Tabletop RPGs

Two project types are made for tabletop roleplaying games: Tabletop Adventure for a one-shot or a module, and Tabletop Campaign for a game you run week after week. They work with any game; 5E-compatible sheets are included for those who want them.

Starting a project

Choose File → New Project…, pick Tabletop Adventure or Tabletop Campaign, then name the project and choose where to save it.

• Adventure starts with an Overview (Introduction, Adventure Hook, Content Warnings), Part 1 and Part 2, an opening encounter and a starting location.
• Campaign starts with a Campaign Overview (Premise, Factions & People, Safety Tools), Session 1 and a home base.

Everything starts empty for you to fill in. Ravenburst doesn't add any game's rules text or monsters of its own.

The left bar

Tabletop projects have their own left bar, grouped by what you prep:

• The + on a group adds a page to it. Name it and press Enter.
• Hover over a row for its trash icon, or right-click for Rename and Move to Trash. Both ask first.
• Rows show a badge where it helps: an encounter's difficulty, a creature's challenge rating, a character's class and level, an item's rarity.
• Trashed pages wait in Trash in a folder named for their group, and Restore puts them back.

Prep pages

Each prep page is one card with its name across the top, the same name as in the left bar. Rename the page and the card follows, so a printed page always says which encounter, place or character it is.

Cards are split into labeled fields to fill in, such as Setup, Tactics and Treasure on an encounter, or Description, Features and Secrets on a location. Fields marked GM only are left out of player handouts.

Linking pages together

Type @ anywhere to link to another page: a creature in an encounter, a location in a scene. Click a link to go there. Links follow renames.

Above each prep page, Used in lists every page that links to it, so you can see where a creature or place turns up.

Encounters and difficulty

An encounter's Foes and difficulty box lists its creatures and how many of each. Set the Party size and Party level, and the difficulty updates as you add or remove foes, using the experience budgets from the System Reference Document 5.2.1. The difficulty also shows as a badge on the encounter's row.

Encounter maps

A new map offers two ways to start: Generate a map for random rooms and corridors, or Draw my own. Each square is 5 feet.

• Build: Room, Corridor, Water, Erase (drag a box to clear an area) and Select & Move (move a room or part of the map, or nudge it with the arrow keys).
• Add: Door (click again for secret, then locked), Stairs, Pillar, Chest, Statue and Number. Numbered rooms are listed in the map's key, where you can name them or link them to a location.
• GM only: Trap and Event. They show on the GM map and never on the player map.
• Add random room adds to what's there; select an area and choose Generate here to fill just that part. Generating a whole new map or clearing it asks first, and Ctrl+Z undoes either.
• Switch between GM map (everything) and Player map (no secrets) at the top of the map.
• Print… prints the map at table size, one inch per square, across as many US Letter or A4 pages as it needs. The page outlines show while the print panel is open.

Character sheets

Every page in Characters has a character sheet, and Insert → Tabletop → Character Sheet adds one anywhere. Two switches at the top change it:

• Full sheet or Quick NPC. Quick NPC keeps just what you need to run a character at the table.
• 5e rules or Any game. With 5e rules, the sheet works out proficiency, saving throws, skills, initiative, passive Perception and spell numbers for you. With Any game, you type everything yourself.

The full sheet covers combat, abilities and saves, skills, attacks, spellcasting (shown once the character casts spells), features, gear, coins, roleplaying notes and a portrait. Secrets are GM only.

Creature sheets come in three kinds from Insert → Tabletop: free-form, 5E (2024 rules) and 5E (2014 rules).

Items

An item sheet has its type, rarity, attunement, value, charges, a line of flavor, a description, tags and art. Where it's found is GM only.

Tabletop blocks

Insert → Tabletop adds these anywhere in your text:

• Read-Aloud Box for text to read to the players, and GM Note for what only you should see.
• Tiered Results, Encounter Summary and Roll Table.
• Map with Numbered Areas (your own map image, numbered) and Encounter Map (Grid).
• Item, Character Sheet and the creature sheets.
• Mark as Check styles a skill check, and Cross-Reference… points to another part of the adventure; it becomes a page number in the PDF.

Your library

Creatures, sheet templates and items you'd like to reuse can be kept in Your Tabletop Library, shared by every project on this computer.

• On a creature sheet, choose Save to library. On an item, choose Save to compendium.
• Insert → Tabletop → From Your Library… opens the library to insert something you saved.
• To use your library and your custom dictionary on another computer, choose File → My Library & Dictionary → Export to a File…, then Import from a File… on the other computer. The library's own Export all… and Import… buttons do the same. Importing only adds: anything already there is skipped, and a different entry with a name you already use comes in as, for example, “Ghoul (2)”.

Exporting and printing

In File → Compile…, tabletop projects default to Tabletop Adventure (PDF), a two-column layout. See Compiling for the options every export shares. The adventure PDF adds:

• Include GM notes: untick it for a player handout without GM notes and GM-only fields.
• Add the SRD credit when a 5E creature sheet is used: the attribution the System Reference Document requires if you publish.
• Appendices (after the story): choose which prep groups print after the story. Creatures, maps and handouts are ticked to begin with.

The Print item cards button on Treasure & Items prints your items as cards to cut out and hand to players.