas · recap email
Transcript & Summary if completed
Summary Awaiting approvalApproveGM
Show the events behind thisGM4RetryFull transcript
Highlights
  • "We do not bargain with the drowned." — Kestrel ApproveGM
  • "Halloran keeps his ledgers in salt." — Idris ApproveGM
Attendance & character pinsGM
MemberPresentCharacter this session
IdrisIdris Vale
KestrelPick a character
Do next 2
Add to calendar
Prep this sessionGM
Open the shelfGM
Table viewplayer
Loot & XP
  • Salt-glass amphora
  • 300 XP each
Links
Campaign storylineKeeper Halloran
Quest BoardS12 ▾
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Confirmedin 3d 4h
Are you in?ShelfGMTableplayerPrepGM
sticks under the title while you scroll 1
Tue 19:30 Europe/London
12:30 your time
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo
  • Idris Yes
  • Wren Yes
  • Tobiah Yes
  • Kestrel Maybe
  • Juno —
Pick a time if proposed
Who
Tue
Wed
Sat
Idris
Yes
Maybe
No
Wren
Yes
No
Yes
My notesprivate
GM shared notes
Previously on
Halloran named a price at the chapel door.
Recording if confirmed or in progress
01:42:07Stop
MaraIdrisJuno
Post-session processing if completed
Transcript & Summary
ApproveGMShow the events behind thisGM
Highlights
  • "We do not bargain with the drowned." — Kestrel
Attendance & character pinsGM
  • Idris Idris Vale
Loot & XP
  • Salt-glass amphora
  • 300 XP each
Sessions
Prep
Wiki
5Review
More
  1. The sticky row carries exactly the aside's actions, so on a page this long the three things you might leave for stay reachable without scrolling back to the title.
  2. The aside holds only what navigates away; keeping it out of the column is what lets the column be read straight down in lifecycle order instead of stepping over buttons.
  3. Conditional sections name their condition rather than silently vanishing, so one page shape stays learnable across proposed, confirmed and completed.
  4. Verified events stay folded behind a single GM control beside the summary: they are evidence for an approval decision, not something a player should scroll past.

Prep

GM-only. The campaign nav collapses to an icon rail so Prep's own tools can hold the visible second level.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
S
P
W
R
⋯
Prep toolsGM1
Session Prep
Story Arcs
Quests
NPCs
Names
At the Table
History
Session Prep
For sessionS12 "Under the Saltworks" ▾defaults to your next session2
Notes for this session
What I want from this session
A tense negotiation with Keeper Halloran that ends badly
Generategrounded in Ashes of VarnThe Drowned ChapelOrder of the Lantern
Generated sheet
Scene 1 · The saltworks stair
Keeper Halloranread-aloudvoice cues
Scene 2 · Under the tide gate
Save to this sessionAdd to shelf3Regenerate
Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾
PrepGM
Session PrepStory ArcsQuestsNPCsNamesAt the TableHistory4
For session
S12 "Under the Saltworks" ▾
Notes for this session
What I want from this session
A tense negotiation with Keeper Halloran
Generate
Generated sheet
Scene 1 · The saltworks stair
Keeper Halloranread-aloud
Scene 2 · Under the tide gate
Save to this sessionAdd to shelf
Players get Table in this tab slot player
Sessions
Prep
Wiki
5Review
More
  1. Prep is the one area that needs a third level, so the campaign nav shrinks to an icon rail rather than stacking two columns of words — the layout system bends here instead of breaking.
  2. The session picker sits above everything and defaults to the next session, so generated material belongs to a session by default rather than floating loose in a tool.
  3. Save to this session and Add to shelf are the exits back into the session and the table; they are the only thing tying prep to play in this concept, which is its known weakness.
  4. On the phone the tools become a horizontal chip row: both levels survive, one vertical and one horizontal, and History is just another chip rather than a lost rail.

Table

The Shelf becomes a fixed spotlight lane plus a responsive grid; the shell stays put, with the clock in a nowbar.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
01:42:07RecordingMaraIdrisWrenJunopresent, silentStop3
Ashes of Varn
Sessions
PrepGM
Wiki
ReviewGM5
More
Highlights
Members
Shelf · S12 "Under the Saltworks"GM
Spotlight 1Reveal to table
Keeper Halloran
NPC · pinned wiki entry
Voice cues
Slow, salt-dry, never finishes a threat
Find a card, an NPC, a placeNPCs 6Places 4Read-aloud 3Pinned 5
NPCs 2
Keeper Halloran
spotlit
The saltworks foreman
generated
Reveal
Order of the Lantern
faction · pinned
Reveal
Places
The Drowned Chapel
pinned
Reveal
The tide gate
read-aloud
Reveal
+ Add from prep
What players get instead player5
Table view · revealed cards Recording
The Drowned Chapel
revealed 19:52
My notesprivate
Quest BoardShelfGM
01:42:07RecStop
Spotlight
Keeper Halloran
NPC · pinned wiki entry
Reveal to table
Shelf
The foremanReveal
Order of the LanternReveal
The Drowned ChapelReveal
The tide gateReveal
Quick note
Players get the Table view here player — revealed cards, then my notes
⌕4
Sessions
Shelf
Wiki
5Review
More
  1. A fixed spotlight lane gives the one card that matters a place that never moves — the direct answer to a free-form board whose cards drift past the right edge and become unreachable.
  2. Grouped responsive cards replace absolute positions, so the shelf reflows instead of overflowing and every card is reachable at every width.
  3. Clock and Stop live in a nowbar, not a full-screen mode: this concept never takes the shell away, so a GM can check the wiki mid-scene and come straight back to the same place.
  4. Find is a fab opening a bottom sheet, because the header controls hidden on phone today are exactly the ones a GM needs while running.
  5. Players stay in the same tab slot and get the Table view; role changes what a tab contains, never where it is.

The shared screen, if the table is in one room

The Table view page gains a Big screen toggle: the latest reveal full-bleed, earlier reveals as a strip. The Recording panel gains a Source selector (Discord voice, this device, a file).

Big screen · Ashes of Varn · S12 "Under the Saltworks"
The Drowned Chapel1
Who is here2
  • Mara
  • Idris
  • Wren
  • Tobiah
  • Kestrel
  • Juno
Recording01:42:07
Shown earlier
Keeper Halloran
The tide gate
Rumours at the saltworks
Nothing on this screen can be pressed · it follows the GM's laptop3
  1. On the shared screen the card the GM is showing fills it, at a size the far end of the table can read. Everything else on that screen is small, so there is only ever one thing to look at.
  2. Who is in the room and whether the room is being recorded stay on that screen the whole night, so nobody has to ask, and nobody needs a phone to know.
  3. There is nothing on it to press: it follows the GM's laptop. Setting it up means opening this page on the television's browser and switching Big screen on — no code to type, but somebody has to be signed in on that machine.

Review

Review is a badged second-level page: one cross-session queue in three tabs, plus the wiki article it feeds.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
Ashes of Varn
Sessions
PrepGM
Wiki
ReviewGM5
More
Highlights
Members
ReviewGM1
Transcripts 1Suggested wiki updates 3Highlights pending 1
one queue, all sessions 2
  • Ready S11 "The Amphora" · summary + 41 min transcript ApproveOpenRetry
  • Processing S10 "Nets and Knives" · re-run
Suggested wiki updates 3
  • Keeper Halloran 2 fieldsfrom S11ApproveReview merge…Discard
  • The Drowned Chapel new relationshipApproveReview merge…Discard
  • Order of the Lantern new entryApproving…Approve4
Wiki article
Search the wiki
Browse
  • NPCs 12
  • Places 9
  • Factions 4
  • Characters 6
Keeper Halloran
NPCOrder of the LanternAppears in S11, S9
reading column, 65ch 3
Timeline
S9 · first named at the tide gate
S11 · named a price at the chapel door
Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾
ReviewGM
Transcripts 1Wiki updates 3Highlights 1
S11 "The Amphora" Ready
ApproveOpenRetry
Suggested wiki updates
Keeper Halloran 2 fields
ApproveReview merge…Discard
The Drowned Chapel new relationship
ApproveReview merge…
Wiki article
Browse ▾the category rail as a drawer
Keeper Halloran
NPCAppears in S11, S9
Timeline
S9 · first named
S11 · named a price
Sessions
Prep
Wiki
5Review
More
  1. Giving GM approval work its own badged address stops it being something you stumble on inside a session page, and the badge is the same count the dashboard shows.
  2. The queue is cross-session on purpose: approving three wiki suggestions is one job done once, not the same job repeated inside each session that produced them.
  3. The article column comes first at a capped reading measure and the category rail becomes real navigation — today that rail squeezes the article to an unreadable column.
  4. Busy states sit in the row that caused them, so a slow approval reads as work in progress rather than a dead button.

Your take on C1 Campaign Desk

C2

Session First

Every session is one page in three phases. Prep opens inside Plan for that session; the Shelf and Recording live in Play; the checklist, transcript, verified events and approvals live in Review. The Now bar on every page says what the current session needs from you.

If the table is in one room: The Play tab has a "Show on the table screen" mode: a presentation of the reveals with the Now bar as a big header. Players with phones keep the phone Play tab.

Home

The app opens on this week: one large card per campaign for the session that is actually in play, with its one action on it.

Quest BoardAll campaigns ▾Help
NowConfirmedAshes of Varn · S12 "Under the Saltworks"Tue 19:30 London · 12:30 yours · in 3d 4hAre you in?if a session is live or within 7 days3
This week 1
Ashes of Varn GM · 6 members
S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed
Tue 19:30 Europe/London· 12:30 America/Denver (yours)· in 3d 4h
IdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJunoMara4 of 6 in
Are you in?2Open the sessionPrep this sessionGM
Saltmarsh Irregulars player · 5 members
S4 Vote open
3 candidate times · 3 of 5 answered · closes Fri
VoteOpen the session
Recently
  • S11 "The Amphora" CompletedHalloran named a price at the chapel doorRecap
  • S10 "Nets and Knives" CompletedThe saltworks crew turned on their foremanRecap
Needs you 44
  • ReviewGM S11 transcript
  • SuggestionsGM 3 wiki updates
  • Vote S13
Campaigns 5
  • Ashes of Varn
  • Saltmarsh Irregulars
New campaignJoin with a code
Quest Board
NowS12 · Tue 19:30Are you in?
This week
Ashes of Varn
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Confirmedin 3d 4h
Tue 19:30 Europe/London
12:30 your time
4 of 6 in
Are you in?
Saltmarsh Irregulars
S4
Vote open3 of 5
Vote
Recently
  • S11 "The Amphora" Recap
  • S10 "Nets and Knives" Recap
Needs you 4
  • Review S11 transcriptGM
  • Vote S13
Campaigns
  • Ashes of Varn GM
  • Saltmarsh Irregulars player
New campaignJoin with a code
  1. One card per campaign for the session in play — in progress, else next, else last — because the weekly question is about a session, not about a campaign you then have to open.
  2. The action is on the card and there is only one of it, chosen from the session's state; nothing else on this screen competes to be the next thing you press.
  3. The Now bar appears the moment any campaign has a live or imminent session and follows you into every page below, so the live thing can never be scrolled away from.
  4. Needs you shrinks to a leftover list because the cards already carry the actions; it holds only work with no session card of its own, such as a GM's review backlog.
  5. Campaigns are demoted to a small list: in this concept the container is not the object you navigate by.

