FYI, Obsidian is not open-source. However, Markdown is an open file format, so you will always be able to access your notes. I've been very happy with Obsidian for my campaign. Great introductory video!
Try Logseq if you care for FOSS software. Basically does the same things, has all the same features, over a hundred plugins, etc. Sure there are probably some differences and some plugins available for one program might not have a direct analogue in the other, but in most ways it's pretty much the same.
@@hummel6364 I saw this and thought it was great until I realized that it didn't have folders (it has it's own sort of system I guess but it's still a dealbreaker for me)
My current method of campaign management is using scrap pieces of paper that i gather before each session and hoping everyone remembers things the same way from previous sessions lol. I went ahead and set up Obsidian as close to this tutorial for now. Thanks for the upload and guide.
Hey just a little tip! If you start every session with a recap of the last you can make sure everyone is on the same page and it also allows players to mention things that they may remember but you may have forgot! It's a handy technique and allows you to get the players in the mindset of the story as you see it which helps you direct the tone for the session(:
*Sees the video thumbnail* "I'm already using a pretty good one, and I JUST hit that learning curve for it... buuuuuut, I gotta see what this is." "Oh, that looks famili--- Oh, it's Obsidian! What I'm already currently using!"
Hah, I'm using Obsidian as well and had pretty much the exact same thoughts, some of the plugins in the video I hadn't been using though so I might pick up some of those. Obsidian is amazing though.
Not quite the same for me, but when he mentioned the name of the tool it rang a bell. Turns out I had it already installed for testing. The tutorial made me want to test it more thoroughly. Thanks Power Word Spill!
My experience was somewhat similar, except I got it immediately from the thumbnail (You can see Obsidian's icon beneath the question mark) Basically just sticking around to see what plugins he's using :D
This video cursed me. I have been spending every spare waking hour i have formatting and organizing my notes into obsidian. Finally getting to leave onenote behind is a breath of fresh air I didnt know I needed
@@bradybrandt9326 Ive been using it for a few weeks now and I honestly don't think i could go back. The ability to seamlessly craft your world and link all your files together is just so incredibly convenient (seriously, its not until you've tried it that you realize how incredible linking is) Also not being limited to the notebook and pages system of onenote and basically being able to have as many note documents as you want in however many folders you want is so liberating. If something you like about one note is the ability to drag images and text boxes wherever you like around a canvas, obsidian literally has that feature, but better, where all text boxes and images snap to a seamless grid, and you can draw arrows connecting different assets on the grid, and you can even link whole other files onto that canvas and interact with them from the canvas.
@@rxnova 100%. Especially if you're planning to do alot of world building. Get the plugins that he talked about in this video (especially the interactive map one) and you're gonna have a great time. OneNote isn't bad, but if you're the slightest bit tech savvy (i.e. you know how files work and you can learn how to write in markdown, I can't recommend it enough)
Thank you for this video. I am more of a “show me how it works and tell me less about what it is” type learner, I liked that you included both perspectives. Take care.
So I tried this out and I wasn't sure if it'd actually work for me. But no, I am absolutely in love omg. I'm a person who is obsessed with organization and this program ticks so many boxes in my brain it's amazing
I was building a fandom wiki for my homebrew world and all the lore when one of my players introduced me to obsidian. He had been using it for taking notes in both university and D&D. The best part was that the formatting it used was the same as fandom wiki’s. So I ported all of my work across in no time. Obsidian is the best DM tool by a long shot. Glad to see other Dungeon Masters hopping on the trend.
Wanted to note that your channel has genuinely added to my campaign and overall enjoyment for my players. I started using improved initiative in addition to the "player facing screen" and added some artwork which has revolutionized combat and prep. Thanks for creating content that makes a meaningful difference!
@urosmirkovic8353 Yeah, but the connotation could sound as if you were saying that he gets zero views because he isn't a good creator (which obviously is not the case) so that's likely why they wrote that
I currently use Notion and have created separate Player facing and GM facing documents. I like the ability you mentioned to create a wiki with Obsidian. My daughter actually just got excited about Obsidian last week for her upcoming campaign so your video could not come at a better time.
@@mitchevans9685 I may have to look into the option with Notion at least for my current campaign because I have built an extensive database. Definitely interested in Obsidian though. Thanks for letting me know it is an option to create a wiki with Notion!
I've been using the Obsidian app on my phone for a while, but this video opened up a whole new world of ways to use it with plugins once I get a new laptop. I appreciate you and all the great things you bring to the D&D/TTRPG community.
Josh's videos will take you from Obsidian being just slightly better than Notion and others to easily the best DM management tool period. Anyone starting out watch some beginner videos and then look up the CLI videos they are game changing.
I'm using a spiral notebook, random scraps of paper, a tablet, post it notes, a dry erase map, UDT, and some youtube music when I remember to turn it on. It's all easy to source, but none of it is free and it's pretty jumbled up.
Much better, just dedicate a notebook. The video lost me when it said "oh you need to copy-paste some code" what? there is no feature that actually makes it easier then using google docs, put text generator etc to a tab (via chat gpt). He makes it like having a tab is the worst.
