Introduction to Campaigns
Campaigns provide the foundation for running a game using Shard. Campaigns just store the key state for playing a game including: set of player characters, current map, map fog state, current encounter state, non-player characters and the campaign log. Other information, like loaded maps, planned encounters, monsters, races, etc. are stored for a user and can be reused across campaigns.
New Campaign
To start a campaign click the “New Campaign” button and select a name for the campaign.
After you create a campaign it will show up in this section so that you can return to the campaign.
You new campaign will be empty and ready for you to get started.
Getting Started
A blank campaign can be a bit daunting on first glance, but there are a variety of ways to proceed with a campaign. No matter how you choose to proceed you will at some point want to invite players to join your campaign.
To invite players to your campaign click the “Invite” button. The “Send Email” link will launch your email program to allow you to send the link to your players.
Jump right in: You can upload or pick from a set of built-in starting maps, select some monsters for an encounter and just start playing. (hint: to quickly get monsters or characters on the map click the map and click “Huddle Monsters” or “Huddle Characters”)
Start a published adventure: Published adventures have maps, planned encounters and descriptive information on how to run the adventure. Shard comes with Fate of Artanga adventures or you can find free or for purchase adventures in our marketplace. To start one of these adventures click “Pick Book” and select the book for the adventure. From the book you can read about the adventure, select maps and start encounters.
Prepare your own adventure: To prepare your own adventure you can preload maps, create encounters and even create your own book to organize your adventure. Click here to view a video on this process.
Game Flow
Shard organizes game play around encounters. An encounter has the player characters, monsters/non-player characters and tokens for the map. These are all organized in the combat tracker that also manages initiative order. The game flow goes through several stages.
Start the encounter: select the map, pick monsters and map tokens, and place them on the map. If you want to start from planned encounter then you can select the pin for the encounter and click start or click on an encounter from the book.
Roll for initiative: if the encounter moves into combat then you can roll initiative. Players roll for initiative on their character sheets and the gamemaster can roll initiative for monsters by clicking the hand icon in the combat tracker which will roll initiative and sort combat in initiative order.
Gameplay combat: run combat by roll playing the combat, moving tokens, roll attack and damage and apply damage by clicking on tokens.
Finish encounter: click finish encounter to cleanup and prepare for the next encounter. You can grant any treasure that was discovered, distribute experience points, and create a log entry for the encounter. This will also remove any monsters that you don’t want to stay for the next encounter.
For more information check out other articles on campaigns.