Campaign

A campaign is presented as its sessions in a row, with everything that is not a session collected in one link panel.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
NowConfirmedS12 "Under the Saltworks"Tue 19:30 · in 3d 4hAre you in?
Ashes of Varn
Sessions←→13 sessionsNew sessionGM1
S10
Nets and Knives
Completed
S11
The Amphora
Review ready
S12
Under the Saltworks
Confirmed Tue2
S13
untitled
Vote open
+ New sessionGM
S12 "Under the Saltworks" · Plan 3
What is needed Open the session
Tue 19:30 Europe/London· 12:30 yours
  • IdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno4 of 6 in
  • Waiting Juno has not answered NudgeGM
  • Waiting No prep sheet saved yetGM Prep
All sessions
  • Vote open S13 3 candidate timesVote
  • Confirmed S12 "Under the Saltworks" Tue 19:30
  • Completed S11 "The Amphora" transcript awaiting approval
  • Completed S10 "Nets and Knives"
  • Completed S9 "The Tide Gate"
Ashes of Varn
Wiki 31 entries
Search the wiki4
  • Keeper Halloran
  • The Drowned Chapel
  • Order of the Lantern
  • Idris Vale
  • Highlights 24
  • Storyline 3 arcs
  • Analytics
  • Party 6
  • Prep toolsGM
  • Suggested wiki updatesGM 3
  • SettingsGM
Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾
NowS12 · Tue 19:30Are you in?
Ashes of Varn
S11Review ready
S12Confirmed
S13Vote open
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Plan Open
Tue 19:30 Europe/London
12:30 your time · in 3d 4h
4 of 6
Waiting on: Juno's answer, a prep sheetGM
All sessions
  • Vote open S13
  • Confirmed S12
  • Completed S11 "The Amphora"
  • Completed S10 "Nets and Knives"
Ashes of Varn
Search the wiki
  • Wiki 31
  • Highlights 24
  • Storyline
  • Analytics
  • Party 6
  • Prep toolsGM
  • Suggested wiki updatesGM 3
  • SettingsGM
  1. The session strip is the spine: it rides the top of every campaign page, so moving between sessions never means going up to a list and back down.
  2. The current session is emphasised in place and every chip carries its own state, which is what makes the strip navigation rather than decoration.
  3. The left column is the current session's Plan summary stated as unfinished business, so the campaign page is about what to do next, not about the campaign record.
  4. Everything that is not a session is demoted to one panel — so the wiki gets a search box inline, because losing its own nav slot is the price this concept pays.

Session

One page, three phases. Plan · Play · Review are tabs, and the tab that matches the session's state is the one that opens.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
NowConfirmedS12 "Under the Saltworks"in 3d 4hAre you in?
S10Completed
S11Review ready
S12Confirmed
S13Vote open
S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed3
PlanPlayReviewGM1
When
Tue 19:30 Europe/London· 12:30 America/Denver (yours)· in 3d 4hAdd to calendar
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo4 of 6 answered
  • Idris Idris Vale Yes
  • Wren Yes
  • Tobiah Yes
  • Kestrel Maybe
  • Juno no answer yet
Pick a time if proposed, instead of Are you in?
Who
Tue 19:30
Wed 20:00
Sat 14:00
Idris
Yes
Maybe
No
Wren
Yes
No
Yes
Notes
My notesprivate
GM shared notesGM writes
Previously on
Halloran named a price at the chapel door.
Open quests: The Drowned Chapel · Find the amphora's owner
Prep this sessionGM2
Prep sheet Not saved
Notes for this session
What I want from this session
A tense negotiation with Halloran that ends badly
Generategrounded in Ashes of Varn
Scene 1 · The saltworks stair
Save to this sessionAdd to shelf
Campaign-wide tools live under Prep tools
Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾
NowS12 · Tue 19:30Are you in?
S11Review ready
S12Confirmed
S13Vote open
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Confirmedin 3d 4h
PlanPlayReviewGM4
When
Tue 19:30 Europe/London
12:30 your time
Add to calendar
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo
  • Idris Yes
  • Wren Yes
  • Tobiah Yes
  • Kestrel Maybe
  • Juno —
Pick a time if proposed
Who
Tue
Wed
Sat
Idris
Yes
Maybe
No
Wren
Yes
No
Yes
My notesprivate
GM shared notes
Previously on
Halloran named a price at the chapel door.
Prep this sessionGM
Prep sheet Not saved
Generate
Save to this sessionAdd to shelf
  1. Plan · Play · Review is the session's own lifecycle made into navigation, so prep, the table and approval stop being four separate destinations for one evening.
  2. Prep opens inside Plan as a panel rather than as a place you travel to, which is what makes "prep this session" mean the session and not the tool.
  3. The state pill has to be loud and repeated in the Now bar, because tabs hide two thirds of the page from a phone scroller who would otherwise find everything by scrolling.
  4. On the phone the tabs sit directly under the title as a segmented control, above the fold, so the two hidden phases are visible as choices before any scrolling begins.

Prep

Prep splits: the sheet for a session lives in its Plan tab, and only the campaign-wide tools live here.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
NowConfirmedS12 "Under the Saltworks"in 3d 4hAre you in?
Prep toolsGM
Story Arcs
Quests
NPCs
Names
At the Table
Campaign
Wiki
Highlights
Sessions
Story ArcsGM
PaletteStory ArcsQuestsNPCsNamesAt the Table2
Suggest an arc
Where does the Order of the Lantern go after the chapel?
Generatelast 5 sessionsThe Drowned ChapelKeeper Halloran
Result
Arc · The Lantern turns inward
Save to a session ▾3Add to the wikiRegenerate
Arc · Salt debts
Generation history 4
  • Arc suggester 2m ago
  • NPC · the foreman 1h
  • Names · Varn coastal 1h
  • Read-aloud · tide gate Tue
Saved to sessions
  • S12 · 0 sheets
  • S11 · 2 sheets
Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾
NowS12 · Tue 19:30Are you in?
Prep toolsGM
Story ArcsQuestsNPCsNamesAt the TableHistory
Suggest an arc
Generate
Result
Arc · The Lantern turns inward
Save to a session ▾Add to the wiki
Arc · Salt debts
History behind the History chip
  • Arc suggester 2m
  • NPC · the foreman 1h
  1. The banner is the seam this concept creates and must therefore pay for: prep is split in two, so the campaign-level page has to point back at the session that most GMs actually came here for.
  2. The tools are a flat palette rather than a second navigation level, because in this concept navigation is spent on sessions and the container gets a plain list.
  3. Output saves to a session by name, which is the only bridge from a campaign-level tool back into the Plan tab where prep is supposed to live.
  4. History is an aside on desktop and one chip on the phone — reference material, never in the path of the work.

Table

The table is the Play tab, not a separate app: a split on desktop, and the whole screen on a phone.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
NowIn progress01:42:07S12 "Under the Saltworks"Stop
S11Review ready
S12In progress
S13Vote open
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
PlanPlayReviewGM1
Recording 2
01:42:07Recording
  • Mara capturing
  • Idris capturing
  • Wren capturing
  • Juno present, silent
  • Kestrel not in voice
Stop the recording
Quick note
ShelfGM
Spotlight Reveal to table
Keeper Halloran
NPC · pinned wiki entry
Find a cardNPCs 6Places 4Read-aloud 3
The foremanReveal
Order of the LanternReveal
The Drowned Chapel
revealed 19:52
The tide gateReveal
The same tab for a player player5
Table view Recording
The Drowned Chapel revealed 19:52
My notes private
S12 · PlayRecordingLeave the table3
01:42:07MaraIdrisWrenJuno
Keeper Halloran
NPC · spotlight
Reveal to table
The foreman
The Drowned Chapel
The tide gate
swipe the shelf 4
Quick note
StopPlayers see revealed cards hereplayer
  1. Play is a tab, so entering and leaving the table is switching phase on a page you are already on rather than travelling to a different part of the app.
  2. Recording sits beside the shelf, not inside it: at the table the two questions are "is it still capturing everyone" and "what do I show next", and both must be answerable at a glance.
  3. On a phone the tab takes the whole screen and drops the chrome, which is why "Leave the table" has to be a named, permanent control — an automatic mode with no visible exit is the risk this concept runs.
  4. The shelf becomes a swipeable deck rather than a grid, because one-handed at a table you flick rather than aim.
  5. A player opening the same Play tab gets the revealed cards and their notes; the phase is shared, the contents are role-swapped.

The shared screen, if the table is in one room

The Play tab has a "Show on the table screen" mode: a presentation of the reveals with the Now bar as a big header. Players with phones keep the phone Play tab.

NowAshes of Varn · S12 "Under the Saltworks"01:42:07Recording
Just shown · 19:52
The Drowned Chapel1
At the table
MaraWrenTobiahKestrelIdrisJuno2
5 of 6 here · Juno has not arrived
Earlier tonight
Keeper HalloranRumour: the amphoraThe tide gate
Paired · Ashes of Varn · S12 · shown from Mara's screen3
  1. The screen across the room shows one thing at a time, at a size you can read from the far end of the table: whatever Mara has just put up. Earlier cards stay as small labels underneath, so nobody has to ask what the last one was.
  2. Who the screen counts as being here is listed under the card, and the clock and the word Recording run along the top — so you can see the evening is being recorded, and that it is still going, without asking anyone.
  3. The screen has no buttons at all — it is driven from Mara's laptop, and the small line at the bottom only says which session it is tied to. If you came without a phone, nothing here needs you to hold one, and all of it turns up in the recap the next morning.

Review

The Review tab is where a session is approved; only the campaign-wide suggestion queue stays outside it.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Help
NowReview readyS11 "The Amphora" · transcript awaiting approvalReview transcriptGM
S10Completed
S11Review ready
S12Confirmed
S13Vote open
S11 "The Amphora"
PlanPlayReviewGM
Post-session processing
Transcript & summaryWiki updatesStorylineJournalTitle ideasRecap email2
Summary Awaiting approval
ApproveGMEditRetryFull transcript
Verified events behind this summary1
19:52 · Idris asks Halloran for the amphora 4 lines
20:11 · Halloran names his price Kestrel, Idris
20:40 · not attributed overlapping speech
Highlights pending 2
  • "We do not bargain with the drowned." — Kestrel ApproveDiscard
  • "Halloran keeps his ledgers in salt." — Idris ApproveDiscard
Attendance & character pinsGM
MemberPresentCharacter
IdrisIdris Vale
KestrelPick a character
Loot & XPGM
  • Salt-glass amphora Delete
  • 300 XP each Delete
  • Award something
Suggested wiki updates from this session 3
  • Keeper Halloran 2 fieldsApproveReview merge…
  • Order of the Lantern new entryApproving…Approve
A player's Review tab player3
Recap · approved highlights · my notes read-only, and empty until Mara approves
Campaign container → Suggested wiki updates 4
  • Keeper Halloran S11ApproveReview merge…Discard
  • The Drowned Chapel S11ApproveReview merge…
Keeper Halloran
preview
Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾
NowS11 transcriptReview
S10Completed
S11Review ready
S12Confirmed
S11 "The Amphora"
PlanPlayReviewGM
Post-session processing
Summary Awaiting approval
ApproveGMEditFull transcript
Verified events
19:52 · Idris asks for the amphora
20:11 · Halloran names his price
20:40 · not attributed overlap
Highlights pending 2
  • "We do not bargain with the drowned." Approve
  • "Halloran keeps his ledgers in salt." Approve
Attendance & pinsGM
  • Idris Idris Vale
  • Kestrel
Loot & XPGM
  • Salt-glass amphora
  • 300 XP each
Suggested wiki updates 3
Keeper Halloran2 fields
ApproveReview merge…
A player's Review tab player — recap, highlights, my notes, read-only
  1. Verified events sit beside the summary rather than under it, because approving is a comparison: the claim on the left, the attributed beats it was built from on the right, failures included with their reason.
  2. The six-item checklist runs across the top as steps, so the tab states the order of the work before showing any of it.
  3. A player opening Review gets a read-only recap of the same tab, which keeps one URL per session and makes "nothing is published before approval" visible as an empty state.
  4. Only the cross-session suggestion queue stays outside the session, since a wiki entry can be touched by several sessions and its approval belongs to the campaign.

