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Using Notebooks

Notebooks are folders of notes for collecting and sharing your campaign materials. A notebook can be shared among players, and among campaigns, such as:

  • the DM keeps a private notebook of locations, NPCs, and adventure hooks for one particular campaign she is running
  • the DM keeps a private but common notebook of monster statblocks, added to all the games she runs
  • the DM keeps a public notebook of ideas for one-shots and campaigns, to sell future ideas to her friends
  • one player keeps a private notebook of thoughts and observations that his character has during the campaign
  • another player likes to play party record keeper, and they keep a notebook of session notes, lore, rumours, and the history of the world they have learned, which they share to everyone in the campaign

Creating a Notebook

You can create as many notebooks as you need, whether to keep to yourself or share with others — also from your profile, a campaign page, or your list of notebooks, almost anywhere notebooks are used you can be prompted to add a new one.

Pages

Notebook pages are written in Markdown, a plain-text method of creating structured and styled content. Check the guide for more detailed descriptions, but some common features of Markdown are:

  • Headings of different levels are created with # Hashes
  • Bulleted lists are created with - hyphens at the start of the line, or * asterisks, or + pluses
  • Numbered lists are created with 1. a number and a period at the start of the line, or 2) a number and close parenthesis
  • Bold text is created by surrounding words with **double asterisks**
  • Underlined text is created by surrounding words with _underscores_ or *single asterisks*

Page names

Pages have names, and these can include the folder you want to put the page in, for example Campaign Notes/Session One. Folders are automatically created.

The only special name is index, which is presented as the introductory content of the notebook as a whole, or of a folder within the notebook, when using a name like Campaign Notes/index. It can be useful to create a more meaningful table of contents than just a list of page names, for example.

Linking pages together

A link to a different page is created with [[double square brackets]]. This will link to a page with that name wherever in the Notebook it might appear.

If multiple pages in different folders have the same name, pages in shallower folders will be preferred, or the first alphabetical match.

Campaign wikis

If the notebook is a part of a campaign wiki, the link could take you to a page in another notebook.

If multiple pages with the same name exist in multiple notebooks in a campaign wiki, the one highest in the campaign's list will be chosen.

Versions and deleted pages

Any saved change to a page causes a new version, but the site keeps previous versions around. Any deleted page is similarly kept and can be restored with all versions, for at least thirty days before being purged.

Sharing the notebook

By default, notebooks are created private to you. You have two ways of sharing it with others from the notebook's settings page:

  • Visibility — You can make the notebook visible to users of the site, or even make it completely public.
  • Collaborators — Rather than a blanket all-users setting, you can choose a small list of individuals who can see your notebook. You can also allow some users the right to modify your notebook.

Linking a notebook to a campaign does not automatically give any permissions, you still have to choose to share it with the other players. This allows you to keep your notes private but still easily found from the campaign page.

Describing the notebook

You can add a short description to your notebook, that will appear in some notebook lists, as a way to help others understand the purpose of the notebook. In the main index page, add to the very top of the page:

---
notebook: Notes and lore for our Lost Kingdom campaign
---

... rest of page ...