Starting Your First Game

From building to playing

Once your project has a setting and at least one playable character, you can start a game from inside it. Games started from your own project work the same way as games started from Discover: you pick a game start and a character, and the GM takes it from there. The difference is that as the project's owner, you can keep building while you play. This guide covers starting a game and building from inside it.

Starting a game

In your project workspace, the Create Version button at the top right has a chevron that opens a menu:

• Start Game starts a new game from this project.
• Share Project gets a link to send to a player or post in your community.
• Clone Project copies this project into a new private workspace.
• Version History lists the saved versions of this project. See Version History and Retention.

New games start from your latest version. If you've changed things since you created it, Craft asks first: start on that version, or click Create Version to save your changes into a new one before you play. See Publishing and Releases.

Every game you start shows up under Games in the main sidebar, so you can come back to it later.

The lobby

The lobby is where you pick a game start and a character, and set the game's model, player options and images under Game settings. Game settings start on your world's defaults. The lobby works the same for everyone, and Playing a Published Project walks through it.

If you don’t have characters yet

With no playable characters, Craft skips the character strip and takes you straight into character creation. What happens next depends on your character file type:

• If the file type has a creation flow (the guided, full-screen character creation you design when editing the file type), Craft plays it. Step through its screens and Craft generates the character sheet from your answers, with an optional portrait to go with it.
• If there’s no creation flow, Craft opens the Create Character form instead. The form mirrors the schema of your character file type, so every field you added shows up here. Fill it in and click Create & Play.

Either way, the new character is saved with your other characters.

Playing

The game opens on your game start's place, and the GM sets the scene. Read its pages, then click Your turn and type as your character. The Game Screen covers everything on the screen.

Building while you play

Playtesting is where you notice the missing shopkeeper, the broken stat or the rule the GM keeps getting wrong. You can fix them without leaving the game.

The game is its own copy

Every game is its own copy of your world, made from the version it started on. Open the game's files with Open workspace in the menu at the top left. Anything you change there, or ask Orbit to change, changes this game only.

To bring those fixes back into your project, use Get updates in the same menu and push them from the Push Updates tab. See Game Sync.

Asking Orbit

Open Orbit, the assistant, from its face on the rail at the right of the screen. In a game, Orbit can:

• Create and edit the game's files and file types.
• Change the game's GM Instructions and player options, and the picks you made for them.
• Answer rules questions and look things up, out of character.

Orbit can't move people, change trackers or decide where the party is. That's the GM's job: tell the GM in your turn, starting with ooc: to speak out of character.

A few mid-game prompts that work well:

• "Create a location file for the Saltbarrel, an inn on the east docks."
• "Add a Reputation field that maxes out at 10 to the Character file type, and set mine to 2."
• "Add a GM instruction for when someone tries to pick a lock: they roll Dexterity against the lock's DC."

See Orbit, Your Personal Assistant for everything Orbit can do.

Changing the game's GM Instructions

The game has its own copy of your world's GM Instructions. To change them for this game alone, open Quick settings, go to Gameplay and click Customize these options for your game. The Game Master covers how GM Instructions work.

Changing things by hand

You can also edit things directly between turns: your HP on your sheet, a file, a tracker or a player option. The GM is told what changed before your next move, and plays from the new values.

Playing someone else’s world instead? The player’s side is covered in Playing a Published Project.