Campaigns

A campaign is the whole box: your maps, your handouts, your encounters, and the chapters you file them under. Everything you author lives inside one.

This is a DM chapter. Players never see the campaign list. What a player keeps on their own device is a separate, read-only copy, covered in chapter 30, Browse Offline: the Player's Atlas.

The campaign list

The screen titled CAMPAIGNS is where Start as DM lands you. Each campaign is a row with a shield icon, its name, and a subtitle reading "DM" followed by how long ago you last backed it up; a campaign that has never been backed up says so in amber. That amber line is the only nagging the app does, and it is worth acting on: see chapter 31, Backing Up and Restoring Campaigns.

At the bottom sit two buttons of deliberately equal weight: New Campaign starts a fresh one, and Restore backup brings one in from a backup file. A fresh install offers both on its very first screen, so a DM arriving with a backup never has to make a throwaway campaign first.

Tap a row to open its workspace. If you had a campaign open when you last closed the app, it reopens straight into that workspace on the next cold start; press Back to return to the list.

Creating a campaign

Tap New Campaign. You get two dialogs in a row:

1. The campaign name.
2. The name of its first section, with "Chapter 1" as the example.

Nothing is written to your device until both steps finish, so cancelling either one leaves no half-made campaign behind. The first section is required because a campaign with nowhere to file things is useless.

Renaming and deleting

Every row carries a three-dot menu at its right edge, holding Rename, Back up, Clear received session data, and Delete. It is the same menu on a Mac or Windows machine, opened with a click.

• Rename changes the display name only; nothing inside moves.
• Delete asks you to confirm deleting the campaign "and all its sections, maps, and assets", and warns that this cannot be undone. It means it. Back up first if there is any doubt.

Delete refuses while your device is still receiving data from a session or a paired device: "Still receiving from a session, nothing was deleted. End the session and try again."

Sections are your chapters

Sections are the filing system. Open the Atlas and you see sections first; tapping one drills into what is filed under it. The same sections serve the Maps, Assets, and Encounters sub-tabs, so "The Sunken Keep" holds that place's map, handouts, and fights together. Chapter 7, The Atlas, covers the drill-down.

From the section list you can:

• Add one. Tap "+ Add Section" at the end of the list and name it.
• Rename one. Long-press the section row (right-click on a Mac or Windows machine) and choose Rename.
• Reorder them. Drag the handle at the right of a section row up or down. The new order is saved immediately and is the order players see.
• Delete one. Long-press the row and choose Delete.

Deleting a section takes its contents with it, and the confirmation says so: "This will also delete" followed by a count of maps (and the pins on them), assets, and encounters. Read the numbers before tapping through. An empty section deletes with a plain "This section is empty."

Two refusals are worth knowing:

• The last section cannot be deleted. You get "Can't delete last section", explaining that the campaign would be left empty, and offering to delete the whole campaign instead, or to create another section first.
• A section holding content you received while playing is blocked: "This chapter also holds content you received in a session. Clear received session data first, then delete."

Clearing received session data

One device can wear both hats: you might author on your iPad and, another night, join a friend's game on the same iPad as a player. What that other DM reveals is stored on your device too, alongside your own work.

"Clear received session data" in the campaign row's three-dot menu removes only that received material. Your authored maps, handouts, and encounters are never touched. A message tells you how many received items went, and confirms your own work was left alone.

It can decline, for two honest reasons:

• Something of yours sits on received content, for example one of your pins on a map you received. The message names how many such items there are and asks you to move or delete them first. Nothing is removed, rather than cascading over your own work.
• A receive is in progress. You get "Busy receiving right now, try again in a moment."

If nothing was received in the first place, it simply says so.

Next: chapter 7, The Atlas, opens the campaign you just made.