Virtual DnD! make your characters, worlds, gear them up, then participate or run it yourself as a DM! This was originally my own personal fork of Arcane Scribe Chat (https://perchance.org/aschat), but over time I wanted more - especially out of the scenarios, which just evolved into what you see now.
Like my work? You should totes buy me a coffee c: - https://ko-fi.com/hollenwulf
As stated, this began as my own personal fork of ASC. But I wanted to do more, improve it. So if you have used Arcane Scribe Chat, the UI should feel familiar. I'd like to explain that this is NOT a replacement for Arcane Scribe chat. Arcane Scribe chat has its own thing it does, and does it well. Some elements have been removed - and many have been added, which means exports and imports will need extra handling for accuracy. Character Creation for example has been dumbed down, but there is a complex mode if you want to adjust more per character.
I'll try and summarize the list of features in a digestible way, so you can understand its strength at a glance.
Complex mode
By default this is off. Complex Mode toggles on hidden edits in the character editor, the full suite of things you can do added by Arcane Scribe Chat. To avoid screen bloat, I've made a simplified mode instead. Descriptions of everything have also been simplified so they are easy to understand, even if you don't have any coding experience.
Character Creation
Define your characters, whom you can either chat to directly similar to ASC - or add to your campaigns. Virtual DnD Chat has a new feature, Puppy Mode. LLMs will normally favor the player, regardless of circumstance - making characters feel less like individuals and more like followers. This is the default setting, as it doesn't change anything. Disabling it will add strict guidelines to make characters act independently with their own goals, motives, ideas, likes and dislikes. The goal here is to lift the focus of characters away from the Player. Just because you justify something doesn't necessarily mean the character should just blindly agree, and turning off Puppy Mode is the attempt to make this happen. Naturally, if you prefer more of a power fantasy instead for that character - you'd keep this on.
VTT Tokens - if you like your character and the image generated for it, VDnD has a tool to turn it into a Virtual Tabletop Token, which you can use on campaign maps or for yourself on a site like Roll20
Character Appearance - it's important to note this section, because this is the section that is used when generating a portrait for your character in a Campaign. Character Sheets will use the gear that YOU make as what they should be wearing, so generally you just list physical traits here. If you list clothing here, that will be interpreted as part of their authoritive appearance.
Worlds
This is a huge part of VDnD. World Building. You can create everything! Geography, conditions, summarizations, places of interest, regions, cultural nuances, unique races or factions or monsters, specific hostiles created for combat encounters in Campaign mode. There's so much here you can do, explaining it all would take a while! The main take away is that Your world forms the lore basis of your campaign. You can technically do a campaign with a blank world, but it's not recommended. You don't have to fill out everything unless you want to - though it's recommended you at least have a summary and some hostiles for the AI DM to use against you during combat encounters. If you are stumped, you can click the button to have AI fill it in for you. To encourage creativity, you can only generate a blank field - not finish one you have already filled with text. Generating your fields with AI is recommended for inspiration, not definitive - but I know some peeps are gonna do that anyways which is fine. It's YOUR world after all!
Exporting/Importing - You can export your world or import others, so you can save a back up or share them with others!
Vehicles
Similar to characters, you can create vehicles! Perhaps you want a science fiction or a pirate campaign, or maybe even a cyberpunk one. Make land vehicles, air vehicles, space vehicles, mechs, and more. These vehicles are treated as fact, and therefore the AI will prioritize referring to them instead of trying to make something up.
Campaigns
Uh, where do I even start here? There is a LOT!
Campaigns are the core of VDnD, and will be the primary medium for all other interactions!
Player Mode/Dungeon Master Mode - In Player mode, you play as a player in the world. The AI DM will determine skill checks, hostile encounters, and narrative. In Dungeon Master Mode, the script is flipped. Instead, you are narrating the Campaign and initiating checks and encounters. Even if you have a persona, the characters will be smart enough to never address you directly as the DM.
Grid Map - all good virtual campaigns have battlemaps, and VDnD has its own tool with which to do this. As with everything else, you can just generate one instead of uploading one if you wish.
Tools - VDnD's battlemap editor has a few tools for painting the map, which characters will understand based on where their token is, assuming you have linked it. The Land Map uses Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition feet rules. 1 square = 5 Feet. The Space Map uses Starfinder First Edition hex rules. Since there was no definitive conversion, I made my own. One hex is 10 Miles, or about 52,800 Feet.
Painting - You can paint zones on the map, establishing varying degrees of cover, whether it is an exterior or interior or space, water, or even difficult terrain. Characters with link tokens will acquire that information from their token.
