Session Prep Notes and Initiative Tracking

The gap between "I have a campaign" and "I am ready for Friday" is where games die. Session prep notes give you a scratchpad linked to the campaign — bullet points, NPC reminders, scene list — without editing the permanent brief. The initiative tracker gives combat a shared source of truth for turn order, HP, and conditions.

Prep notes

Open prep from the campaign dashboard before starting a session. Notes are plain text with markdown-friendly line breaks. They appear to the campaign owner and co-DMs; players see them only if you choose to share. When you start a session, prep content can inform tonight-only DM instructions — copy the important bits into the brief field the AI reads.

Prep does not auto-inject into the AI prompt unless you put it in dmInstructions or summary. That is intentional: stale prep from three weeks ago should not haunt tonight's tavern scene.

Initiative tracker

Add combatants from party characters or ad hoc NPC names. Roll or type initiative values; drag to reorder. Mark the active combatant; advance turns with one click. HP fields sync via PartyServer so everyone sees when the ogre drops.

Integration with the AI DM

The AI reads combat state from the server, not from chat history. When narration references whose turn it is, it should match the tracker. If they diverge, file a bug — that is a rules enforcement issue we take seriously.

Limits today

Initiative does not yet auto-roll for hidden enemies or apply condition timers. Legendary actions and lair effects remain manual. We are iterating toward tighter SRD combat automation without removing DM override.

Prep notes are for you. The brief is for the AI. Keeping those separate prevents accidental spoilers in player-visible fields.

Session prep and initiative shipped this week. Lexicon search improvements land later this month.