Your take on C2 Session First

C3

Console & Companion

A desktop console built for you alone: a sidebar, a command palette, sessions as list plus detail, Prep in three panes with the wiki beside the sheet, a Queue of everything awaiting approval, and a full-screen Table mode. Players get a separate phone companion.

If the table is in one room: A third face: the Table screen, a display-only shell (no navigation; reveals, who's here, the recording indicator) that the Console drives. The Companion is optional at the table.

Home

Two shells, one per role: the desktop frame is the GM Console (sidebar + ⌘K palette, Queue first); the phone frame is the player Companion, whose Next tab is the whole of a player's attention.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Search or run a command⌘K1GM
Console
Campaign
Sessions
Prep
Queue 6
Wiki
Highlights
Analytics
Settings2
Ashes of Varn
Queue 6GM3
  • Transcript S11 "The Amphora" ready Review
  • Wiki 3 suggested updates Open
  • Highlights 2 pending approval Open
Next session
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Tue 19:30 London · 20:30 your time · in 3d 4h
Confirmed4 of 6 inPrep this session
Recent sessions
  • S11 "The Amphora" Completed28 Aug
  • S10 "Tidewrack" Completed21 Aug
  • S9 "The Lantern's Debt" Completed14 Aug
Party
  • Mara GM
  • Idris
  • Wren
  • Tobiah
  • Kestrel
  • Juno
Delivery status
Discord: reminders posting
Last posted 2h ago
Links
Storyline · Invite · Export
Ashes of Varn ▾
Next
S12 "Under the Saltworks"4
Tue 19:30 London
20:30 your time · in 3d 4h
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo
MaraIdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno
4 in · 1 maybe · 1 waiting
Add to calendar
Vote if a vote is open
S13 · pick a time
S13
Tue 14
Thu 16
Sat 18
You
Yes
Maybe
No
Party
3
2
1
Save vote
3 of 6 answered · closes Fri
Since last time
S11 "The Amphora"
Read the recap
Next
Table
Recap
Wiki
Me
  1. The palette turns navigation into typing for the person who is in this app every week, which is what lets the sidebar stay short and stable.
  2. The sidebar is the console's whole spine. On a phone it collapses to a menu and the console still works but is not optimised — the concept's deliberate cost, paid so neither shell has to compromise for the other's device.
  3. The Queue gathers everything waiting on a GM across every session, so review work is found in one list instead of by opening sessions one at a time to check.
  4. A player is not asked to triage a dashboard: the Next tab is one card carrying the one answer wanted from them. A player on a desktop gets this same companion centred in a 480px column rather than a second layout to maintain.

Campaign

Console (desktop): Sessions as a list + detail two-pane page. Companion (phone): no campaign page at all — the campaign is the tab bar's context, and the switcher chooses the shell.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Search or run a command⌘KGM
Console
Campaign
Sessions
Prep
Queue 6
Wiki
Highlights
Analytics
Settings
Find a session1
UpcomingPastNew
S13 Proposed
Vote open · 3 of 6
S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed
Tue 19:30 · 4 of 6 in
S11 "The Amphora" Completed
28 Aug · transcript ready
S10 "Tidewrack" Completed
21 Aug
S9 "The Lantern's Debt" Completed
14 Aug
S12 "Under the Saltworks"2
ConfirmedTue 19:30 London20:30 your time
Roster · 4 of 6
  • Idris Yes
  • Wren Yes
  • Tobiah Yes
  • Kestrel Maybe
  • Juno No answer
Summary
Open sessionPrep this sessionTable mode when in progress
Previously on
Ashes of Varn ▾3
Switch campaign
Your campaigns
  • Ashes of Varn Companion
  • Saltmarsh Irregulars Companion
  • if you GM it opens the Console instead
No campaign page here — Sessions, Party and Settings are Console GM
Past sessions live in Recap player4
  • S11 "The Amphora" 28 Aug
  • S10 "Tidewrack" 21 Aug
  • S9 "The Lantern's Debt" 14 Aug
Party
MaraIdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno
Next
Table
Recap
Wiki
Me
  1. Search and status live in the list pane because this is where a GM navigates from all week; the console needs no separate campaign summary page competing with it.
  2. A session never leaves its list: selecting one swaps the right pane, so a GM checking S12's roster against S11's recap stays on one page and keeps their place.
  3. The switcher picks the campaign and, with it, the shell — Companion where you play, Console where you run — so nobody has to remember a role toggle. It is also where the concept's cost lands: one person hopping between two shells.
  4. Players lose the campaign overview, so the past sessions they still want are folded into Recap rather than left nowhere; that is the compensation this concept owes them.

Session

Console (desktop): the session is the detail pane of the two-pane layout, in its full order. Companion (phone): a short session sheet opened from Next or Recap — what a player cannot act on is absent, not disabled.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Search or run a command⌘KGM
Console
Campaign
Sessions
Prep
Queue 6
Wiki
Highlights
Analytics
Settings
S13 Proposed
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Confirmed
S11 "The Amphora" Completed
S10 "Tidewrack" Completed
S12 "Under the Saltworks"1
ConfirmedTue 19:30 London20:30 your timeAdd to calendar
Roster
IdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno4 of 6
Notes
Mine
Shared with the party GM
Recording when in progress
00:00:00Start recording
6 speakers captured separately
Post-session processing after the session
Transcript & Summary after processing
Verified events2
  • Kestrel opens the amphora 00:41:12
  • Halloran names the Order 01:07:55
  • Failed: speaker unclear no line
ApproveRetryResubmit
Highlights
Approve per line · echo to Discord
Attendance + character pins
Idris → Idris ValeWren → SablewingPresent / Absent
Loot & XP
Amphora shard450 XPAward
Prep this session GM
←S12
Under the Saltworks
Tue 19:30 London
20:30 your time · in 3d 4h
Add to calendar
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo
Idris, Wren, Tobiah in · Kestrel maybe · Juno waiting
My notes
Ask Halloran about the shard
Table if live3
Opens the Table tab
Recap if done
Nothing to read yet
Highlights
None from this session yet
Recording · checklist · transcript · attendance · Loot & XP are Console GM4
Next
Table
Recap
Wiki
Me
  1. The GM's session is a pane, not a page: the list stays beside it, so moving S12 → S11 to check what happened last time costs one click and no context — the answer to "four places for one session".
  2. Verified events sit directly under the summary because Approve is a judgement about evidence; the beats, their timestamps and the failures with their reasons are what make approving safe rather than trusting.
  3. Table and Recap appear only in the states where they exist, so a player never taps a control that leads to an empty room.
  4. The companion sheet stops where a player's agency stops. The GM apparatus is absent rather than greyed out, which is why the whole sheet fits a phone without hiding anything a player needs.

Prep

Console only, and three-pane: tools rail · working panel · reference aside. The companion (phone) has no prep surface at all, because players do not prep.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Search or run a command⌘KGM
⌂
S
P
Q
W
H
A
Tools1
  • Session Prep
  • Story Arcs
  • Quests
  • NPCs
  • Names
  • At the Table
  • Rumour mill
  • Random tables
  • Loot parcels
  • Instant NPC
  • NPC voice cues
  • Series titles
  • Arc suggester
Session Prep
ForS12 "Under the Saltworks" ▾2
Notes for this session
The party goes back down to the saltworks looking for Halloran
What I want from this session
One hard choice about the Order of the Lantern
GenerateClear
Generated sheet
Opening
Scenes
NPCs in play
Keeper HalloranOrder of the Lantern
If they go to the chapel
Save to this sessionAdd to shelf
Reference3
Search the wiki
Pinned
  • Keeper Halloran
  • The Drowned Chapel
  • Order of the Lantern
  • Idris Vale
Generation history
  • Session Prep · S12 10m
  • Instant NPC · dock warden 1h
  • Rumour mill · saltworks 2d
  • Series titles · S13 3d
Ashes of Varn ▾
Prep surface
Not in the companion — prep is Console GM4
What a player does instead player
Recap · S11 "The Amphora"
Read the recap
Look something up
Search the wiki
  • Keeper Halloran NPC
  • The Drowned Chapel Place
  • Order of the Lantern Faction
  • Idris Vale My character
Next
Table
Recap
Wiki
Me
  1. Tools are a standing rail rather than a page of tiles, because prep happens every week and the GM already knows which tool they came for. A GM on a phone gets these three panes one at a time: usable in a pinch, and deliberately not the shape prep is designed for.
  2. Binding the sheet to a session up front makes Save to this session and Add to shelf unambiguous — the picker sits above the work rather than inside it.
  3. The wiki sits beside the sheet, so grounding a generated sheet in Keeper Halloran or The Drowned Chapel never means leaving the page and losing the draft — the whole reason prep is a desktop surface.
  4. Prep is missing from the companion on purpose. A player's preparation is reading, so Recap and Wiki carry it and the tab bar never grows a tab most of the group would never open.

Table

Console (desktop): Table mode, a full-screen live view. Companion (phone): the Table tab — revealed cards as a deck, then the recording indicator, then private notes.

Table mode · Ashes of Varn · S12Exit table mode
01:42:07Recording1Stop
CapturedMaraIdrisWrenTobiahJunoKestrel · present, silent
SpotlightReveal to table2
Keeper Halloran
NPC · pinned from the wiki
Shelf3
The Drowned Chapel Revealed
Order of the Lantern
Saltworks: lower floor
Rumour: the amphora Revealed
Loot parcel: shard
Idris Vale
Quick noteSave
Table · S12
Revealed4
The Drowned Chapel
Place
Keeper Halloran
NPC
Rumour: the amphora
3 of 9 revealed · swipe
Recording
01:425 captured
Kestrel present, silent
My notes5
The chapel bell rang twice
Save note
Next
Table
Recap
Wiki
Me
  1. The clock and the captured speakers come first because the one failure that quietly ruins a session is nobody noticing the recording stopped; Kestrel reads as present-but-silent rather than missing, so silence is not mistaken for a fault.
  2. One spotlight and one Reveal to table is the GM's entire live interaction — everything else on this screen is reference, which is what makes a full-screen mode affordable mid-scene.
  3. The shelf is a grid, so no card cascades past an edge and becomes unreachable. A GM on a tablet gets this screen unchanged; a GM on a phone gets the same full-screen with the grid as a swipeable deck.
  4. A player's table is what has been revealed, ahead of everything else in the scroll: their job here is to look, not to manage a page.
  5. Notes are private and there is deliberately no "Ask the GM" — the companion refuses to open an inbound channel the GM would have to watch while running a scene.

The shared screen, if the table is in one room

A third face: the Table screen, a display-only shell (no navigation; reveals, who's here, the recording indicator) that the Console drives. The Companion is optional at the table.

Ashes of Varn · S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Just shown · 19:52
The Drowned Chapel1
MaraWrenTobiahKestrelIdrisJuno2
5 of 6 here · Juno has not arrived
01:42:07Recording
Earlier tonight
Keeper HalloranRumour: the amphoraThe tide gate
Paired · Ashes of Varn · S12 · shown from Mara's screen3
  1. The screen everyone looks at shows one card, very large, and dark so it does not light up the room: whatever Mara has just put up. It is a face of the same app rather than a shared browser window someone has to keep tidy.
  2. Names of who is at the table and the running clock are up there for the room to see, so you can tell the evening is being recorded and who is counted as here without asking mid-scene.
  3. There is nothing to press on it — no menu, no buttons, nothing that can be knocked out of place by a passing elbow — and the one small line at the bottom says which session it is tied to. Come with no phone at all and this screen plus Mara is the whole of your evening; the same cards are in the recap afterwards.

