Does it roll initiative for me?

No, deliberately. An order the app decided is one nobody around the table agrees with, and without seeing the numbers you cannot interleave the players who have just called theirs out. Everyone rolls their own and you drag them into place.

Can I add a monster mid-fight?

Yes. Add a combatant at any point and drop it wherever it belongs in the order. Reinforcements arriving on round three are normal and the tracker expects it.

Is the rules answer authoritative?

No. It is a best effort with its source shown, not a ruling. The person who decides at your table is still you — which is also the only answer your players will accept.

What if I run from paper?

That works. Print the run sheet, run however you like, and do the debrief afterwards from a phone. Talking into the ramble works just as well when there was never a laptop at the table.

Does the table view work on a tablet?

It is built for a laptop or a desktop and is comfortable on a large tablet in landscape. It is not designed for a phone — the debrief is the part that is.

Running a session at the table

The table view, the combat tracker, answers mid-session, and improvising when the party goes somewhere you did not prepare.

A different screen for a different job

The table view is dark, quiet and built to be glanced at rather than read. Bigger type, higher contrast, fewer things on screen, and no navigation bar across the top — because five people are waiting and you have about two seconds.

A whole scene and a fight, at speed · 8 minutes

Step 1 — Open the table view

When a session is prepped, the dashboard offers Run it. It opens on your first scene, full-bleed and dark.

Nothing else in the app looks like this, and that is deliberate — it is the only screen read across a room.

The dashboard offering Run it for a prepped session — One press from the dashboard

Step 2 — Move through the scenes

The current scene fills the middle: read-aloud text in a serif at a size you can read from across a table, your private notes below it, and the music for that scene in the corner.

The party strip along the side shows hit points and conditions for everyone, updating as the session goes.

A scene in the table view with read-aloud text and the party strip — Read-aloud in serif, because it is read out loud

Step 3 — Run a fight

Start a fight and everyone in it appears in one list: your monsters from the encounter, your party from the codex, with hit points already filled in.

Starting a linked encounter from a scene — Everyone appears at once — your monsters and your party

Put them in order by dragging

Everyone rolls their own initiative, including you. As each player calls a number, drag them into place — the whole row is a drop target, because aiming at a small grip while four people talk is not a reasonable ask.

Note.Using a keyboard instead? Focus the grip and the arrow keys move a combatant one place at a time.

A combatant being dragged into the initiative order — A line shows where they will land

Track damage and conditions

Type a number on a row to take hit points off.
A negative number heals.
Conditions go on from the same row.
Move the turn on — whoever is up is large at the top.

Player hit points sync back to the codex, so the party strip is right the next time you open it.

Applying damage to a combatant and adding a condition — A number takes hit points off; a negative one gives them back

Step 4 — Ask when you do not know

Type the question and get a decisive answer in a sentence or two, with the source it came from. No hedging and no essay, because neither is any use with everyone waiting.

A rules question and a short answer with its source — One or two sentences, and where it came from

Careful.It is a best effort, not a ruling. The person who decides at your table is you — and that is the only answer your players will accept anyway.

Step 5 — Improvise what you did not prepare

The party walks somewhere you did not prepare. Describe it in a line — “the back room of the Salt and Whistle, after hours” — and get a scene with read-aloud text back in seconds.

It knows your world, so what comes back fits it: the right names, the right weather, the right people nearby.

A one-line description producing a scene with read-aloud text — A line in, a scene out

Step 6 — Catch things as they happen

A player does something that matters. One line into the note box and it is in the session log.

This is what the debrief reads afterwards, so anything jotted here is something you will not have to remember on Thursday.

A one-line note being added to the session log — One line, no thinking

Step 7 — Close the session

When you are done, close it. That marks it played and opens the door to the debrief.

Do it before you shut the laptop if you possibly can. It is far easier while your players are still putting dice away than it is three days later.

Questions

Questions people ask

No. Drop in a Notion or Obsidian export, a Word file, or paste anything at all. Yarnfold reads the people, places, factions and past sessions out of it and shows you every one before a word is written. If it is all in your head instead, answer nine questions and it builds from that.