This is me but physical, I do everything on my laptop but I have a 1000 different word documents, google docs, excel sheets, and essentially just notes randomly everywhere online.
When I was thinking of using a physical notebook, I came across metal rings. They are partly expensive but allows you to add and remove pages effortlessly. If you have access to a computer and a writing app such as Microsoft Word, you can create the types of pages you need.
Thanks man, I appreciate the tools you help provide through your research to make D&D easier and more fun for us. I don't have anything else to say really, just commenting to support the channel. Cheers from Alabama!
holy holy your videos are intense with the amount of information so eloquently sectioned that my brain is swelling with excitement to dive into everything. I feel you give such a unbiased and realistic approach to breaking down weather a program is real world utilizable that i feel trusted to watch and approach using products you recommend. thank you and please continue to evolve and put forth more for the ttrpg community. you truly are a gem for people lost in a world of so much content.
I’ve used obsidian to map the whole Castle Ravenloft with transition to, from and between locations of the castle. Took me one and a half days to map it all out and note everything important but in the end it was worth it - I know the layout so well, that even when my players started running the stairs like headless chickens I knew precisely where they would end up.
Please note that if your system settings are set to dark, the theme will not load properly. Go to Options > Appearance and set the "Base color scheme" to "Light" for the theme to render correctly.
This app is amazing. I'm putting all my campaign notes in it and it makes it so much easier to keep track of all the different things going on in the world. Thanks for recommending it!
This is great! I’m a first time dm, although I have been playing for some years. So far I’ve mostly been watching dm guide videos by Bob World Builder and have been able to wing it through that and the campaign book. But my players have been doing more and more things that require more notes and I’ve been losing track. Obsidian will definitely help me be more organised :)
Might check that out. I’m pretty old school though and manage everything on Word docs and saved on my hard drive ready to be lost when a drive goes bad. And I appreciate you too.
This app is amazing, thanks for sharing! I had my campaign notes completely scattered between a dozen apps, PC documents, handnotes and stuff, but now I'm putting them together and it looks really neat! Thank you so much!
i first saw this video when it released, had to pause half-way through to download Obsidian myself! 2-3 months later, couldn't be happier, this is everything i needed for my campaign organization ty for showing off the software, think i'd still be hunting for the "perfect" app if not for this video 😂💚
Thank you so much for sharing this tool. I had heard some people talk about this before but had no idea it was this amazing. I've started using it and moving my notes over to it. Its easily better than most of the tools I used combined! AND FOR FREE! And soo easy to use with great plugins.
Obsidian helped me enjoy playing Traveller a lot more as I often found it confusing and couldn't keep track of how things worked. Just finished setting up my weapons section with an ammo tracker, plus tick boxes and number entries which are used in an equation to add everything together (aim rounds, if the target is tagged, short range bonus) and add it all together for me. It's now on hiatus lol But have branched out and am now using Obsidian to help DM Candlekeep Mysteries. I would be lost without it!
Oh hell yeah! I’ve already been using Obsidian but my understanding of how to fully utilize the product is very minimal. This is going to help A TON. THANK YOU SO MUCH! Also, thank you for going over how you organize your notes. I like it a lot and plan to copy it for my campaign.
I tried Obsidian, but then switched to Notion bc Notion allows free syncing between devices, meanwhile as Obsidian doesn't. That was the game changer for me ahah
just a heads up you can use any cloud storage and just store your vault on it effectively syncing it to any device. unless your notes have a lot of high rez pictures then the size is just text files and so free versions are usually plenty of space (google drive is 10gb for instance)
@@ZaquilleOneal that's mostly true. If you are using Obsidian on a mobile device, it can't natively access Google Drive. There ARE workarounds using third party apps to synchronize local folders with GDrive folders, it's just an extra step you have to be aware of. Still going to be a deal breaker for some, but I find it worth the effort. My decision point between Notion and Obsidian was that with Obsidian the files are in my possession. Bonus points for them being ASCII text files that I can be sure will be readable indefinitely.
Obsidian is amazing, Ive been using it for months and loving how organized it is. Glad to see you promote it! Love you content especially your craft stuff
Wow when i see people with sponsors that use campaign management tools, i usually shut off and skip the ad. But your explanation has been incredible. And so informative down to the step by step process. Ill be saving this one for later. And check out your other vids. Awrsome job 🎉
I use Kanka (the tool you skipped ;) ) and I feel like, that with their free-tier you could get most of the stuff you mentioned without the hustle of "looking for the right plugin". But I guess the possibility of customization in Obsidian might important to some. I preferred the ready-to-go alternative. I am looking forward to your comparison of different tools - never know what you don't know! - I believe it will be another great video from you!
One of my sons has been getting into DnD at school and he's asked me to run a one shot for him and his brothers. I have no idea what am doing but all this looks really useful!
When I saw “paid promotion” in the corner I wasn’t convinced but then you said that the sponsor was a separate program! Obsidian is awesome, and I use it occasionally for development for an upcoming RPG system and setting
I would love to see you make a more in-depth guide at some of the features/plug-ins from Obsidian. You do a really great job at making things easy to understand/digest
Oooohhhhhh, very interesting. And I'm glad the promo isn't x% off, but an extended tutorial! Makes it easier to try and get it built one month and test it during a session next month!