Review

Console (desktop): the Queue — one work list across all sessions, each row opening a detail pane. Companion (phone): the Wiki tab — search and list, and the article as a single reading column.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn ▾Search or run a command⌘KGM
Console
Campaign
Sessions
Prep
Queue 6
Wiki
Highlights
Analytics
Settings
Queue1
All sessionsTranscriptsWikiHighlights
S11 "The Amphora" · transcript ready
Review28 Aug
Keeper Halloran
Suggested update from S11
ApproveReview merge…Discard
The Drowned Chapel
New entry from S11
ApproveDiscard
Order of the Lantern
Suggested update · conflicts
Review merge…Discard
2 highlights pending
S11 · approve per line
Open
Detail2
S11 · Transcript & Summary
Summary, editable
Verified events
  • Wren bargains with Halloran
  • The amphora is opened
  • Failed: speaker unclear
Transcript
ApproveRetry
Wiki
Search Ashes of Varn3
  • Keeper Halloran NPC
  • The Drowned Chapel Place
  • Order of the Lantern Faction
  • Idris Vale Character
Article
←Keeper Halloran4
NPCThe Drowned Chapel
Fields
  • Status Alive
  • Faction Order of the Lantern
Timeline
S9 · first named
S11 · the bargain
S12 · expected
Version history
3 revisions · last from S11
Next
Table
Recap
Wiki
Me
  1. One work list across every session, not a queue hidden inside each one: a GM's real unit of work is "what is waiting on me", and each row can be finished where it sits.
  2. The pane opens only for decisions that need evidence — the transcript behind a summary, a merge that conflicts — so the cheap approvals never cost a page.
  3. The companion's wiki opens on search because a player looking something up already has the name in their head; browsing is the rare case.
  4. The article is one reading column: the desktop rail's fields, timeline and version history become sections in the flow, instead of the squeezed side column the current build produces on a phone.

Your take on C3 Console & Companion

C4

The Feed

The bot's event stream, in the app, with every item actionable in place: approve a transcript from its item, approve suggestions one by one, watch the Live card while recording. The Shelf opens as a panel beside the feed. It needs an event store and read markers on the backend first.

If the table is in one room: A Live board mode of the feed: only reveals and highlights, at big type. It works, but a feed is text-dense and the mode has to strip most of it away to become a screen you read from across a table.

Home

The campaign rail plus the chronological feed of the selected campaign: every event that happened, each card carrying its own action. On the phone the rail becomes the switcher and the feed is the page.

Quest BoardSearchBell4
Campaigns1
Ashes of Varn 4
Saltmarsh Irregulars 1
+ New · Join
FeedSessionsWikiHighlightsMore
AllWaiting on me2UnreadJump to now
S13 proposed — vote2h
S13
Tue 14
Thu 16
Sat 18
You
Yes
Maybe
No
Party
3
2
1
Save vote3 of 6 answered3
S12 confirmed for Tue 19:301d
Are you in?YesMaybeNo4 of 6 in
Recording started · S12Livenow
Mara, Idris, Wren, Tobiah, Juno captured
S11 transcript readyGMReview
3 suggested wiki updatesGM
  • Keeper Halloran ApproveReview merge…
  • The Drowned Chapel ApproveDiscard
  • Order of the Lantern Review merge…
Recap: S11 "The Amphora"28 Aug
Open sessionHighlights
Juno RSVP'd yes3d
Next session4
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Tue 19:30 London · 20:30 your time
Party presence
  • Mara GM
  • Idris
  • Wren
  • Tobiah
  • Kestrel
  • Juno
Links
Storyline · Party · Settings
Ashes of Varn ▾Bell4
FeedSessionsWikiMore5
AllWaiting on meNow
S13 proposed2h
S13
Tue 14
Thu 16
Sat 18
You
Yes
Maybe
No
Save vote
S12 confirmed1d
Tue 19:30 · 20:30 your time
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo
Recording startedLive
S12 · 5 captured
S11 transcript readyGM
Review
3 suggested wiki updatesGM
Halloran · Chapel · Lantern
Recap: S11 "The Amphora"
Read
Juno RSVP'd yes3d
  1. The rail answers "is anything happening" before you choose where to look: one row per campaign with its unread count, so switching is a decision made with information rather than a guess.
  2. Waiting on me is Needs you, in place — the same items filtered out of the stream, so attention can never drift out of step with the record it is drawn from.
  3. Every card carries its own action: the vote is cast in the feed with the grid inline, so an item is finished where it is read and nothing is a link to somewhere else to do the work.
  4. The aside holds the two facts a stream is genuinely bad at answering — when the next session is, and who is around right now — so the feed never has to be scrolled for them.
  5. On a phone the rail collapses into the switcher and the tabs are the only chrome, because inline actions have to stay full width and touch-sized for the feed to remain actionable.

Campaign

The campaign page is the Feed tab; Sessions is the plain index kept beside it, and everything that is not an event lives under More.

Quest BoardSearchBell4
Campaigns
Ashes of Varn 4
Saltmarsh Irregulars 1
+ New · Join
Ashes of Varn
Mara GM6 membersTue 19:30 London
Feed 41SessionsWikiHighlightsMore
Find a sessionUpcomingPastNew session2
  • S13 Proposedvote open · 3 of 6Vote
  • S12 "Under the Saltworks" ConfirmedTue 19:30 · 4 of 6Open
  • S11 "The Amphora" Completed28 Aug · transcript readyOpen
  • S10 "Tidewrack" Completed21 AugOpen
  • S9 "The Lantern's Debt" Completed14 AugOpen
More3
  • Storyline
  • Analytics
  • Party
  • Settings
  • Prep GM
Delivery
Discord: reminders posting
Last posted 2h ago
Ashes of Varn ▾Bell4
Feed 4SessionsWikiMore4
Find a session
S13 Proposed
vote open · 3 of 6
S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed
Tue 19:30 · 4 of 6
S11 "The Amphora" Completed
28 Aug
S10 "Tidewrack" Completed
21 Aug
S9 "The Lantern's Debt" Completed
14 Aug
More
  • Storyline
  • Analytics
  • Party
  • Settings
  • Prep GM
  1. There is no campaign overview page to keep in step with the stream: the Feed tab is the campaign, and it is where the tabs return you by default.
  2. Sessions is a deliberately boring index, and it exists to pay for the feed's one real weakness — finding "the session on the 14th" by date instead of by scrolling.
  3. Storyline, Analytics, Party, Settings and Prep are parked under More because none of them are events; keeping them out preserves the feed's promise that everything in it happened.
  4. On a phone the tabs sit directly under the switcher, so a player is always one tap from the feed and never lands on a page of chrome.

Session

On desktop a session opens as a side panel over the feed, which keeps running behind it; on a phone it is a page. Either way its own events are listed at the bottom.

Quest BoardSearchBell4
Campaigns
Ashes of Varn 4
Saltmarsh Irregulars 1
Feed
S13 proposed — vote
S12 confirmed for Tue 19:30
S11 transcript ready GM
Recap: S11 "The Amphora"
Juno RSVP'd yes
S12 "Under the Saltworks"1Close
ConfirmedTue 19:30 London20:30 your time
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo4 of 6
Vote if proposed
Settled Tue 19:30 · 5 voted
Notes
Mine
Shared GM
Previously on
Recording when in progress
00:00:00Start
Post-session processing after the session
Transcript & Summary
Verified events2
  • Kestrel opens the amphora 00:41:12
  • Failed: speaker unclear
Highlights
Approve per line · echo to Discord
Attendance + character pins
Idris → Idris ValeWren → Sablewing
Loot & XP
Amphora shard450 XP
Around this session
  • Confirmed for Tue 19:30 1d
  • Juno RSVP'd yes 3d
  • Prep sheet saved GM4d
← Feed3
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
ConfirmedTue 19:30 London
20:30 your time · in 3d 4h
Are you in?
YesMaybeNo
Vote if proposed
Settled Tue 19:30 · 5 voted
Notes
Ask Halloran about the shard
Previously on
Recording when in progress
Not started
Processing after the session
Transcript & Summary
Highlights
None yet
Attendance + pins
Idris → Idris Vale
Loot & XP
Nothing awarded yet
Around this session4
  • Confirmed for Tue 19:30 1d
  • Juno RSVP'd yes 3d
  • Reminder sent to Discord 4d
  1. The session opens over the feed rather than replacing it: the stream stays visible and in place, so answering an RSVP does not cost you the thing you were reading.
  2. Inside the panel the session keeps its familiar order, verified events included — this concept moves where a session lives, not what it contains, which is what keeps the change cheap.
  3. On a phone the panel becomes a page with one way back, because a half-covering overlay on 224px is a dismissal problem, not a layout.
  4. The session's own events close the panel, which is the feed's whole claim in miniature: the record of a session is the list of things that happened to it.

Prep

Prep is a GM page under More — the standard palette, panel and history — whose output posts a GM-only feed item, so the feed doubles as the GM's own work log.

Quest BoardSearchBell4
Campaigns
Ashes of Varn 4
Saltmarsh Irregulars 1
Feed 4SessionsWikiHighlightsMore
More → PrepGM1
Session PrepStory ArcsQuestsNPCsNamesAt the TableInstant NPCArc suggester2
Session Prep · S12 "Under the Saltworks" ▾
Notes for this session
The party goes back down to the saltworks looking for Halloran
What I want from this session
One hard choice about the Order of the Lantern
GenerateClear
Generated sheet
Keeper HalloranThe Drowned Chapel
Save to this sessionAdd to shelf
Posted to the feed
Prep sheet saved for S12GMjust now3
Only you can see this item
Generation history
  • Session Prep · S12 10m
  • Instant NPC · dock warden 1h
  • Rumour mill · saltworks 2d
  • Series titles · S13 3d
More
Storyline · Analytics · Party · Settings
Ashes of Varn ▾
FeedSessionsWikiMore
More → Prep GM
Session Prep
S12 ▾Story ArcsNPCsNames
Notes for this session
Back to the saltworks, find Halloran
What I want from this session
One hard choice about the Lantern
Generate
Generated sheet
Save to sessionAdd to shelf
Posted to the feed
Prep sheet saved for S12GM4
Players never see this item
Generation history
  • Session Prep · S12 10m
  • Instant NPC · dock warden 1h
  1. Prep is filed under More because it is not an event and does not belong in the stream — right up until it produces one.
  2. The palette, panel and history are unchanged from today: this concept has no opinion about generation, only about where its output is recorded.
  3. Saving posts a GM-only item, so the GM's own preparation joins the same record as the group's activity and the feed becomes their work log rather than only a notice board.
  4. Role gating happens per event, not per page: the same feed serves both roles because each item knows who it is for, which is what makes one shell viable here.

Table

Live mode: a session in progress pins a Live card to the top of the feed, reveals arrive as feed items, and the GM opens the Shelf as the same side panel a session uses.