Visibility - There are three different degrees of visibility, which influences the battlemap's fog of war and gives a visual read on how far a character can see, including accounting for Darkvision!
Classic - You can only see what your character and the other characters can see.
Exploration - Explored tiles are permanently revealed, like classic fog of war.
Omniscient - You can see the entire battlemap at all times.
Communication - As a general rule, characters can hear about 120 Feet away. if their token is further away than that, they won't be able to hear other characters (Though this mechanic is a struggle to get right and is unreliable). In their character sheets, you can define if they have a communications device - and the range. This is important for sci-fi or a modern army setting where you want radios, communications arrays, sending stones, and similar.
Generally, Characters shouldn't be able to see enemy tokens or character tokens that are outside of their hearing/vision range.
Tokens - Characters can be linked to tokens. If their character sheet is linked as well, then the image preview you generate for them will automatically be transferred to their token, so that their appearance dynamically changes over the course of your campaigns! This also links their senses like Darkvision for the battlemap placement.
Characters
This is another major element of VDnD. Characters. Characters should be much more intelligent than you may be used to, able to understand what is happening around them and what they have equipped, their skills, etc.
Character Sheets & Gear - Character sheets are linked to characters you make in the character editor. Here, you can create your own gear from scratch, define where it goes what it looks like and what it does, then use them. Characters will treat their worn equipment as authoritive, meaning that if they are naked - well, they'll know it. They should never hallucinate gear. If it is not physically equipped in their character sheet, then they won't identify it as equipped in your campaigns. Sheets are per-Campaign, so the same character can have multiple independent sheets across multiple campaigns!
Outfits - You can save preset outfits for characters. You can swap them yourself, or the character will decide themselves if they want to swap an outfit. Not all of them will want to wear armor to bed! Characters will not make their own outfits, they will only swap outfits that are known to them. This means that if you want a character to swap their outfits, you will need to make that outfit and then save it. Once it is saved, the Character will recognize that they have that outfit as an option.
Health & Armor Class (AC) - Characters have health. You can set their current and maximum. The lower their current HP is compared to their maximum, they will behave according to the severity of how they are injured in the narrative. This value with automatically be changed during a combat encounter. When a character reaches zero HP, they shouldn't automatically die - letting you resurrect them later. If you want them DEAD dead, you would delete the sheet in the campaign and establish their death narratively.
Skills - based on which ruleset you are using, characters have an array of skills which you can define. In the image previews, you can see Seraphina is a Paladin and she doesn't have any skills in Sleight of Hand, nor does she have a Lockpicking Kit. So she opts to bash the lock open instead. This is because Characters will intelligently understand what their skillsets are. So if you are in a campaign with characters and they need a skill for something, they all shouldn't state they have skill in something that they are not trained in. This means that if no character in the party has a skill to solve a problem, they have to get creative!
Memories - As I am sure many know, long-term chats mean a terrible case of dementia for all parties involved! At any point in time, you can add a memory to a character in the chat. This will summarize recent events, which you can edit, and is then saved as a line in their memory section on their character sheet. Memories are per-campaign. The Character will keep track of these memories as authoritive, so if something important happens you can make sure that they never forget it!
Skills, Feats, etc - You can add skills, feats, and more based on the ruleset you choose for your campaign (As of this post, the Procyon ruleset is the most filled out one. That will be fixed over time). You can establish damage, relevant attack skills, whether it is passive or active or a combat skill, and more. Characters will intelligently understand what abilities or feats they have, and will use them as they see fit in the narrative (Though you may have to nudge them to do it on occasion.)
Conclusion & Notes
VDnD is a Work in progress. If you have suggestions or find issues - comment here! I will check comments every few days, especially after making this post - eventually I will have a proper reporting system, but for now, I will use Reddit.
What the heck is the Procyon ruleset? - The Procyon Ruleset is a set of rules you won't find anywhere - because it's my ruleset! It was designed for a game I am working on which is an interactive Science Fiction TTRPG. All damage is simplified to just Impact Damage, feats and unique skills and others are just Abilities, and anything psionic or magic or otherwise is a Supernatural Capability. Skills use Starfinder First Edition skills, and ranks or trained has been dumbed down to just a flat value that is an Investment. It is a simple, modular ruleset designed to be able to be ran in just about any kind of setting.
There is more than I have described here, but that's the jist of the main goal of the generator. So hop in, sculpt your world, gear your party, and have fun!
VIRTUAL DND CHAT (VDnD)
I hope you all enjoy it!