Yep using Obsidian, I love being able to just link and hyperlink basically from page to page. And create a cool wiki page (that has secret GM only parts) I'm still not 100% clued up with the code, but that's because I'm lazy, since there are tons of places to get shortcuts to copy and paste, and the site tells you anyway. As a complete amateur, I've found it incredibly useful. And not HAD to purchase anything. A tip I use is to make sure I always put a link back to the main page at the end of each page I make. The only limit I found on the free version is the limit to how much art I can upload. Which is pretty fair
Yep, obsidian is king for note taking. It took me 2 years ro find the note taking app that worked for me and while I was starting to program my own I found obsidian. Never looking back.
I use Notation to manage mine. Its amazing being able to write a story, and link text to another page with full descriptions of locations or even linking dungeon in the sentence "Players will clear dungeon" then i can open a window or a full page to a full guide, map, monsters, stats, and treasures in a heart beat. Its like having a world map and hard zooming in on a neighborhood at whilm.
Do you mean Notion? Or Notation. I am heavily considering transferring all my notes into Notion and building a database and player wiki for my next campaign there. Would you recommend it over Obsidian? I may use obsidian for birds eye view story outlining, I simply love what all you can do with Notion.
@@Skellybr0lol I'm dumb, yea i meant Notion. Yea I would recommend it over Obsidian. I tried over 15 campaign organizers and like Notion the most. I believe the campaign organize you pick will be the one that reflect how you like to see your story the most and I don't see my campaign as arcs or a country/world, I see it as a story. Notion allows me to write an entire story with the ability to jump around different alternative timelines depending on what my players do with the ability to look read over arcs in minutes but same time see exact details. For example I can write "They can choose to betray the king and escape the city or stand with the knights and defend against the hord" and link the text "they escape the city" to a page in a page with a description to run an entire session on their escape and then say "they run through the sewers" and like the text sewers to pull up and entire mega map with full details of room descriptions, encounters, monsters, and secrete passages in Notion notes. It honestly feels like sky diving on google maps to a random street lmao
I've been using the notes app on my phone and various notebooks and pieces of paper for my planning across multiple campaigns, this is probably going to make everything easier (if I don't get bored of importing notes 10 minutes in)
Ive been usin Notion and Sly Flourish template but this is even better in terms of flow and feeding information in a cycle. Can you please keep covering things like format headings for sessions and npcs and locations. Access to these formats would be amazing
My biggest recommendation in obsidian is the CLI tool; It lets you (kind of) easily copy and transform all of the class, monsters, spells mechanics etc into properly formatted notes. Combined with the initiative tracker and fantasy stat blocks let’s you fully run encounters from within obsidian!
I have been using Wikipad for a few years, it doesn't have interactive maps, but otherwise it works very similarly to Obsidian. For the structure, however, I divide Setting (Geography, Calendar, Pantheon, History); Creatures and Organizations (NPCs, Cults, Orders, Guilds, Animals, Monsters, Archetypes); Rules (houserules, special objects, often used rules etc.); Campaign (Characters, Chapters, Main and Side Missions, Summaries)
Pretty cool.. personally, Microsoft whiteboard is a hard to beat tool. It of course lacks a lot of the cool features you mentioned here but most of them can be implemented manually. I can just drop maps or other images and directly annotate them. I can create flow charts and text boxes and keep notes. And because it basically has infinite zoom. I can have many hierarchies of abstraction. I like to keep everything on a single page. I start with a high level campaign overview using a flow chart. Then I attach city and region maps to the relevant areas. From there, I can zoom in and start adding information. Every time you zoom in and add information you're basically decreasing the level of abstraction. Once you do this for the whole campaign you end up with a very detailed world that is easily navigable. From there I zoom out and start adding "fluff", towns and cities and such that aren't necessarily part of the campaign (these often turn up in the last step anyways) and repeat the process of zooming in and adding more detail. Also, it's great because I can directly drop dungeon maps into it and plan all the different traps and creatures and other interactions.
I'm currently using a customised bookstack setup for management and i find myself using it less and less. This obsidian setup seems similar but way easier and most importantly, has a few more options and the fact there are a community and tutorials is helpful. I might try bringing my notes over to this one. now the only question is when I will have time to get into all of that. bc this sounds like a days work, especially getting all my files set up and linked and when I start playing with a map.. make 2 days out of that xD there go other weekend plans xD thanks
Thanks for sharing. I've been using Trello for organizing my notes for campaign planning and prep. It's searchable, I can embed images, there's labeling systems. I work as a glorified project manager, so I'm comfortable with this kind of format. It's definitely not for everyone.
cool tool, I agree switching tools to find "THE ONE" is a good thing, actually I went through many, came across obsidian as well but only on a surface level and ditched it, but after this I must have this lol insane how highly customizable it is, I'm actually just using one note after I dropped all the other fancy things, and you can link, drop PDF's and make good structured listing there which is good enough until I saw this video lol
I've always used Notion for my DND stuff but this has me interested in migrating to Obsidian for my next campaign. The only thing I wish is that Obsidian would sync to the cloud like Notion does. The ability to prep on my laptop, PC, Tablet, or Phone makes Notion tough to leave.
lol, I was excited to learn about a new tool only to discover its what I’ve been using for a year. Not complaining, I always like seeing how other people use it.
