Campaigns

Run several campaigns from one vault. Each has its own chapters, scenes, NPCs, session logs and party.

Start one#

Use New campaign, from the castle icon in the ribbon or the command palette. You give it a name, a starting level and the number of heroes. It creates a folder with a home note, a first chapter and an opening scene.

The Campaign panel#

The panel in the left sidebar is home base. From it you can:

• switch campaigns
• open Spotlight from the search bar under the campaign name, to find adversaries, NPCs and notes or roll dice
• see and edit the party
• Continue where you left off
• browse chapters and their scenes (map buttons sit on each chapter)
• browse every folder in the campaign: Sessions, NPCs, Locations, Monsters, Assets, and any you make yourself, like Factions. Empty folders show too. NPCs with a portrait show it as their icon.
• see the files in a folder, not just notes: Assets lists its images and PDFs, and clicking one opens it
• add to any chapter or folder with its + button
• reorganize by dragging, or from the right-click menu

Adding notes and folders#

+ on a chapter or folder opens New. Pick what you're making, name it, and press Enter:

The folder decides what's picked first: NPC in NPCs, Scene in a chapter, Session log in Sessions, a blank Note in a folder of your own. In a folder of your own, any starter is saved right there.

A chapter holds its scenes, maps and notes. An NPC, location, monster or handout you make from a chapter's + is saved in the campaign's folder for it (NPCs, Locations, Monsters, Handouts), so it's listed with the rest and not among the chapter's scenes. The dialog says where it's going before you create it. If you've renamed one of those folders, say NPCs to Characters, that folder is used.

On a folder of files like Assets, + adds files from your computer or phone instead. Every New dialog also has an Add files from this device instead link.

+ on the Campaign heading makes a session log, NPC, location, chapter or New folder. The folder icon next to it makes a folder straight away.

Moving things around#

• Drag a note or file onto a chapter or folder to move it there. Drop it on the Campaign heading to move it to the top of the campaign.
• Drag from Obsidian's file explorer to bring existing notes, or whole folders, into a campaign. This is the quickest way to move an older campaign over.
• A scene or plain note moved into a chapter becomes that chapter's last scene. An NPC, handout or map moved there is kept with the chapter but isn't numbered as a scene.
• Files you add to a chapter, or drop on the Campaign heading, are listed there too.
• Links to moved notes are updated the way Obsidian always updates them (Settings → Files and links).

Right-click a note, file, folder or chapter (or long-press it on a phone or tablet) for:

• notes and files: Open in new tab, Move to chapter or folder…, Rename…, Delete
• folders: New note…, Add files…, Rename folder…, Delete folder
• chapters: New scene or note…, Open chapter note, Add files…, Rename chapter… (renames its folder and chapter note together), Delete chapter

Obsidian's own items (Bookmark, Reveal in navigation, and items from other plugins) are in the same menus. Deleted notes go wherever Obsidian's Deleted files setting sends them.

Each campaign has its own party. Opening a note inside a campaign makes that campaign active, so encounter blocks in it are rated against that table's heroes. Until you add heroes, the campaign's level: and heroes: properties are used.

Moving through scenes: the Next scene and Previous scene commands step through scenes in order, across chapters. Bind them to hotkeys under Settings → Hotkeys.

How it's laid out#

It's plain folders and a little frontmatter, so you can also build it by hand or convert an existing vault:

Campaigns/
  The Old Quarter/
    The Old Quarter.md                 nimble: campaign   (level: 2, heroes: 4)
    1 The Quicksilver Vaults/
      1 The Quicksilver Vaults.md      nimble: chapter    (order: 1, label: "Mercury Rises, Sanity Falls")
      Q1 Entry Chamber.md              nimble: scene      (order: 1, area: Q1)   ← any note here is a scene
      Q2 Mercury Pool.md
      Map - The Quicksilver Vaults.md  nimble: map
    NPCs/  Sessions/  Locations/  Monsters/  Assets/   ← any other folder is a section

• A campaign is any folder holding a note with nimble: campaign.
• A chapter is any folder inside it holding a note with nimble: chapter. It can sit straight in the campaign folder or deeper, such as Chapters/Act 1.
• Every other note in a chapter folder is a scene, even without frontmatter.
• order: sorts notes. Without it, names sort naturally (Q2 before Q10).
• area: is the short tag shown before a scene's title in the panel (Q1, Q2…). It's handy for matching map keys.
• title: is the name shown in the panel when it differs from the file name. File names can't hold characters like : ? and ", so a campaign you call "Vecna: Eve of Ruin" is saved as Vecna- Eve of Ruin with title: "Vecna: Eve of Ruin", and the panel and NPC cards show the name you typed.
• Any other folder in the campaign is a section (NPCs, Locations, Sessions, Monsters, Handouts or anything you like). Sections list their notes and any other files in them, and show up even while empty.

A ```nimble-campaign block on the home note shows the same outline inside the note.

Campaign properties#