Quest BoardSearchBell4
Campaigns
Ashes of Varn 7
Saltmarsh Irregulars
Livepinnedwhile in progress1
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
01:42:07Stop GM
Captured: Mara, Idris, Wren, Tobiah, Juno
Kestrel present, silent
Open the shelf GM
Revealed: The Drowned Chapel01:38
2
Highlight marked live 01:21
"The bell rang twice" — Wren
Revealed: Keeper Halloran00:54
Recording started00:00
Shelf · S123Close
Spotlight
Order of the Lantern
Faction · pinned from the wiki
Reveal to tableSkip
On the shelf
The Drowned Chapel Revealed
Keeper Halloran Revealed
Saltworks: lower floor
Rumour: the amphora
Loot parcel: shard
Idris Vale
Quick noteSave
Ashes of Varn ▾Bell7
FeedSessionsWikiMore
Livewhile in progress4
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
01:42:07
5 captured · Kestrel silent
Stop GMShelf GM
New since you looked5
Revealed: The Drowned Chapel
01:38
Highlight marked live
"The bell rang twice" — Wren · 01:21
Revealed: Keeper Halloran
00:54
My note
The chapel bell rang twice
Save note
Recording started00:00
  1. A session in progress pins one Live card above everything: the clock, who is being captured and Stop. The state the whole group asks about is the first line of the record, not a separate screen someone has to remember to open.
  2. Reveals, notes and highlights arrive as ordinary items, so the live session and its history are the same object and nothing has to be reconciled afterwards.
  3. The shelf reuses the session panel, so revealing a card never takes the GM out of the feed the players are watching — one overlay pattern serves both jobs.
  4. On a player's phone the pinned Live card is the entire table UI: there is no table view to find, and no second place where "is it recording?" is answered.
  5. Reveals stream into the column the player was already reading, so a card that arrives while they are looking away is still there to scroll back to.

The shared screen, if the table is in one room

A Live board mode of the feed: only reveals and highlights, at big type. It works, but a feed is text-dense and the mode has to strip most of it away to become a screen you read from across a table.

Paired · Ashes of Varn · S12 “Under the Saltworks” · Live board
Just shown to the table
The Drowned Chapel1
A tide-flooded nave under the saltworks
Earlier tonight2
Keeper HalloranThe tide table
“The bell rang twice” — Wren
At the table
Mara Idris Wren
Tobiah Juno
Kestrel
Recording01:42:07
  1. On a screen everyone in the room can see: the card Mara has just shown, big enough to read from the other side of the table, plus who is here and whether it is recording. There is nothing to press — it is driven from Mara’s laptop — so a player with nothing in their hands can still follow the whole night.
  2. Being honest about this one: nearly all of the app has to be thrown away to make that screen. A feed is small text, and small text is unreadable across a room, so the board keeps only the cards and one quoted line. Everything else waits on your phone, or in tomorrow’s recap.

Review

GM-only feed items carry the review actions inline; only decisions that need evidence open the panel. The Wiki tab stays the ordinary wiki beside them.

Quest BoardSearchBell4
Campaigns
Ashes of Varn 4
Saltmarsh Irregulars 1
FeedSessionsWikiHighlightsMore
AllWaiting on meGM only GM
S11 transcript readyGMReview
Opens the panel · nothing is published before you approve
3 suggested wiki updatesGM1
  • Keeper Halloran ApproveReview merge…
  • The Drowned Chapel ApproveDiscard
  • Order of the Lantern conflictsReview merge…
2 highlights pendingGM
  • "The bell rang twice" — Wren Approve
  • "We open it here" — Kestrel Approve
Recap: S11 "The Amphora" 28 Aug
S11 · Transcript & Summary2
Summary, editable
Verified events
  • Wren bargains with Halloran
  • The amphora is opened
  • Failed: speaker unclear
Transcript
ApproveRetryResubmit
Ashes of Varn ▾Bell4
FeedSessionsWiki3More
AllWaiting on meGM only GM
S11 transcript readyGM
Nothing is published before you approve
Review
3 suggested wiki updatesGM4
Keeper Halloran
ApproveMerge…
The Drowned Chapel
ApproveDiscard
Order of the Lantern conflicts
Review merge…
2 highlights pendingGM
"The bell rang twice" — Wren
ApproveSkip
Recap: S11 "The Amphora"
  1. Review happens in the stream: approving a suggested wiki update is a button on the item it belongs to, so three suggestions are three decisions and no navigation.
  2. The panel opens only where the decision needs evidence — the transcript behind a summary, the verified events behind a beat, a merge that conflicts — which is what keeps inline approval honest rather than careless.
  3. The Wiki tab is unchanged: search, list, article. On a phone the article's rail becomes a Contents drawer so the reading column keeps the full width.
  4. Inline actions stay touch-sized on the phone, because this is where the feed's density is most dangerous: a mis-tap here publishes something to the whole group.

Your take on C4 The Feed

C5

Command Deck

Panels that open beside each other: Prep beside the wiki, the transcript beside the verified events, Recording beside the Shelf, a merge review with the article beside the draft. An icon rail and a command palette get you anywhere. Highest build cost of the seven.

If the table is in one room: A Present panel that opens in a second window on the TV. The panel model already treats a second screen as one more panel, so this is the cheapest shared screen of the seven; it is also the least designed for reading at distance.

Home

Home is not a page but a panel: the icon rail and the context bar are the whole shell, and the slot beside Home is empty until you open something into it.

Quest BoardHelp
Ashes of Varn ▾S12 "Under the Saltworks"Tue 19:30Search sessions, articles, tools, actions ⌘K1
⌂2
S
PGM
W
R3
H
An
Ad
Home
Needs you
  • Vote S13 · 3 candidate times Vote
  • RSVP S12 · Tue 19:30 Are you in?
  • ReviewGM S11 transcript ready Open
  • WikiGM 2 suggested updates Open beside
This week
  • Tue 19:30 · S12 "Under the Saltworks" · 4 of 6 in
  • Prep sheet not startedGMOpen Prep
Campaigns
Ashes of Varn
GM · next Tue 19:30
Saltmarsh Irregulars
player · vote open
New · Join with a code
Nothing open beside3
⌘K, or "Open beside" on any row, fills this slot: a session, an article, a tool, the verified events of a summary.
Quest Board
Ashes of Varn ▾S12
Search or run a command ⌘K4
Home
Needs you
  • Vote S13 · 3 times
  • RSVP S12 · Tue 19:30
  • ReviewGM S11 transcript
This week
  • Tue 19:30 · S12 · 4 of 6 in
Campaigns
Ashes of Varn
GM · Tue 19:30
Saltmarsh Irregulars
player · vote open
Home
Sessions
Wiki
More
  1. Search is the primary way to get anywhere in this concept, so it belongs to the shell rather than to a page — one field that reaches sessions, articles, tools and actions is what lets the rail stay eight icons long.
  2. The rail is the entire spine — Home, Sessions, Prep, Wiki, Review, Highlights, Analytics, Admin — at 36px, because width belongs to panels here; its badges are also the only attention marker that survives whatever is open. Players see a shorter rail (Home, Sessions, Wiki, Highlights) and Admin appears only for instance admins.
  3. The second column exists even when it is empty, which is what makes "open beside" a habit rather than a feature nobody finds.
  4. On the phone the spine splits in two: the rail becomes four tabs and the palette drops into the page. That split is the concept's first compromise — what was one unified way in is now two controls in different places.

Campaign

The campaign is context in the bar, not a destination: the Sessions panel stays put while the Campaign panel opens beside it.

Quest BoardHelp
Ashes of Varn ▾1SessionsSearch or run a command ⌘K
⌂
S
PGM
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R3
H
An
Ad
SessionsNew sessionGM
  • Proposed S13 · vote open, 3 candidate times 3 of 6 answeredbeside
  • Confirmed S12 "Under the Saltworks" · Tue 19:30 4 of 6 inbeside
  • Completed S11 "The Amphora" · transcript readyGMbeside
  • Completed S10 · summary approved beside
Ashes of Varn2×
Party
  • MaraGM
  • Idris Idris Vale
  • Wren
  • Tobiah
  • Kestrel
  • Juno
Storyline
SettingsGM
  • Europe/London
  • Reminders 24h · 1h
  • Invite codeCopy
Quest Board
Ashes of Varn ▾Sessions
Search or run a command
Sessions
  • Proposed S13 · vote open
  • Confirmed S12 "Under the Saltworks"
  • Completed S11 "The Amphora"GM
  • Completed S10
Open panels — switch below3
Sessions
Ashes of Varn
⌘K
  1. The switcher sits in the context bar because a campaign is something you are inside of, not somewhere you navigate back to — every panel below inherits it, which is why no panel needs to repeat the campaign's name.
  2. Party, storyline and settings open beside the session list instead of replacing it, so checking who is actually in the party never costs you your place in the sessions.
  3. On the phone the same two panels become two strip items plus a way to open a third. Nothing is nested, so there is no "back" — but which panels are open now has to live in the URL, or the strip is unshareable and untestable.

Session

One session panel whose sections are collapsible groups; anything inside it opens beside — here a name in "Previously on" opened Keeper Halloran.

Quest BoardHelp
Ashes of Varn ▾S12 "Under the Saltworks"Search or run a command ⌘K
⌂
S
PGM
W
R3
H
An
Ad
S12 "Under the Saltworks"ConfirmedOpen beside
Tue 19:30 Europe/London14:30 your timeAdd to calendar
Plan1−
Are you in?YesMaybeNo4 of 6
  • MaraGMIdrisWrenJuno
  • Tobiah maybeKestrel no answer
Voteif proposed
Tue 19:30
Wed 20:00
Sat 18:00
Idris
yes
maybe
Wren
yes
yes
Notes private · GM-shared notesGM
Previously on
The party left the amphora withKeeper Halloran2
PlayRecording · not startedlive when in progress+
ReviewGMchecklist · transcript & summary · highlights · attendance · loot+
Keeper Halloran×
NPC
  • Order of the Lantern
  • The Drowned Chapel
  • Alive · last seen S11
Full articlePin to shelfGM
Quest Board
Ashes of Varn ▾S12
S12 "Under the Saltworks"Confirmed
Tue 19:3014:30 your time
Plan−
YesMaybeNo4 of 6
Notes · Previously on
Playnot started+
ReviewGM+
Open panels — switch below3
S12
Halloran
⌘K
  1. Plan, Play and Review are groups in one panel rather than three pages, so a session stops being a place you navigate and becomes an object you expand — and the phase you are not in stays visible as a closed row instead of vanishing.
  2. Any name in the prose opens its article beside the session; cross-referencing is the whole thesis and this is its cheapest case, which is why it has to work on an ordinary confirmed session and not just at review time.
  3. The phone reduces "beside" to "instead": both panels are still open, but only one is on screen. The concept's core move is exactly what the small screen is worst at, and the strip is the honest admission of that.

Prep

Three panels at once: the generator, the wiki it claims to be grounded in, and the history of what it has already produced.

Quest BoardHelp
Ashes of Varn ▾PrepGMSearch or run a command ⌘K
⌂
S
PGM
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An
Ad
Prep · S12 "Under the Saltworks" ▾1
Story ArcsQuestsNPCsNamesAt the Table
Notes for this session
The tide gate, Halloran's seal, the whistle at 2am
What I want from this session
A reason to trust Keeper Halloran that turns out to be false
Generate the sheetgrounded in this campaign's wiki
Generated sheet
Save to this sessionAdd to shelf
Wiki2
Search the wiki
  • Keeper Halloran
  • The Drowned Chapel
  • Order of the Lantern
  • Idris Vale
Keeper Halloran
History3
  • Instant NPC
    14:02
  • Rumour mill
    13:58
  • Read-aloud
    13:40
  • Names
    13:31
Quest Board
Ashes of Varn ▾PrepGM
Prep · S12 ▾4
ArcsQuestsNPCsNames
Notes for this session
The tide gate, Halloran's seal
What I want from this session
A reason to trust Halloran that is false
Generate the sheet
Generated sheet
Save to sessionAdd to shelf
Open panels — switch below
Prep
Wiki
History
  1. The session picker lives in the panel header, not in the shell, which is what lets two panels disagree about which session they show — the price and the point of panels in the same detail.
  2. The wiki opens beside prep by default because the generator claims to be grounded in it; putting the source on screen makes that claim checkable instead of merely asserted.
  3. Generation History earns a narrow third panel rather than a modal, because past output is material you compare against, not a dialog you dismiss.
  4. On the phone the generator wins the screen and the other two wait in the strip, so while you are actually writing, the grounding is back to being unverified.