Been using notion for my second time as a DM, can say its very good very to similar obsidian. However not haveing those plugins seems like a big disvantage, I think I'll experiment with obsidian a see if I like it. Thanks!
Please note, I've been using Notion for a long time and switching to Obsidian at this time comes with a lot of disadvantages. If you figure out ways to overcome them I'd love to hear them! 1. No databases and views. I have hundreds of items, NPCs, locations, creatures, etc etc. With Notion, I can use tags to filter them and group them into organized, searchable, ordearable, databases and views. You can have sub-databases too, for example I have one for exotic weather events and another for all the sub-categories of a very important magical resource. Not having this flexibility would make looking through notes a nightmare. 2. No syncing and online availability. Now, this is a double-edged sword. You can't use Notion offline, not unless you download all of your pages (which you should do on the regular anyway) and open them with another program. But, if you do have reliable access to the internet, it's really convenient to be able to open it up wherever you are and jot down ideas using your phone while you're out and about (although the mobile app is a bit buggy on android). It also functions as a cloud-first backup that is much less likely to get lost than my own PC's hard drive could be. 3. There are many smaller reasons. One is the user interface; now, Obsidian's isn't _bad_, to be clear, I used to use cherrytree and let me tell you, it's leaps and bounds more user-friendly than that. But Notion's is even better. Each page being able to have its own favicon, for example, and there are so many convenient ways to open notes while still having other things open at the same time. Another is the synced blocks, which are simply completely abset from Obsidian, for some reason. Generally speaking, I've found that Notion is usually much more convenient at very common tasks, and most of its annoyances are for secondary or niche applications.
I ended up using obsidian for my campaign as well. Great tool ! I still have to stop myself from putting too many things inside and using it as a wiki 😅 Canvas have been really useful tho !
FYI, Obsidian is not open-source. However, Markdown is an open file format, so you will always be able to access your notes. I've been very happy with Obsidian for my campaign.
Great introductory video!
Try Logseq if you care for FOSS software. Basically does the same things, has all the same features, over a hundred plugins, etc.
Sure there are probably some differences and some plugins available for one program might not have a direct analogue in the other, but in most ways it's pretty much the same.
@@hummel6364 I saw this and thought it was great until I realized that it didn't have folders (it has it's own sort of system I guess but it's still a dealbreaker for me)
Emacs Org mode + Roam
QOwnNotes is good and easy, too, as far as I'm aware.
Well, he said free, not open source. That's a difference.
You're my favorite pringles man.
Gene Wolfe is the only Pringles man.
You need to set light theme to activate the style settings effect
Thank you
thank you
Legend
Champion ! Thank you
wait...there are people who use light themes unironically and on purpose?????
My current method of campaign management is using scrap pieces of paper that i gather before each session and hoping everyone remembers things the same way from previous sessions lol. I went ahead and set up Obsidian as close to this tutorial for now. Thanks for the upload and guide.
See I upgraded from Scraps of Paper to a Spiral notebook lol
A man of culture I see
Wait we were supposed to take notes? I just wing it every session and hope the players dont notice the name of the village has changed twice
Oh goodness; that is also the system I use! Maybe Obsidian will be an improvement! :)
Hey just a little tip! If you start every session with a recap of the last you can make sure everyone is on the same page and it also allows players to mention things that they may remember but you may have forgot! It's a handy technique and allows you to get the players in the mindset of the story as you see it which helps you direct the tone for the session(:
*Sees the video thumbnail*
"I'm already using a pretty good one, and I JUST hit that learning curve for it... buuuuuut, I gotta see what this is."
"Oh, that looks famili--- Oh, it's Obsidian! What I'm already currently using!"
Dude same!!
Hah, I'm using Obsidian as well and had pretty much the exact same thoughts, some of the plugins in the video I hadn't been using though so I might pick up some of those. Obsidian is amazing though.
Literally same
Not quite the same for me, but when he mentioned the name of the tool it rang a bell. Turns out I had it already installed for testing. The tutorial made me want to test it more thoroughly. Thanks Power Word Spill!
My experience was somewhat similar, except I got it immediately from the thumbnail (You can see Obsidian's icon beneath the question mark)
Basically just sticking around to see what plugins he's using :D
This video cursed me. I have been spending every spare waking hour i have formatting and organizing my notes into obsidian. Finally getting to leave onenote behind is a breath of fresh air I didnt know I needed
You couldn’t pay me to leave OneNote lol. Is Obsidian that much better???
@@bradybrandt9326 Ive been using it for a few weeks now and I honestly don't think i could go back. The ability to seamlessly craft your world and link all your files together is just so incredibly convenient (seriously, its not until you've tried it that you realize how incredible linking is)
Also not being limited to the notebook and pages system of onenote and basically being able to have as many note documents as you want in however many folders you want is so liberating.
