Campaign notes apps compared, honestly

By Brenn and Lindsay, the two writers who built Inkling

Every DM eventually has the same moment: the notes are in four places, and none of them is the one you need. Here is a fair look at the tools DMs actually use, who each one suits, and where Inkling fits (and where it does not).

In an EN World thread on organizing long campaigns, one GM described 87 sessions and more than two years of notes spread across a text editor, OneNote, a couple of VTTs and D&D Beyond. The advice that came back was the advice we would give, too: pick one hub, and let the players keep their own session notes. The hard part is picking. So here is what we found, trying to be fair to every tool, including the ones we did not make.

What should a campaign notes app actually do?

Before comparing anything, it helps to know what you are shopping for. From what DMs say they wish for, a good campaign notes app should:

• Hold everything in one place, so you stop hunting across four apps mid-session.
• Capture fast. An NPC you improvised at the table needs to land somewhere in seconds.
• Keep a “where things stand” page. The Alexandrian calls it a campaign status document: a living page of what each faction, thread and NPC is up to right now.
• Stay private by default, with an easy way to share the parts your players should see.
• Not become a second hobby. If building the system takes longer than prepping the session, it is not helping.

Notion

Notion is a flexible workspace of pages and databases, and DMs love it because you can build almost anything in it: an NPC database, a session log, a clue tracker with checkboxes. The community shares plenty of templates, and Sly Flourish has written up how he runs his Lazy DM prep in Notion. Suits: DMs who enjoy setting up systems and want tables, tags and filters. Watch out for: the blank-page problem. It can take several evenings of setup before it pays off, and it is easy to find yourself tuning the template instead of prepping the session.

Obsidian

Obsidian is a free notes app that keeps everything as plain text files in a folder on your own computer. You link notes with double brackets, so every NPC, place and faction becomes its own page, and a graph view shows how they connect. A big library of community plugins adds more, including plenty made for tabletop games. Suits: DMs who want to own their files, work offline and love a web of linked notes. Watch out for: the setup and plugins take tinkering, syncing between devices is a paid add-on (or your own cloud folder), and sharing with players takes extra steps.

OneNote

OneNote is free with a Microsoft account and works like a digital binder: notebooks, sections and pages, and you can drop text, images and scribbles anywhere on a page. If you already live in Office, you can start tonight. This D&D Beyond thread weighing Notion against OneNote is a useful read if you are torn between the two. Suits: DMs who think in binders and tabs. Watch out for: connecting an NPC to every place and clue they touch is manual work, and a big campaign notebook can sprawl.

World Anvil

World Anvil is the most complete worldbuilding platform here: wiki articles with templates for every kind of thing, interactive maps, timelines, and campaign tools for sessions and players. If you want an encyclopedia of your world, it is built for exactly that. But the complaints in a long D&D Beyond thread on World Anvil experiences come up often enough to take seriously: posters found the interface confusing, disliked that worlds were public unless they paid, noticed ads on the free plan, and said their players simply never logged in. Suits: worldbuilders who want the full encyclopedia and are happy to pay for privacy. Watch out for: the learning curve, and building a wiki your players will not read.

Kanka

Kanka is a campaign wiki made specifically for tabletop games, with ready-made sections for characters, locations, organizations, quests, journals and more. It is open source and free to use, with optional paid tiers for extras. Suits: DMs who want a structured campaign wiki without paying, and without World Anvil’s sprawl. Watch out for: it is still a wiki, so it rewards filling in fields. If you prep in scribbles and bullet points, it can feel like paperwork.

LegendKeeper

LegendKeeper is a fast, clean worldbuilding wiki with interactive maps, and it feels the most polished of the wiki-style tools. It is a paid subscription, around $9 a month when we looked. Suits: DMs who want a wiki and maps in one tidy, quick place and do not mind paying for it. Watch out for: like any wiki, its value comes from the pages you write, and it is an ongoing cost.

D&D Beyond’s campaign notes

If your table already builds characters on D&D Beyond, the campaign page gives you somewhere to jot notes without adding a new tool. It is basic: when we looked, it amounted to a private notes box for you and a shared one for the party. Suits: a few reminders and a message the whole party can see. Watch out for: it is not designed to organize a campaign, and most DMs outgrow it quickly.

A plain Google Doc

Do not underestimate it. Everyone at the table already has Google Docs, it is free, it is easy to share, and headings give you a clickable outline down the side. One “where things stand” doc, plus one doc per session, carries a lot of campaigns a long way. Suits: DMs who want zero setup, and players who will not learn a new app. Watch out for: by session thirty it is a very long scroll, and nothing ties an NPC to the clues they know.

Inkling

Inkling is a writing app, not a wiki. We built it as a desk for writers, and a campaign turns out to be a lot of writing: session logs, NPCs, places, maps and the threads between them. What it does well is keep all of that on one desk, with a “Previously...” recap waiting when you come back. What it is not: a wiki that auto-links every mention of a name, a virtual tabletop, or a place for stat blocks. More on that below.

Which campaign notes app should you pick?

• Pick Notion if you like building systems and want databases, filters and templates.
• Pick Obsidian if you want your notes as files on your own computer and love linking everything together.
• Pick OneNote if you think in binders and tabs and want to start tonight.
• Pick World Anvil if you want a full encyclopedia of your world and are happy to pay for privacy.
• Pick Kanka if you want a real campaign wiki for free.
• Pick LegendKeeper if you want a polished wiki with maps and do not mind a subscription.
• Pick D&D Beyond’s notes if you only need a few reminders next to the character sheets.
• Pick a Google Doc if you want zero setup and players who already know the tool.
• Pick Inkling if you think in writing, and want session logs, NPC cards, a clue board and your maps on one desk, with nothing for your players to learn.

Whatever you choose, the habit matters more than the tool. A short ten-minute session notes routine and a recap you can read aloud in 90 seconds will do more for your campaign than any setup.

How Inkling fits

Here is what a campaign looks like on one Inkling desk:

• Session logs as stories. Write each session as a chapter in a project, so the whole campaign reads in order. When you open it again, Inkling hands you a one-paragraph “Previously...” recap drawn from your own words (you can switch it off entirely). Handy when a campaign comes back from a long break.
• NPCs on character cards. A one-line pitch, what they want, and notes for voice, quirks and relationships, in a searchable cast. See character cards, or our post on how to keep track of NPCs.
• A Storyboard for secrets and clues. Note, scene, character, place and idea cards you can drag anywhere, with threads drawn between them, so you can see which NPC knows which clue. See the Storyboard.
• Maps of the world and its towns. Realm and city maps that can drop onto the Storyboard as cards. See the map maker and a world map that grows every session.
• Sharing without accounts. Send a session log or a player primer to the party as a private read-only link. They can leave notes in the margins, and there is nothing to sign up for.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. Inkling does not turn every NPC name into an automatic wiki link, and it is not built for your whole table editing at once. It is not a virtual tabletop either: no dice, no stat blocks, no battle maps. Pair it with your VTT or paper sheets. Plus is $9 a month, and the 14-day trial needs no card.

Inkling is an independent writing app. Dungeons & Dragons and D&D are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC. Inkling is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Wizards of the Coast.