Table (live session)

There is no table mode: the live session is the Recording panel beside the Shelf, with the players' Table view available as a third panel.

Quest BoardHelp
Ashes of Varn ▾S12 "Under the Saltworks"In progressReveal Keeper Halloran ⌘K3
⌂
S
PGM
W
R3
H
An
Ad
Recording1
01:42:07
  • MaraGM
  • Idris
  • Wren
  • Tobiah
  • Kestrel
  • Juno present, silent
Stopbot connected
ShelfSearch the shelf
Spotlight
Keeper Halloran
Reveal to tableNext
Cards
The Drowned Chapel
revealed
Order of the Lantern
Tide table
Rumour: the whistle
Table viewplayer2
exactly what players see
The Drowned Chapel
1 revealed · notes private
Quest Board
Ashes of Varn ▾In progress
ShelfGM
Spotlight
Keeper Halloran
Reveal to table4Next
Cards
The Drowned Chapel
Order of the Lantern
Tide table
Player: the strip has one item, Table viewplayer5
Recording
Shelf
Table view
  1. The two things that run in parallel during play are shown in parallel, and the shell does not change to accommodate them. The cost is honest: the app never gets out of its own way, so at the table it competes with the room.
  2. The players' Table view is just another panel, so a GM can see what has actually landed in front of the table without a second device or a guess.
  3. The palette runs actions as well as navigation, which is what makes a command line defensible mid-session: typing a card's name beats hunting for its control.
  4. Reveal is the only thumb-sized target on the phone because it is the only thing a GM does without looking; everything else on the panel can afford to be small.
  5. A player's strip collapses to one item. The same shell with fewer panels is this concept's whole answer to role — cheap to build, and it leaves the player with a workspace they never needed.

The shared screen, if the table is in one room

A Present panel that opens in a second window on the TV. The panel model already treats a second screen as one more panel, so this is the cheapest shared screen of the seven; it is also the least designed for reading at distance.

Present · second window on the table screen · paired with code 4729 · Ashes of Varn
S12 “Under the Saltworks”
Shown to the table
The Drowned Chapel1
A tide-flooded nave under the saltworks
At the table
Mara Idris Wren
Tobiah Juno Kestrel
Recording2
01:42:07
On
Earlier: Keeper Halloran · the tide table
  1. The screen in the room is the same panel you have on your phone, opened in a second window on the TV: the card Mara has just shown, at a size that reads from across the table. Nothing on it can be pressed, and pairing it is typing the four digits in the corner.
  2. It also carries who is at the table tonight and whether the game is being recorded, so a player with nothing in their hands still knows both. This is the cheapest of the shared screens to build, and the plainest to look at — it was designed for a desk, not for a room.

Review

A queue on the rail; the item opens beside it and the summary opens the verified events beside that, so approval is a comparison rather than a leap of faith.

Quest BoardHelp
Ashes of Varn ▾S11 "The Amphora"Search or run a command ⌘K
⌂
S
PGM
W
R3
H
An
Ad
ReviewGM1
  • Open S11 transcript
  • Keeper Halloran
    suggested update
    merge3
  • The Drowned Chapel
    suggested update
  • 5 highlights · S11
  • S10 · approved 3d ago
S11 "The Amphora" · Transcript & SummaryOpen beside
Summary editable
ApproveRetryResubmit
Nothing is published until you approve.
Transcript · 6 speakers · 1h 52m
  • Idris 19:41
  • Wren 20:02
Verified events2
19:41 Idris names the amphora
3 transcript lines
20:02 Wren opens the Drowned Chapel
2 transcript lines
20:31 Halloran fleesunverified
no matching line
Quest Board
Ashes of Varn ▾S11
S11 · SummaryGM
ApproveRetry
Nothing is published until you approve.
Open panels — switch below4
Review
Summary
Events
  1. One queue across every session lives on the rail with a badge, so reviewing is a standing job with an address instead of something you rediscover on each session page.
  2. Approving a summary is an act of comparison, so the beats it was composed from — including the one that could not be traced to a transcript line, with its reason — sit beside it rather than behind a disclosure.
  3. "Review merge" reuses these same two slots to put the existing article beside the draft. A merge is the case the whole concept was designed around, and the strongest argument for paying for panels at all.
  4. On the phone the comparison serialises into strip taps: the GM does from memory what the desktop does at a glance, which is where this concept is weakest and where a smaller diff view would have to be invented.

Your take on C5 Command Deck

C6

Book & Table

Between sessions a document: a running table of contents, the prep sheet as a page with tools in the margin, the summary at reading width. During a session, Table mode: full-screen, dark, thumb-sized, entered when the session starts, with a GM face, a player face, and a shared-screen face.

If the table is in one room: Table mode gains a third face for the shared screen: dark, one spotlight at a time, who's here, the clock, paired by a short code. The strongest fit of the seven, because the mode already exists and the face is a variant of it.

Home

Book mode. Home is a page you read: what needs you in a line each, then a paragraph per campaign — the same page at both widths.

Quest BoardHelp
Home3
Needs you1
  • S13 · a vote is open, 3 candidate times Vote
  • S12 · Tue 19:30, are you in? Answer
  • GM S11 · the transcript is ready to read Read
Your campaigns
Ashes of Varn GM2
This week: S12 "Under the Saltworks", Tue 19:30 · 4 of 6 in.
Last recap: "The amphora came up out of the silt with Halloran's seal still on it."
This weekContents
Saltmarsh Irregulars player
This week: nothing scheduled · the vote closes Friday.
Last recap: "They paid the ferryman in salt and regretted it by morning."
Start a campaign · Join with a code
Deleted campaignsif any
Quest Board4
Home
Needs you
  • S13 · a vote is open Vote
  • S12 · are you in? Answer
  • GM S11 · transcript ready
Your campaigns
Ashes of Varn GM
This week: S12 "Under the Saltworks", Tue 19:30 · 4 of 6 in.
Last recap: "The amphora came up out of the silt with Halloran's seal still on it."
Saltmarsh Irregulars player
This week: nothing scheduled · the vote closes Friday.
Last recap: "They paid the ferryman in salt."
Start a campaign · Join with a code
Deleted campaignsif any
  1. Needs you is three sentences rather than a dashboard, because Book's whole claim is that the product speaks in one voice between sessions; a widget here would be the first crack in it.
  2. The campaign is a paragraph, and "This week" is the sentence that changes: the card answers the only weekly question and then offers last week's first line as the reason to keep reading.
  3. The column is set to a reading measure and the rest of the desktop width is deliberately empty — which is why the phone is the same page rather than a reduced one, and why Book pays no responsive tax.
  4. There is no contents list here: the table of contents belongs to a campaign, so home is deliberately spineless. The cost is that navigation only begins once you are already inside something.

Campaign

The campaign as a book: a persistent contents list, This week at the top, then Sessions in reading order.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn
Ashes of Varn2
This week
Sessions
Wiki
Highlights
Storyline
Analytics
Party
SettingsGM
This week1
S12 "Under the Saltworks"Confirmed
Tuesday 19:30 Europe/London — 14:30 your time
Are you in?YesMaybeNo
In: Mara, Idris, Wren, Juno. Maybe: Tobiah. No answer: Kestrel. 4 of 6
What this session still needs
  • Kestrel has not answered
  • No prep sheet yetGM
  • The recap email for S11 has not gone outGM
Prep this sessionGMOpen the tableif in progress5
Sessions3
Upcoming
S13 Proposed
A vote is open on three times · 3 of 6 answered.
Tue 19:30
Wed 20:00
Sat 18:00
Idris
yes
maybe
Wren
yes
yes
Juno
maybe
yes
S12 "Under the Saltworks" Confirmed
Tuesday 19:30 · 4 of 6 in.
Past
S11 "The Amphora"
"The amphora came up out of the silt with Halloran's seal still on it."
GM Transcript ready to review.
S10
"Kestrel counted the tide gates twice and got a different answer each time."
Contents4Ashes of Varn
This week
S12 "Under the Saltworks"Confirmed
Tue 19:30 Europe/London 14:30 your time
YesMaybeNo
In: Mara, Idris, Wren, Juno. Maybe: Tobiah. 4 of 6
What this session still needs
  • Kestrel has not answered
  • No prep sheet yetGM
Prep this sessionGM
Open the tableif in progress
Sessions
Upcoming
S13 Proposed
Vote open · 3 of 6 answered.
Tue
Wed
Sat
Idris
yes
maybe
Wren
yes
yes
Juno
maybe
yes
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Tue 19:30 · 4 of 6 in.
Past
S11 "The Amphora"
"The amphora came up out of the silt with Halloran's seal still on it."
S10
"Kestrel counted the tide gates twice."
  1. This week is the top of the campaign, so the answer to "what do I owe this group before Tuesday" is a place you can bookmark rather than a badge that disappears once you have looked at it.
  2. The contents list is persistent and names the campaign's sections, which is what allows every page under it to be long: position is always visible, so length stops being a navigation problem.
  3. Sessions read in order — upcoming, then past with the recap's first line — and the open vote is answered where it is mentioned instead of on a page of its own.
  4. On the phone the contents collapse into one button. It is the only chrome Book has, which is precisely why the page underneath can be identical at both widths.
  5. "Open the table" exists only while a session is in progress. The seam between the two modes is a single control in a fixed place, and this concept lives or dies on it being unmissable.

Session

The session as a document with a running contents list; the summary is the centrepiece, set as prose at reading width.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn
S11 "The Amphora"
Schedule
Notes
Previously on1
Recording
ReviewGM
Checklist
Summary
Verified events
Highlights
Attendance
Loot & XP
S11 "The Amphora" Completed
Schedule
Saturday 30 August 19:30 Europe/London — 14:30 your time
Vote closed 12 August · 5 of 6 attended.
Notes
GM-shared notesGM
Previously on
Recording
Stopped · 1h 52m captured from 6 speakers.
Open the tableif in progress
ReviewGM
Post-session processing
  • Transcript & summary done
  • Suggested wiki updates 2 waiting
  • Campaign storyline done
  • Journal entry queued
  • Next-session title ideas queued
  • Recap email not sent
Transcript & Summary2
ApproveRetryResubmit
Nothing is published until you approve.
Transcript · 6 speakers
Verified events3
19:41 Idris names the amphora
3 transcript lines
20:02 Wren opens the Drowned Chapel
2 transcript lines
20:31 Halloran fleesunverified
no matching line
Highlights
  • Idris: "It has his seal on it." Approve
  • Kestrel: "Then we are already late." Approve
Attendance4
MemberPresentCharacter
IdrisyesIdris Vale
Wrenyespin a character
Kestrelno
Loot & XP
AwardTo
The amphorapartydelete
350 XPeachdelete
ContentsS11
S11 "The Amphora" Completed
Schedule
Sat 30 Aug 19:30 14:30 your time
Notes
Previously on
Recording
Stopped · 1h 52m · 6 speakers.
ReviewGM
Post-session processing
  • Transcript & summary done
  • Suggested wiki updates 2
  • Recap email not sent
Transcript & Summary
ApproveRetry
Nothing is published until you approve.
Verified events
19:41 Idris names the amphora
20:02 Wren opens the Drowned Chapel
20:31 Halloran fleesunverified
Highlights
  • Idris: "It has his seal on it." Approve
  • Kestrel: "Then we are already late."
Attendance
MemberPresent
Idrisyes · Idris Vale
Wrenyes
Kestrelno
Loot & XP
AwardTo
The amphoraparty
350 XPeach
  1. The running contents make a long document navigable, which is the trade Book takes everywhere: accept the length, pay for it once with a spine that never scrolls away.
  2. The summary is prose at reading width in the middle of the page, because it is the artifact people actually read; every other concept treats it as a payload in a box.
  3. The evidence is the next paragraph, not another surface: verified events sit directly under the summary in reading order, so checking a beat costs a glance down rather than a navigation.
  4. Attendance and Loot & XP are grids inside a document, and they look it. This is the honest cost of prose-first — dense GM data has nowhere good to sit in a book.
  5. The phone gets the identical document, so review is a genuinely long scroll; the sticky "Open the table" is the one control that must never be scrolled past.