If something you like about one note is the ability to drag images and text boxes wherever you like around a canvas, obsidian literally has that feature, but better, where all text boxes and images snap to a seamless grid, and you can draw arrows connecting different assets on the grid, and you can even link whole other files onto that canvas and interact with them from the canvas.
im writing my first lardger campain world. learning onenote. would you recommend just skipping to obsidian
@@rxnova 100%. Especially if you're planning to do alot of world building. Get the plugins that he talked about in this video (especially the interactive map one) and you're gonna have a great time.
OneNote isn't bad, but if you're the slightest bit tech savvy (i.e. you know how files work and you can learn how to write in markdown, I can't recommend it enough)
I left obsidian FOR onenote
Thank you for this video. I am more of a “show me how it works and tell me less about what it is” type learner, I liked that you included both perspectives. Take care.
So I tried this out and I wasn't sure if it'd actually work for me.
But no, I am absolutely in love omg.
I'm a person who is obsessed with organization and this program ticks so many boxes in my brain
it's amazing
I was building a fandom wiki for my homebrew world and all the lore when one of my players introduced me to obsidian. He had been using it for taking notes in both university and D&D. The best part was that the formatting it used was the same as fandom wiki’s. So I ported all of my work across in no time. Obsidian is the best DM tool by a long shot. Glad to see other Dungeon Masters hopping on the trend.
Wanted to note that your channel has genuinely added to my campaign and overall enjoyment for my players. I started using improved initiative in addition to the "player facing screen" and added some artwork which has revolutionized combat and prep. Thanks for creating content that makes a meaningful difference!
I'm so glad to hear that!
Most underviewed d&d channel
true, I think the thumbnails/icon for the channel don't help, and definitely undersell the insanely good video quality
100%!
*underrated
@@AnthonySmith-sc4zs i meant what i typed, the channel deserves more views
@urosmirkovic8353 Yeah, but the connotation could sound as if you were saying that he gets zero views because he isn't a good creator (which obviously is not the case) so that's likely why they wrote that
Thanks for saving me money, Obsidian is awesome!
Thank you!
This was perfect. Adds just enough flavor to Obsidian without going overboard diving down the rabbit hole of plug-ins.
I currently use Notion and have created separate Player facing and GM facing documents. I like the ability you mentioned to create a wiki with Obsidian. My daughter actually just got excited about Obsidian last week for her upcoming campaign so your video could not come at a better time.
Notion also has the wiki option but the plugin options for obsidian seem so much better than notion
@@mitchevans9685 I may have to look into the option with Notion at least for my current campaign because I have built an extensive database. Definitely interested in Obsidian though. Thanks for letting me know it is an option to create a wiki with Notion!
I'm the same way. I like Notion because I use it for other things but this does seem a little smoother
Same I use Notion and publish and link pages for players to see. I keep a set of lore docs for players in our discord to review
My family and I are very new to D&D . I appreciate everything you do my you are making our journey so much easier. thank you
I've been using the Obsidian app on my phone for a while, but this video opened up a whole new world of ways to use it with plugins once I get a new laptop. I appreciate you and all the great things you bring to the D&D/TTRPG community.
You can use plugins on your phone, too.
Do you know of any good video tutorials or articles on using these plugins with an iphone or ipad?@@a_wild_Kirillian ?
If you're running Windows have a look at Black Cat Familiar too
Strongly recommend Josh Plunkett Obsidian TTRPG youtube videos. Really very, very good and useful.
I second that!
Josh's videos will take you from Obsidian being just slightly better than Notion and others to easily the best DM management tool period. Anyone starting out watch some beginner videos and then look up the CLI videos they are game changing.
Hey, thanks for the tip😊
I'm using a spiral notebook, random scraps of paper, a tablet, post it notes, a dry erase map, UDT, and some youtube music when I remember to turn it on. It's all easy to source, but none of it is free and it's pretty jumbled up.
Woah that is almost identically my list of DM stuff 😅
Much better, just dedicate a notebook. The video lost me when it said "oh you need to copy-paste some code" what? there is no feature that actually makes it easier then using google docs, put text generator etc to a tab (via chat gpt). He makes it like having a tab is the worst.
Lmao I'm doing the exact same way
This is me but physical, I do everything on my laptop but I have a 1000 different word documents, google docs, excel sheets, and essentially just notes randomly everywhere online.
When I was thinking of using a physical notebook, I came across metal rings. They are partly expensive but allows you to add and remove pages effortlessly. If you have access to a computer and a writing app such as Microsoft Word, you can create the types of pages you need.
This, along with Bag of Tips' templates, has saved me so many hours of work. This program is amazing.
Hey, glad to be of some assistance! 😅
@@BagOfTips oh heya
Thanks man, I appreciate the tools you help provide through your research to make D&D easier and more fun for us. I don't have anything else to say really, just commenting to support the channel. Cheers from Alabama!
Been using Obsidian for a couple years now, but was nervous about using plugins - Thank you!
holy holy your videos are intense with the amount of information so eloquently sectioned that my brain is swelling with excitement to dive into everything. I feel you give such a unbiased and realistic approach to breaking down weather a program is real world utilizable that i feel trusted to watch and approach using products you recommend. thank you and please continue to evolve and put forth more for the ttrpg community. you truly are a gem for people lost in a world of so much content.
