What's in the Storywright tome — how a Game Master uses it to run a tabletop RPG world, what each chapter does, and how the whole thing fits together. Read it like a manual or skim the chapter that matters.
Written
by the developer
Read time
~8 minutes
Chapter 01
The Drafting Table
NPCs, places, factions, items, lore — one item type, two-click links between them.
The Drafting Table is the cabinet behind the screen. Every NPC the party has met, every tavern they've stayed in, every faction whispering in the corners — one item type, bent to the way you actually prep, linked the way the world actually connects. Type a name in any field and a name they've heard before pops up before you finish.
Each item carries a flag for who can see it. Mark a place public and your players see it on their side of the screen. Keep an NPC GM-only and the players never know they exist until you decide they do. The line between the screen sides is one switch on each item, and it is always visible.
Roadmap note
Bulk import from World Anvil / Kanka / Notion is on the roadmap, not in the build. For now it's manual entry — but with autocomplete on every link field, the second NPC takes a quarter the time of the first.
Chapter 02
The Session Tracker
The tool you open while the game is running, not the one you open on Sunday afternoon.
Most world tools are filing cabinets. Storywright has one too — but the Tracker is different. Load the session and the Tracker pulls up the objectives on the table tonight, the NPCs your players are likely to meet, and the locations in play. Search is one keystroke: type half a name, jump to the page. Mark an objective hit and it's logged with a timestamp for the recap.
GM-only notes drop into the same surface, side by side with the public scene. "Morren is lying about the coin." Players never see it. When the session ends, the notes you took are already linked to the entities and already on the session page; there is no cleanup.
Chapter 03
Story Arcs
Active, complete, or cold. Linked to the people, places, and sessions they touch.
A story arc is a thread between people, places, and time. Storywright treats it the same way your party does — as a knot of references that have to come due eventually. Mark it active, completed, or cold. Drop it into the Tracker when it's on the table tonight; pin it to a session when it advances; close it when the table is done with it.
Players only see the arcs and objectives you've shared. The rest stay in your pocket, ready for the night they finally matter.
Chapter 04
Player Journals
Their words, their voice. Pinned annotations on what they've met. They see only what you've shared.
Every player gets a journal. Rich text, their words, their voice. They can pin annotations to NPCs and places they've met, so next session they're not asking who the steward was. If they had a hunch about Lady Verrin in session 11, the hunch is right there, dated and theirs.
They see only what you've chosen to share — a faction here, a rumor there, the map when they find it. No accidental spoilers, no "wait, don't read that yet."
Players can also set goals for their character — what they're chasing, who they want to become. Goals flow up to you as the GM, quietly, so you can weave them into the story and pay them off sessions later. It's the answer to "why would my players open this": their character's own thread through your world lives here.
Chapter 05
The Recap
Drafted from what happened at the table. You edit, approve, publish — players get a "previously on…".
When the session ends, your notes are already linked to the people and places they mention — so Storywright drafts the recap for you from what actually happened at the table. You read it, cut what doesn't belong, strike anything that was GM-only, and publish. Nothing reaches your players without your sign-off; the draft is a starting point, never the final word. That's the deal throughout: the tool drafts, the GM decides.
Published recaps become each player's "previously on…" briefing — the two-minute read that replaces the first ten minutes of every session spent re-explaining the last one. Before the next game, Storywright assembles a pre-session briefing from the campaign's memory: what's open, who was met, which promises are still on the table.
What GM Pro buys
The AI recap drafts and pre-session briefings are the heart of GM Pro ($9/mo). The formula works by hand on any plan — Pro just writes the first draft from notes you already took.
Chapter 06
Export
JSON of everything, every plan, including free. Your tome is yours.
Storywright is a place to keep the world, not a place to lock it up. JSON export of every item, every session, every journal, every link — on every plan, free included. And if Storywright ever winds down, you'll get at least sixty days' notice and a full export of your tome before anything changes.
Chapter 07
Keyboard at the table
Search is one keystroke today; the full shortcut set is still landing.
Mid-session you're not clicking. Search already works from the keyboard — one keystroke, half a name, jump to the page. The rest of the set (private notes, objectives, the whole Tracker as a two-hands-no-mouse surface) is still landing: once it's in, the Tracker will show each binding at the bottom of the screen and stay out of the way until you reach for it. Consider this chapter half manual, half roadmap.
Chapter 08
Glossary
The words this manual uses — what each Storywright term means.
A quick reference for the terms used throughout Storywright, so nothing in the manual, the app, or a briefing reads like jargon. The full list — 15 terms — now lives on its own page.
Weave
The view that shows how the people, places, items, factions, events, and Story Arcs in a World connect.
Strand
One thing shown in the Weave — for example, a Character, Place, Item, Faction, Event, or Story Arc.
Thread
A connection a GM draws between two Strands in the Weave. A Thread can stay private or be revealed to players.
Drafting Table
The GM’s cabinet of linkable people, places, factions, items, and lore.