Prep

The prep sheet is a document with the tools in the margin — and on the phone the margin becomes a toolbar under the thumb.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn
Ashes of Varn
This week
Sessions
PrepGM
Wiki
Prep3
This sheet
Generation History
Prep · S12 "Under the Saltworks"GM
Notes for this session
The tide gate, Halloran's seal, the whistle at 2am.
What I want from this session
A reason to trust Keeper Halloran that turns out to be false.
Generate the sheetgrounded in the wiki
The sheet
At the table: the saltworks at slack tide
Save to this session2Add to shelf
Tools1
Story Arcs Quests NPCs Names At the Table
Inserts where you are writing, or opens a side sheet.
ContentsPrep · S12
Prep · S12GM
Notes for this session
The tide gate, Halloran's seal, the whistle at 2am.
What I want from this session
A reason to trust Halloran that turns out to be false.
Generate the sheet
The sheet
At the table: the saltworks at slack tide
Save to this sessionAdd to shelf
Tools4
Arcs
Quests
NPCs
Names
At table
  1. The tools sit in the margin because generating is an act of writing here, not a separate job: their output lands in the sheet at the cursor instead of in a result box you then copy from.
  2. The sheet is one document that can be saved whole to the session or pushed to the shelf, so the same artifact a GM wrote is the one that appears at the table.
  3. Generation History is a contents entry rather than a rail, which keeps a column of past output from competing with the document for attention — you go back to it deliberately.
  4. On the phone the margin becomes a bottom toolbar: the document keeps the full width and the tools stay under the thumb. It is the one place Book borrows Table's ergonomics, and it is the right place to borrow them.

Table (live session)

Table mode: full-screen, dark, no app chrome. Both frames are the GM face — desktop wide with a card grid, phone with a swipeable deck; the player face is described in callout 5 rather than drawn.

01:42:07recordingStop1
CapturedMaraIdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno · silent
Spotlight2
Keeper Halloran
Reveal to tableNext
Who's here
IdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno
Quick note
Halloran lied about the tide
Leave the table3
Cardstype to search
The Drowned Chapel
revealed
Order of the Lantern
Tide table
Rumour: the whistle
01:42:07Stop
MaraIdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno · silent
Spotlight
Keeper Halloran
Reveal to table4Next
Cardstype to search5
The Drowned Chapel
revealed
Order of the Lantern
Tide table
Quick note
Who's hereIdrisWrenJuno
Leave the table
  1. The clock and the captured speakers are the only status on the screen, because during play the one thing worth interrupting a GM for is that the recording is or is not working.
  2. The spotlight and Reveal are the largest thing on the screen: at the table there is exactly one action performed mid-sentence, and the layout says so before you read a word.
  3. Table is entered automatically when a session goes in progress, so "Leave the table" is permanently visible and never nested — automatic mode entry is only defensible with an obvious exit.
  4. The phone's Reveal is a thumb target and the cards become a swipeable deck; the desktop gets a grid because a desk can hold one open at a glance and a hand cannot.
  5. The deck is what both faces share. A player's Table face is this same dark screen — deck of revealed cards, a recording indicator, my notes, Leave — with Stop, the spotlight controls and Reveal simply absent, so the difference between the faces is what you may do, not where anything is.

The shared screen, if the table is in one room

Table mode gains a third face for the shared screen: dark, one spotlight at a time, who's here, the clock, paired by a short code. The strongest fit of the seven, because the mode already exists and the face is a variant of it.

Paired · Ashes of Varn · S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Showing now1
Keeper Halloran
Keeper of the tide gate · Order of the Lantern
Who's here2
Mara Idris Wren Tobiah Kestrel Juno
01:42:07RecordingJuno is not here tonight
No buttons on this screen — Mara's device drives it
  1. The screen in the room shows one thing at a time, big enough to read from the far side of the table: the name, what it is, and a line or two. When Mara reveals the next thing, this becomes that.
  2. Who is here and the recording clock are the only other things on it, and there is nothing to press — so if you came without a phone you still see everything the group is looking at, and nobody has to pass a laptop around.

Review

Review is a page in the contents: the suggestions queue, with a merge compared vertically in one column.

Quest BoardAshes of Varn
Ashes of Varn
This week
Sessions
Wiki
Suggested updates
Highlights
Storyline
Party
SettingsGM
Suggested wiki updatesGM1
From S11 "The Amphora" · nothing is published until you approve.
Keeper Halloran 2 new fields, 1 changed paragraph
Now2
Keeper Halloran
Proposed
Keeper Halloran
Last seen: The Drowned Chapel, S11.
Approve the mergeEdit, then approveDiscard
The Drowned Chapel new entry
Approving…3Review mergeDiscard
Order of the Lantern 1 changed field
ApproveReview mergeDiscard
Browse the wikiHighlights waiting: 5 · S11
Article contentswhen reading an article4
Keeper Halloran
Fields
Timeline
Relationships
History
On the phone the category rail sits behind "Browse the wiki".
ContentsSuggested updates
Suggested wiki updatesGM
From S11 "The Amphora" · nothing is published until you approve.
Keeper Halloran
Now
Keeper Halloran
Proposed
Keeper Halloran
Last seen: The Drowned Chapel, S11.
Approve the mergeDiscard
The Drowned Chapel
Approving…
Order of the Lantern
ApproveReview mergeDiscard
Browse the wiki
  1. The queue is a page in the campaign's contents, so review has a permanent address rather than a badge that vanishes the moment it is empty — a GM can go there before there is anything to do.
  2. A merge is compared vertically, now above proposed, in one column: Book's answer to a two-panel diff. It behaves identically on a phone, and it wastes the width of a desk on the one screen where two columns would genuinely help.
  3. Busy states live in the row itself, because a page you re-read has to be able to say what it is doing without a modal to interrupt the reading.
  4. An article's own contents sit in the margin while you read it, and on the phone the category rail hides behind "Browse the wiki" so the reading column keeps the full width — the fix for the 39px article column the audit found.

Your take on C6 Book & Table

C7

Timeline

The campaign as a scrollable story; a session's card expands in place into its whole page; Prep attaches to a future card; the index beside the timeline lists who and what appears in the sessions on screen. Chronology becomes the structure; the wiki and Prep become secondary.

If the table is in one room: The now card, full screen, on the TV, with reveals appearing on it as they happen. The same thing the concept already does for a phone, on a bigger screen.

Home

Every campaign appears as the head of its own timeline: what is next, and what just happened.

Quest BoardDashboardHelp
Dashboard
Needs you 31
  • Vote S13 · pick a time Open on the timeline
  • RSVP S12 "Under the Saltworks" · Tue 19:30 Are you in?
  • ReviewGM S11 "The Amphora" transcript ready Review
Your campaigns
Ashes of VarnGM6 membersOpen the timeline
S13 · vote open · 3 candidate timesProposedin 12d
NowS12 "Under the Saltworks"Confirmed2in 3d 4h
Tue 19:30 Europe/London · 20:30 your time · 4 of 6 in
Are you in?PrepGM
S11 "The Amphora" · recap readyGMReview
Saltmarsh Irregularsplayer3Open the timeline
NowS8 · Thu 20:00Confirmedyou said Yes
S7 · recap publishedRead the recap
+ New campaign · Join with a code
Quest Board
Dashboard
Needs you 3
  • Vote S13 · pick a time
  • RSVP S12 · Tue 19:30
  • ReviewGM S11 transcript
Your campaigns
Ashes of VarnGM
S13 · vote open · in 12d
Now
S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Tue 19:30 · 20:30 your time · 4 of 6 in
Are you in?PrepGM
S11 "The Amphora" · recap readyGM
Saltmarsh Irregularsplayer
S8 · Thu 20:00
you said Yes
S7 · recap published
+ New campaign · Join with a code
  1. Needs you survives, but every row is a doorway into a moment: the button scrolls the campaign's timeline to that card and expands it, so there is never a second copy of the session to keep in sync.
  2. The now marker is the only entry carrying an action, so a member who reads nothing else still answers the question the group is waiting on.
  3. The same three-entry head is drawn whether you run the campaign or only play in it, so the dashboard teaches the shape of the campaign page before anyone opens one: a filled dot with the future above it and the past below.

Campaign

The campaign page IS the timeline: the future above, the now marker, the past below, with the wiki as an index alongside.

Quest BoardAshes of VarnHelp
1NowNextLastWikiHighlightsMoreS12 · Tue 19:30 · in 3d 4h
Ashes of Varn
13 sessions · Mara is GM · Idris, Wren, Tobiah, Kestrel, Juno
S13title from ideasProposedin 12d
Vote · 3 candidate times3 of 6 answered · closes Sun 20:00
Prep sheet saved to S13GM
NowS12 "Under the Saltworks"Confirmed2in 3d 4h
Tue 19:30 Europe/London20:30 your time4 of 6 in
Are you in?PrepGMOpen the tablewhen it startsExpand
2 articles updated · Keeper Halloran, The Drowned Chapel3
3 highlights approved
S11 "The Amphora"Ready for reviewGM16 days ago
Review the transcriptGMRead the recapplayer
Arc: The Drowned Chapel opened
S10 "Low Tide"Completed30 days ago
Recap approved · 2 highlights · 5 present
Recap email sent · 6 recipients
Load earlier · S9 … S1
Index 4
Search the wiki
On screen
  • Keeper Halloran NPC
  • The Drowned Chapel place
  • Order of the Lantern faction
  • Idris Vale PC
3 suggested updatesGM
Party
  • Mara GM
  • Idris Idris Vale
  • Wren
  • Tobiah
  • Kestrel
  • Juno
SettingsGM
Ashes of Varn
NowNextLastMorein 3d
StoryIndex 5
S13Proposedin 12d
Vote3 of 6 answered
Prep sheet saved to S13GM
Now
S12 "Under the Saltworks"Confirmed
Tue 19:30 Europe/London · 20:30 your time
4 of 6 in
Are you in?PrepGM
2 articles updated · Keeper Halloran
3 highlights approved
S11 "The Amphora"16d ago
Ready for reviewGM
Read the recapplayer
Arc: The Drowned Chapel opened
S10 "Low Tide"30d ago
Recap approved · 2 highlights
Recap email sent · 6 recipients
Load earlier · S9 … S1
  1. Scrolling is the navigation, so the jump rail is not decoration: without named anchors a campaign in its second year buries "Now" under a thousand pixels of past, and the rail is the only thing keeping the far ends of the story one click apart.
  2. The now marker is where the pending business of the campaign lives — time in both zones, who has answered, the single action — so attention has a fixed physical place instead of a notification list of its own.
  3. Between-session entries admit that a campaign lives between sessions too; without them the gap from S11 to S12 reads as three empty weeks instead of the wiki edits and highlights that actually happened.
  4. The index makes the wiki a lens on what is on screen rather than a parallel site: these four entries are exactly the ones named in the sessions currently in view, which is how a player finds Halloran without knowing his name is a page.
  5. On phone the index cannot be an aside, so it becomes the second half of a Story · Index pair — one tap, and the story keeps its full width, which is the whole point of the concept.