I’ve used obsidian to map the whole Castle Ravenloft with transition to, from and between locations of the castle. Took me one and a half days to map it all out and note everything important but in the end it was worth it - I know the layout so well, that even when my players started running the stairs like headless chickens I knew precisely where they would end up.
I’ve been using obsidian for the last 6 months. It’s fantastic for all my projects and having a vault specifically for each campaign is super cool.
Please note that if your system settings are set to dark, the theme will not load properly. Go to Options > Appearance and set the "Base color scheme" to "Light" for the theme to render correctly.
Thank you so much
This app is amazing. I'm putting all my campaign notes in it and it makes it so much easier to keep track of all the different things going on in the world. Thanks for recommending it!
Already using Obsidian- it’s actually really fun to use the star graph view. I have trouble doing anything fancy but that’s alright!
This is great! I’m a first time dm, although I have been playing for some years. So far I’ve mostly been watching dm guide videos by Bob World Builder and have been able to wing it through that and the campaign book. But my players have been doing more and more things that require more notes and I’ve been losing track. Obsidian will definitely help me be more organised :)
I'm about to start GM'ing a TTRPG and this is by far the most useful video I've been recommended. Love the ending bit where you show off your process.
Those last three words hit HARD
Thanks. It seems I really needed that.
I'm currently making a campaign in the aetherial expanse so seeing you run the fables was wild. Thanks for the guide!
Might check that out. I’m pretty old school though and manage everything on Word docs and saved on my hard drive ready to be lost when a drive goes bad.
And I appreciate you too.
What am I using? Erm.... Yes?
Yeah. I haven't been taking notes. I really need to. This looks AMAZING
This app is amazing, thanks for sharing! I had my campaign notes completely scattered between a dozen apps, PC documents, handnotes and stuff, but now I'm putting them together and it looks really neat! Thank you so much!
i first saw this video when it released, had to pause half-way through to download Obsidian myself! 2-3 months later, couldn't be happier, this is everything i needed for my campaign organization
ty for showing off the software, think i'd still be hunting for the "perfect" app if not for this video 😂💚
I'm so glad it helped!
Welcome to the Obsidian fam, fam!
Thank you so much for sharing this tool. I had heard some people talk about this before but had no idea it was this amazing. I've started using it and moving my notes over to it. Its easily better than most of the tools I used combined! AND FOR FREE! And soo easy to use with great plugins.
Obsidian helped me enjoy playing Traveller a lot more as I often found it confusing and couldn't keep track of how things worked. Just finished setting up my weapons section with an ammo tracker, plus tick boxes and number entries which are used in an equation to add everything together (aim rounds, if the target is tagged, short range bonus) and add it all together for me. It's now on hiatus lol
But have branched out and am now using Obsidian to help DM Candlekeep Mysteries. I would be lost without it!
Oh hell yeah! I’ve already been using Obsidian but my understanding of how to fully utilize the product is very minimal. This is going to help A TON. THANK YOU SO MUCH! Also, thank you for going over how you organize your notes. I like it a lot and plan to copy it for my campaign.
Awesome, I'm glad it was helpful!
Up until now, I've been using my brain to manage my campaigns. Come to think of it, that's probably why I keep getting so many migraines...
I tried Obsidian, but then switched to Notion bc Notion allows free syncing between devices, meanwhile as Obsidian doesn't. That was the game changer for me ahah
just a heads up you can use any cloud storage and just store your vault on it effectively syncing it to any device. unless your notes have a lot of high rez pictures then the size is just text files and so free versions are usually plenty of space (google drive is 10gb for instance)
@@ZaquilleOneal that's mostly true. If you are using Obsidian on a mobile device, it can't natively access Google Drive. There ARE workarounds using third party apps to synchronize local folders with GDrive folders, it's just an extra step you have to be aware of. Still going to be a deal breaker for some, but I find it worth the effort.
My decision point between Notion and Obsidian was that with Obsidian the files are in my possession. Bonus points for them being ASCII text files that I can be sure will be readable indefinitely.
@sam_spaxter I store my Obsidian vaults in OneDrive and sync it using OneSync, works perfectly.
Obsidian is amazing, Ive been using it for months and loving how organized it is. Glad to see you promote it! Love you content especially your craft stuff
This is the best discoverment for me! I was using free world anvil...Man, what an improvement!!
Wow when i see people with sponsors that use campaign management tools, i usually shut off and skip the ad. But your explanation has been incredible. And so informative down to the step by step process. Ill be saving this one for later. And check out your other vids. Awrsome job 🎉
I use Kanka (the tool you skipped ;) ) and I feel like, that with their free-tier you could get most of the stuff you mentioned without the hustle of "looking for the right plugin". But I guess the possibility of customization in Obsidian might important to some. I preferred the ready-to-go alternative.
I am looking forward to your comparison of different tools - never know what you don't know! - I believe it will be another great video from you!
One of my sons has been getting into DnD at school and he's asked me to run a one shot for him and his brothers.
I have no idea what am doing but all this looks really useful!
When I saw “paid promotion” in the corner I wasn’t convinced but then you said that the sponsor was a separate program! Obsidian is awesome, and I use it occasionally for development for an upcoming RPG system and setting
Also, I don't know when this became the case, but Calendarium is now available directly through Obsidian's community plugins!
