Templates / For whoever runs the table
Game Masters Codex
Game masters running a tabletop roleplaying campaign.
The prep sheet has no plot field, and no room for one.
$12.99
Instant download · No account · All nine device editions
| Pages | 120 |
|---|---|
| Editions | mono, colour |
| Variants | right hand, left hand |
| Devices | reMarkable 2, reMarkable Paper Pro, reMarkable Paper Pro Move, Kindle Scribe, Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, Supernote Manta, Boox Note Air, A4 Print, US Letter Print |
| Format | Hyperlinked PDF, one file per device |
| Updates | Included, for as long as the template exists |
- 120 pages across fourteen sessions of four sheets each - prep, the sheet you use at the table, the log written after, and what changed
- No game system is named anywhere in this file and no rules content appears in it. No stat block, no dice notation, no class, spell or monster name, no difficulty number, no table from anybody's rulebook
- That is a product decision as much as a legal one: a codex that names a system is one half the market cannot use, and one that goes stale when an edition changes
- The campaign front sheet has a box headed system, and it is blank - that answer is yours
- A prep sheet with no plot field, because there is nowhere to write one. The largest box on it is headed what is true whether or not they turn up
- It asks who wants what, what moves if nobody intervenes, and three different things the players might do - because preparing a plot and watching the table walk around it is the most reliable failure in this hobby
- An NPC card that asks what they want and what they know before it asks what they look like - description is three words at the bottom, deliberately small
- Because an NPC with a name and a voice and no want is the one you freeze on
What is inside
For whoever runs the table. Fourteen sessions of four sheets each - prep, the sheet you keep open while talking, the log written after, and what changed.
NO SYSTEM IS NAMED, AND NO RULES ARE PRINTED
No stat block, no dice notation, no class, spell, monster or skill name, no difficulty number, and no table from anybody's rulebook. Those belong to the people who wrote them.
It is also the better product. A codex that names one system is one half the market cannot use, and one that goes stale the year an edition changes. What is here is what stays true whichever game you run.
The campaign sheet has a box headed system and it is empty. That answer is yours, and so is every number in your game.
THE PREP SHEET HAS NO PLOT FIELD
There is nowhere on it to write what will happen, and that is deliberate.
The most reliable failure in this hobby is preparing a plot and watching the table walk around it - everything you wrote is still true, none of it is usable, and you improvise badly for three hours while grieving the evening you planned.
So the sheet asks what is HAPPENING instead:
· The largest box on the page is headed what is true whether or not they turn up
· Who wants what
· What moves if nobody intervenes
· Three things they might do - three different directions, not three steps of one - with what each opens beside it
THE NPC CARD ASKS WANT AND KNOW FIRST
Before it asks anything descriptive, because an NPC with a name and a voice and no want is the one you freeze on. Three words is the description field, at the bottom, deliberately small.
THE AGREED PAGES
The rulings you made up, the lines nobody crosses, and who is owed a spotlight. It is the most-lost information at any table and it is in nobody's rulebook, because it is not about the rules.
ALSO INSIDE
· A table sheet built for use while talking - names, what is on a clock, what you owe a callback to, and who has not spoken yet
· Six clock pages with the segments drawn rather than described, and nothing anywhere saying how fast they fill
· Sixteen people, ten places with a dot-grid box for how it sits together
· A rewards log with a what-it-cost-them column, which is what makes the first column matter
· Four player sheets - what their character wants, and what the player wants that they have not said
Hyperlinked throughout. Right- and left-handed editions, mono and colour, every device edition in the box. Personal use.