Session

A session is not a page: the card for S12 expands in place, with its neighbours still visible above and below.

Quest BoardAshes of VarnHelp
NowNextLastWikiHighlightsMoreCopy link to S121
S13Proposedvote open · 3 of 6Expand
NowS12 "Under the Saltworks"ConfirmedCollapse
Schedule 2
Tue 19:30 Europe/London20:30 your timeAdd to calendar.ics · Google
Are you in?YesMaybeNo4 of 6 answered
Mara YesIdris YesWren YesTobiah YesKestrel MaybeJuno no answer
Vote while proposed3
Candidate
Tue 19:30
Thu 19:30
Sat 18:00
Idris
Wren
Tobiah
filled = yes · grey = maybe · empty = no
Notes
Private notes
Shared by MaraGM
Previously on
Open: the buyer for the amphoraOpen: the price Halloran named
Recording while in progress
00:00:00Start recordingGMOpen the tableper-speaker capture · 6 tracks
Post-session processing after the session
Transcript & summarySuggested wiki updatesStorylineJournal entryTitle ideasRecap email
Transcript & Summary after processing
Nothing recorded yet · verified events will appear beneath the summary
Highlights after approval
No approved lines yet
Attendance + character pins
Idris → Idris ValeWren → pick a charactermembers with 2+ characters
Loot & XP
AwardToXP
nothing awarded yet——
S11 "The Amphora"Ready for reviewGMExpand
Index
Search the wiki
In this session
  • Keeper Halloran
  • The Drowned Chapel
  • Idris Vale
Party
MaraGMIdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno
SettingsGM
Ashes of Varn
The storyNowMoreS12
S12 "Under the Saltworks"Confirmed4
Schedule
Tue 19:30 Europe/London · 20:30 your time
YesMaybeNo
4 of 6 answeredAdd to calendar
Mara YesIdris YesKestrel MaybeJuno no answer
Vote while proposed
Candidate
Tue
Thu
Sat
Idris
Wren
Notes
Private notes
Shared by MaraGM
Previously on
Open: the price Halloran named
Recording while in progress
00:00:00Open the table
Post-session processing after the session
Transcript & Summary after processing
Verified events appear beneath the summary
Highlights after approval
No approved lines yet
Attendance + character pins
Idris → Idris ValeWren → pick
Loot & XP
AwardToXP
nothing yet——
The story continues · S11 "The Amphora"
  1. Expanding in place is what makes a deep link honest: a link to S12 lands on the timeline with this card open, so a reader arriving from Discord can still see what came before and after instead of landing on an island.
  2. Schedule sits first because it is the only part that changes week to week; everything below it is either not written yet or will never change again.
  3. The vote grid is a state of the schedule section rather than a separate screen, so a session that slips back to proposed does not move house.
  4. On phone the expanded card is the page, and sections that are still empty are kept with the condition that will fill them — a player scrolling S12 learns the shape a completed session will have, which is what makes the timeline readable later.

Prep

Prep is an inline panel on the session it is for; the campaign-wide tool palette is a drawer off the jump rail.

Quest BoardAshes of VarnHelp
NowNextLastWikiHighlightsMore1More → Prep tools
S13ProposedPrepGM
NowS12 "Under the Saltworks"Confirmedin 3d 4h
Tue 19:30 Europe/London · 4 of 6 inplayerRSVP · Previously on only
Prep this sessionGM1Close
Notes for this session
The saltworks are flooded to the second gallery. Halloran wants the amphora back.
What I want from this session
A reason for the party to trust Keeper Halloran
Generategrounded in Ashes of Varn · wiki + the last 3 recaps
Generated sheet
Under the Saltworks
  • Cold open · the tide gate gives
  • Keeper Halloran names his price
  • The Drowned Chapel · the lower vault
Save to this sessionAdd to shelfRegeneratesaved 4 min ago
S11 "The Amphora"Ready for reviewGMExpand
Prep toolsGM2Close
  • Story Arcs
  • Quests
  • NPCs
  • Names
  • At the Table
  • Series titles
  • Arc suggester
Generation history 3
  • Instant NPC · dockhand Use
  • Rumour · the tide gate Use
  • Title ideas · S13 Use
Ashes of Varn
The storyNowMoreS12GM
NowS12 "Under the Saltworks"
Tue 19:30 · 4 of 6 in
Prep this sessionGM
Notes for this session
The saltworks are flooded to the second gallery.
What I want from this session
A reason to trust Keeper Halloran
Generate
Generated sheet
Under the Saltworks
  • Cold open · the tide gate gives
  • Halloran names his price
SaveAdd to shelf
Generation history
Instant NPC · dockhand
Rumour · the tide gate
Title ideas · S13
More → Prep tools4
S11 "The Amphora" · 16 days ago
  1. The sheet is written inside the card of the session it is for, so "which session was this prep for?" cannot be asked — the container is the answer, and saving is a local act rather than a filing decision across pages.
  2. The palette is a drawer rather than a destination because tools are occasional and the story is the page; closing the drawer leaves the GM at the same scroll position, mid-thought.
  3. Generation history sits beside the panel so a discarded NPC can be recovered instead of regenerated — those tokens are already spent, and the GM is usually two minutes from needing it.
  4. On phone there is no aside, so history becomes a swipeable deck inside the panel and the palette stays one tap away in More; nothing about prep forces a page change.

Table

The now card grown to full screen: the same object, more room, and one way back to the story.

S12 "Under the Saltworks"In progressAshes of Varn1Back to the story
Spotlight GM
Keeper HalloranNPC
Reveal to table2Pin to wiki
Shelf
The Drowned Chapel
Order of the Lantern
Instant NPC · dockhand
Rumour · the tide gate
Quick note
Tobiah promised Halloran the amphora
01:42:07
Recording6 tracks3
Speakers
  • Mara GM
  • Idris
  • Wren
  • Tobiah
  • Kestrel silent
  • Juno absent
Stop recordingGM
Table viewplayerRevealed so far4
Keeper HalloranThe Drowned Chapelthe next reveal appears here
My notes
Halloran wants the amphora, not the coin
S12In progressBack to the story
01:42:07Kestrel silent
Spotlight GM
Keeper Halloran
Reveal to table
Shelf
The Drowned Chapel
Order of the Lantern
Rumour · the tide gate
Quick note
Tobiah promised the amphora
Stop recordingGM
Table viewplayer
Keeper Halloran
The Drowned Chapel
My notes
Halloran wants the amphora
  1. This is the same card as on the timeline, grown — so Back to the story returns to S12 in place rather than to a campaign home, and nobody loses their seat in the story mid-session hunting for the page they came from.
  2. Reveal sits on the spotlight card itself, so the question a GM answers is "reveal this?" and never "which of these is showing?" — the shelf is a queue, the spotlight is the answer.
  3. Clock, recording state and Stop are kept in one column: the recording is the only thing at the table that cannot be redone, so its state must never take a scroll to read.
  4. Players get the identical object with the shelf removed, which is what makes a reveal need no explanation: what the GM pushed is literally what appears, in the same place, on their screen.

The shared screen, if the table is in one room

The now card, full screen, on the TV, with reveals appearing on it as they happen. The same thing the concept already does for a phone, on a bigger screen.

Paired · Ashes of Varn · S12 "Under the Saltworks"
Just revealed1
Keeper Halloran
Keeper of the tide gate · Order of the Lantern
Earlier tonight
  • The Drowned Chapel21:04
  • Tide table20:38
Who's here2
Mara Idris Wren Tobiah Kestrel Juno
01:42:07RecordingJuno is not here tonight
No buttons on this screen — Mara's device drives it
  1. The screen in the room is tonight's card at full size: the newest thing Mara shows the group is the biggest thing on it, and what came before stays listed underneath in the order it happened.
  2. Who is here and the recording clock are the only other things on it, and there is nothing to press — so a player who came without a phone still sees everything, and nobody has to lean over someone's laptop.

Review

The completed card carries its own Review section; verified events are a small timeline inside the big one, and the wiki links back to it.

Quest BoardAshes of VarnHelp
NowNextLastWikiHighlightsMoreS11 · 16 days ago
NowS12 "Under the Saltworks"ConfirmedExpand
2 articles updated · 3 highlights approved
S11 "The Amphora"Ready for reviewGM1Collapse
Post-session processing
Transcript & summarySuggested wiki updatesStorylineJournal entryTitle ideasRecap email · waits for approval
Transcript & Summary GM
The party traded the amphora to Keeper Halloran for passage under the saltworks.
ApproveRetryResubmitOpen transcriptnothing is published until you approve
Verified events 2
00:12 · The party bribes the harbourmaster
Idris · 3 transcript lines
00:41 · Halloran names his price
Mara as Keeper Halloran · 5 lines
01:15 · The lower vault floods
Wren · 2 lines
01:38 · Not verified
no transcript line matches "the Lantern recants" · kept out of the summary
Highlights approve per line
  • "We do not pay the drowned." — Tobiah Approve
  • "Then we take the long way under." — Wren Approve
  • Approved "Halloran keeps his ledgers wet." — Idris Echo to Discord
Attendance + character pins
Mara presentIdris present → Idris ValeWren presentTobiah presentKestrel absentJuno present
Loot & XP
AwardToXP
Amphora shardWren—
Session awardparty600
Arc: The Drowned Chapel opened
From the index · Keeper Halloran 3
Keeper Halloran NPCEditGM
NPCsPlacesFactionsCharactersrail becomes a drawer on phone
FactionOrder of the Lantern
Seen atThe Drowned Chapel
StatusAlive
Appears inS11 "The Amphora"S9
TimelineVersion history1 suggested updateGM
Index
Search the wiki
3 suggested updatesGM4
  • Keeper Halloran edit
  • The Drowned Chapel new
  • Order of the Lantern merge
On screen
  • Keeper Halloran
  • The Drowned Chapel
  • Idris Vale
Party
MaraGMIdrisWrenTobiahKestrelJuno
SettingsGM
Ashes of Varn
The storyLastMoreS11GM
S11 "The Amphora"Ready for review
Post-session processing
Transcript & Summary GM
The party traded the amphora to Keeper Halloran for passage under the saltworks.
ApproveRetry
nothing is published until you approve
Verified events
00:12 · Bribing the harbourmaster
Idris · 3 lines
00:41 · Halloran names his price
Mara · 5 lines
01:15 · The lower vault floods
Wren · 2 lines
01:38 · Not verified
no matching line · kept out
Highlights approve per line
  • "We do not pay the drowned." Approve
  • "Then we take the long way under." Approve
Attendance + character pins
Idris → Idris ValeKestrel absent
Loot & XP
Amphora shardWren
Session award600 XP
From the index · Keeper Halloran
Keeper HalloranNPCCategories
drawer · NPCs · Places · Factions · Characters
Appears inS11S9
  1. Review is a section of the card for S11, not a destination: the GM approves where the session already lives, so the approval and the thing approved cannot drift into two pages holding two different states.
  2. Verified events are a timeline inside the timeline — beats in the order they happened, each traceable to transcript lines, and the one that failed stays visible with its reason instead of quietly thinning the summary.
  3. The article is a standard wiki page (drawn below the fold as the state the index opens), but Appears in is the way back into the story: the wiki is a lens on the timeline, not a parallel site, and on phone the category rail collapses to a drawer so the article finally gets the full width.
  4. The index carries the only thing that cannot hang off one card — a queue spanning every session — which is why the campaign-wide suggested updates live there and in Needs you, and nowhere else.

Your take on C7 Timeline

?

Overall

Two picks, four questions, your name. Each version also says where its shared screen would live if the table were in one room; say whether that matches how you would run it.

Which two would you pick?

Recording from a microphone on the table is later work; assume it exists.
Not saved yet