Just installed the app and moved my notes from two small journals to the obsidian surface. This is super helpful, thanks a bunch!
I always look forward to your videos. They're both informative and fun!
I think Calendarium is no longer in beta- I was able to install it straight from the plugins menu
Correct. Javalent (the creator) finally released it out of beta.
This is the best setup video I've seen. Thanks for this.
Thanks for the advice, will def try to use this in an upcomming campaign
tried this out and wow I am loving it so far to manage my campaign! thank you so much for posting this!
Obsidian is the underrated Greatest Of All Time note taking program, glad to see you review it
I was literally about to sign up for WA when this popped up. You rock
well, I'm definitely changing from my google doc. this looks awesome and exactly like what I wanted.
I would love to see you make a more in-depth guide at some of the features/plug-ins from Obsidian. You do a really great job at making things easy to understand/digest
Great information, I hope this channel keeps going.
My current campaign management is Miro and tears, so I will definitely check this out! Thank you
And here I am using a single jumbled google doc for all my lore and quests.
Definitely gonna try that when my online crew has a game in a week!
Been DMing One Ring RPG and this has been a godsent, I was using Figma before which is fine. Thanks alot for this
Dang I'm so glad I came across this video. Really needed something I didn't need to subscribe for
Oooohhhhhh, very interesting. And I'm glad the promo isn't x% off, but an extended tutorial! Makes it easier to try and get it built one month and test it during a session next month!
Agreed. This is really nice! Much more likely to buy in if I’ve had ample time to explore, use, tweak, and then try it again. A great sponsor idea.
Yep using Obsidian, I love being able to just link and hyperlink basically from page to page. And create a cool wiki page (that has secret GM only parts)
I'm still not 100% clued up with the code, but that's because I'm lazy, since there are tons of places to get shortcuts to copy and paste, and the site tells you anyway.
As a complete amateur, I've found it incredibly useful. And not HAD to purchase anything.
A tip I use is to make sure I always put a link back to the main page at the end of each page I make.
The only limit I found on the free version is the limit to how much art I can upload. Which is pretty fair
Yep, obsidian is king for note taking. It took me 2 years ro find the note taking app that worked for me and while I was starting to program my own I found obsidian. Never looking back.
@00:30 you’ve earned a new sub
I use Notation to manage mine. Its amazing being able to write a story, and link text to another page with full descriptions of locations or even linking dungeon in the sentence "Players will clear dungeon" then i can open a window or a full page to a full guide, map, monsters, stats, and treasures in a heart beat. Its like having a world map and hard zooming in on a neighborhood at whilm.
Do you mean Notion? Or Notation.
I am heavily considering transferring all my notes into Notion and building a database and player wiki for my next campaign there. Would you recommend it over Obsidian? I may use obsidian for birds eye view story outlining, I simply love what all you can do with Notion.
@@Skellybr0lol I'm dumb, yea i meant Notion. Yea I would recommend it over Obsidian. I tried over 15 campaign organizers and like Notion the most. I believe the campaign organize you pick will be the one that reflect how you like to see your story the most and I don't see my campaign as arcs or a country/world, I see it as a story.
Notion allows me to write an entire story with the ability to jump around different alternative timelines depending on what my players do with the ability to look read over arcs in minutes but same time see exact details. For example I can write "They can choose to betray the king and escape the city or stand with the knights and defend against the hord" and link the text "they escape the city" to a page in a page with a description to run an entire session on their escape and then say "they run through the sewers" and like the text sewers to pull up and entire mega map with full details of room descriptions, encounters, monsters, and secrete passages in Notion notes. It honestly feels like sky diving on google maps to a random street lmao
Great video! I knew of Obsidian but not the plugin support specifically for TTRPGs
I've been using the notes app on my phone and various notebooks and pieces of paper for my planning across multiple campaigns, this is probably going to make everything easier (if I don't get bored of importing notes 10 minutes in)
Ive been usin Notion and Sly Flourish template but this is even better in terms of flow and feeding information in a cycle. Can you please keep covering things like format headings for sessions and npcs and locations. Access to these formats would be amazing
My biggest recommendation in obsidian is the CLI tool;
It lets you (kind of) easily copy and transform all of the class, monsters, spells mechanics etc into properly formatted notes.
Combined with the initiative tracker and fantasy stat blocks let’s you fully run encounters from within obsidian!
I have been using Wikipad for a few years, it doesn't have interactive maps, but otherwise it works very similarly to Obsidian.
For the structure, however, I divide Setting (Geography, Calendar, Pantheon, History); Creatures and Organizations (NPCs, Cults, Orders, Guilds, Animals, Monsters, Archetypes); Rules (houserules, special objects, often used rules etc.); Campaign (Characters, Chapters, Main and Side Missions, Summaries)
OMG I loved this video. It's all I needed about Obsidian ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Been playing with is over the last week. And ita amazing. 😊
Just need to get quartz running.
And i love your notes layout. Thank you again
Insanely valuable video! Thanks - Obsidian looks like a coding IDE so its a bit overwhelming so i truly appreciate this
Wow, I already used obsidian but this is sick! Easiest sub of my life.
