Quickstart Revisited
Getting a DM can get up and running quickly on Shard is incredibly important to us, so we decided to dig in even more and streamline the experience. The net result was shifting the focus of the campaign to pivot around the Adventure Mode screen. We just released a number of enhancements that will allow many DMs to prep and run their entire game without ever leaving that screen. As a result, Adventure Mode is now the default landing location when you create a new campaign.
In addition, a number of refinements were made to allow running an adventure smoothly on your phone. While a device with a larger screen (laptop or tablet) will likely always have certain advantages, we have always targeted the phone as a player device and now it works for DMs as well. Almost everything can be accomplished from the map view without visiting the other tabs.
More on the details of the enhancements in future posts, now let’s talk about getting up and running quickly with your own adventures. Create a campaign. Enter a name and hit enter. You are now on the primary DM Adventuring screen (shown here).
Now you can start setting up your game.
Invite your players. An email template is provided or you can copy the invitation link and transmit it to your player via any messaging service.
Choose a map. You can use any of the ones that come with Shard, search the Internet directly or upload your own. You can have as many maps as you like and easily switch between them. When players join their character will automatically appear in the tracker and they will be able to see the unfogged portion of the map you are sharing.
Press Start and pick monsters. Using prepared and random encounters will be the subject of another post.
Roll Initiative. Players can enter their own scores and pressing the button shown will automatically roll for the monsters, sort the tracker in initiative order and number each token with their position in the order.
Advance the turn. The character or creature who’s turn it is will be highlighted with a yellow box around their token and have their stat block displayed in the Creatures tab.
After step 5, the screen should look something like this:
Continuing:
6. Record any damage or conditions by clicking on the target creature(s). Creatures that reach zero hit points will automatically be marked as dead and removed from combat order. Characters will have a death saves area appear on their sheet.
7. Repeat 5 and 6 until the encounter is resolved.
8. Click Treasure to grant any treasure.
9. Click Finish to complete the encounter and add it to the log.
It’s that easy to get started and run your own encounters. Happy adventuring.