Great content and information so clean concise really really helpful and also magnificent mustache my friend!
Pretty cool.. personally, Microsoft whiteboard is a hard to beat tool. It of course lacks a lot of the cool features you mentioned here but most of them can be implemented manually. I can just drop maps or other images and directly annotate them. I can create flow charts and text boxes and keep notes. And because it basically has infinite zoom. I can have many hierarchies of abstraction.
I like to keep everything on a single page. I start with a high level campaign overview using a flow chart. Then I attach city and region maps to the relevant areas. From there, I can zoom in and start adding information. Every time you zoom in and add information you're basically decreasing the level of abstraction. Once you do this for the whole campaign you end up with a very detailed world that is easily navigable. From there I zoom out and start adding "fluff", towns and cities and such that aren't necessarily part of the campaign (these often turn up in the last step anyways) and repeat the process of zooming in and adding more detail. Also, it's great because I can directly drop dungeon maps into it and plan all the different traps and creatures and other interactions.
Amazing video man, can you do a deeper dive into how you set up your vault?
My first time seeing one of your videos, and yes, obsidian notes is amazing
HI! I'm new here; what a dashing mustache! Thank you for this video!
I've been using one note for a while, definitely will be looking into this!
Would love to see you do a livestream creating a one-shot or something like that using Obsidian!
I'm currently using a customised bookstack setup for management and i find myself using it less and less. This obsidian setup seems similar but way easier and most importantly, has a few more options and the fact there are a community and tutorials is helpful. I might try bringing my notes over to this one. now the only question is when I will have time to get into all of that. bc this sounds like a days work, especially getting all my files set up and linked and when I start playing with a map.. make 2 days out of that xD there go other weekend plans xD thanks
Thanks for sharing. I've been using Trello for organizing my notes for campaign planning and prep. It's searchable, I can embed images, there's labeling systems. I work as a glorified project manager, so I'm comfortable with this kind of format. It's definitely not for everyone.
Yeah I liked it when I used it! Definitely a good option
I’ve never been a game master or even played DnD but the way this program seems so simple it makes me feel like I actually do it 😂
Came for the title, stayed for the mustache.
I've been using notion -- this looks pretty in depth and useful too!
I use notion for my campaign management, specifically the format from Sly Flourish's campaign template. He has it linked in most of his videos.
cool tool, I agree switching tools to find "THE ONE" is a good thing, actually I went through many, came across obsidian as well but only on a surface level and ditched it, but after this I must have this lol
insane how highly customizable it is, I'm actually just using one note after I dropped all the other fancy things, and you can link, drop PDF's and make good structured listing there which is good enough until I saw this video lol
I've always used Notion for my DND stuff but this has me interested in migrating to Obsidian for my next campaign. The only thing I wish is that Obsidian would sync to the cloud like Notion does. The ability to prep on my laptop, PC, Tablet, or Phone makes Notion tough to leave.
What a nice video! This will really help me with d&d and other projects. Thanks!
lol, I was excited to learn about a new tool only to discover its what I’ve been using for a year. Not complaining, I always like seeing how other people use it.
wow! thank you... I had been using Obsidian but nver got around to using plug ins... this seems helpful
Been using notion for my second time as a DM, can say its very good very to similar obsidian. However not haveing those plugins seems like a big disvantage, I think I'll experiment with obsidian a see if I like it. Thanks!
Please note, I've been using Notion for a long time and switching to Obsidian at this time comes with a lot of disadvantages. If you figure out ways to overcome them I'd love to hear them!
1. No databases and views. I have hundreds of items, NPCs, locations, creatures, etc etc. With Notion, I can use tags to filter them and group them into organized, searchable, ordearable, databases and views. You can have sub-databases too, for example I have one for exotic weather events and another for all the sub-categories of a very important magical resource. Not having this flexibility would make looking through notes a nightmare.
2. No syncing and online availability. Now, this is a double-edged sword. You can't use Notion offline, not unless you download all of your pages (which you should do on the regular anyway) and open them with another program. But, if you do have reliable access to the internet, it's really convenient to be able to open it up wherever you are and jot down ideas using your phone while you're out and about (although the mobile app is a bit buggy on android). It also functions as a cloud-first backup that is much less likely to get lost than my own PC's hard drive could be.
3. There are many smaller reasons. One is the user interface; now, Obsidian's isn't _bad_, to be clear, I used to use cherrytree and let me tell you, it's leaps and bounds more user-friendly than that. But Notion's is even better. Each page being able to have its own favicon, for example, and there are so many convenient ways to open notes while still having other things open at the same time. Another is the synced blocks, which are simply completely abset from Obsidian, for some reason.
Generally speaking, I've found that Notion is usually much more convenient at very common tasks, and most of its annoyances are for secondary or niche applications.
oh ill definitely save this video! currently using notion, but since i can program, sounds like obsidian is a great alternative with way more options
Your mustache is top tier. Put on a top
Hat and you look like an evil villain
You earned a sub my man. This is amazing.
great tips i was already using obsidian but did not know about these options.
I ended up using obsidian for my campaign as well. Great tool !
I still have to stop myself from putting too many things inside and using it as a wiki 😅
Canvas have been really useful tho !