Has anyone had luck with using digital tools for campaign management?  I've tried a few times on various platforms, but the apps always fall short.  Right now my campaigns are on a bunch of loose note sheets so I'm willing to try again if there's anything new.  What I'm looking for is basically a notebook and pen experience, with the ability to tag and organize pages. I need to write small-size text, and make quick sketches and maps.  I'm mostly on Android, but would be willing to look at Apple devices if they're that much better.  Everything I've tried in the past has been really awkward at basic stuff, with a bunch of features that I never used.  It's just hard to beat physical paper, I guess.

I have used Scabard. https://www.scabard.com/pbs
It was a space opera campaign using SWN so I thought adding a bit of tech to my table would be appropriate. I kept an Android tablet on the game table to show star maps, news reports, handouts, pictures, and all sorts of other stuff. It worked great, although most players preferred to look at it on their smart phones, so the tablet wasn't even necessary. It was also very useful to me as a GM to keep myself organized. I can't compare it to other apps as it is the only one I have tried.

I just use Microsoft OneNote on my PC and downloaded it for my android phone and have access to it while I'm not at home and think up something I can just jot it down.

I also use FoundryVTT for my in person TTRPG game with my Friends & Family group and I can pull up OneNote for all my notes on my campaign world and then the various PDF's of my game manual's but I also have the physical copies at the table for my players to use.

There is the afore mentioned Scabard.com and there is WorldAnvil which I'm thinking about using because Foundry has a mod for it that I can just pull content from it into Foundry but I would have to plug all my stuff from OneNote into WorldAnvil for that to happen.... ugg

I use a mess of Google docs & spreadsheets. Not entirely satisfactory, but I think we're winding down the campaign so it'll do, and it's free. Since I'm running 5e, I can use improved-initiative.com for reference to monster stats during play, and we use owlbear.rodeo for simple VTT during the pandemic.

In the past I've used a wiki & been pleased enough, but I'm not sure what the right feature set / host / price combination is today; that was years ago, the players were mostly kids & teens, we were playing B2 or other simple adventures in Labyrinth Lord, and so there wasn't a lot of clamour for personal accounts / authentication / complex features / ...

I use Fantasy Grounds Unity via Steam, installed on my MacBook Retina Pro, but I don't know if my experience counts because, due to NDA reasons, I have free access to everything they publish on Steam (no, no piracy involved: the reason is legit).

Anyway, I'm running CoC 7E with them, and, while they are a bit clunky with some step learning curves (FG:U is the Photoshop of campaign tools) at the end I'm happy with them.

Having FG:U for free I never tried other tools, so I can't compare. They need a bit of commitment and some obvious actions are counter-intuitive, but at the end they do the job.

I also use my iPad, with all the visual material accessed through it via Dropbox. I obviously print the handouts (*). I keep, however, a subfolder in my Dropbox that my player can access anytime with everything I showed them: pictures, handouts in .pdf format etc.

(*) As a rule, the more a Keeper - any Keeper - works on an handout, the more the players will say "We will read this later - only for that handout to disappear forever from the space-time continuum (when I ran "Under a Winter Snow" I actually found how clinical records were kept during the Spanish Flu before creating my own - four of them, chock full of clues; when I proudly handed them out no one read them, with the unavoidable ugly results).

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!  I'm mainly looking for apps that attempt to emulate notebook paper on a tablet or phone.  I haven't found anything that's more effective for my play style than paper but I'm looking for easier organization and more portability.

Quote from: atomic on August 18, 2021, 03:28:20 PM
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!  I'm mainly looking for apps that attempt to emulate notebook paper on a tablet or phone.

I do use Noteshelf for iPad since 2013. It is literally what you are asking for. But I never used it during a game, only to put down ideas.

I have been using Realm Works for my campaign management. I have been really happy with it, but unfortunately Lone Wolf has halted any future development. I have looked at World Anvil, but it's lack of two-way cross-referencing leaves it lacking compared to Realm Works.

I use FGU to run my VTT game, but only to display maps and images. Players have the option of using it to roll dice, or they roll real dice. I have a shared Google sheet (with macros) that I use to track initiative. And my players use shared Google sheets for the character sheets. I was using Google Meet for voice, now use my Discord channel. I also use my Discord channel to communicate game information. I have a general channel and each player has a separate category in which each PC has a separate channel.

I use Notepad++ to take quick notes during a session. And at times I use a pencil and a notepad.

It's all a bit of a Rube Goldberg machine, but it gets the job done.

Quote from: atomic on August 17, 2021, 05:52:35 PM
Has anyone had luck with using digital tools for campaign management?

Scrivener and StreamYard.

I use World Anvil. It's great for world building, but does have a fairly steep learning curve.

However, if you plan on building a vast campaign world it's great. You can keep track of locations, factions, PC and NPCs and such. If you want to build a world usable for a long time, I like it.

If OTOH, you just want loose quick notes, or switch game worlds fairly often, it's probably overkill.

Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 19, 2021, 10:18:31 AM
I use World Anvil. It's great for world building, but does have a fairly steep learning curve.

However, if you plan on building a vast campaign world it's great. You can keep track of locations, factions, PC and NPCs and such. If you want to build a world usable for a long time, I like it.

If OTOH, you just want loose quick notes, or switch game worlds fairly often, it's probably overkill.

Does it now have two-way cross-referencing? Or have you found work-around?

Quote from: dkabq on August 19, 2021, 10:28:58 AM

Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 19, 2021, 10:18:31 AM
I use World Anvil. It's great for world building, but does have a fairly steep learning curve.

However, if you plan on building a vast campaign world it's great. You can keep track of locations, factions, PC and NPCs and such. If you want to build a world usable for a long time, I like it.

If OTOH, you just want loose quick notes, or switch game worlds fairly often, it's probably overkill.

Does it now have two-way cross-referencing? Or have you found work-around?

You can link to other articles you've created. Not sure if it fits your needs or not:

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/WorldAnvilCodex/a/mention-system

Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 19, 2021, 10:59:11 AM

Quote from: dkabq on August 19, 2021, 10:28:58 AM

Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 19, 2021, 10:18:31 AM
I use World Anvil. It's great for world building, but does have a fairly steep learning curve.

However, if you plan on building a vast campaign world it's great. You can keep track of locations, factions, PC and NPCs and such. If you want to build a world usable for a long time, I like it.

If OTOH, you just want loose quick notes, or switch game worlds fairly often, it's probably overkill.

Does it now have two-way cross-referencing? Or have you found work-around?

You can link to other articles you've created. Not sure if it fits your needs or not:

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/WorldAnvilCodex/a/mention-system

Yep yep. That's one-way cross-referencing.

For example, I create an article for the "Ring of Doom". I can cross-reference it in the article for the PC (Armageddon Bob) that found it. However, in the "Ring of Doom" article there is no cross-reference automatically generated back to the "Armageddon Bob" article.

Conversely, if I do the same thing in Realm Work, a cross-reference is automatically created in the "Ring of Doom" article (specifically in a Content Links list), hence the "Ring of Doom" article has a link to "Armageddon Bob", and the "Armageddon Bob" article has a link to the "Ring of Doom". For me, this is the best feature of Realm Works.

I've used them only by running 5e campaigns and found them invaluable. There are fan-created tools who roll d100 encounter tables for Tomb of Annihilation, for example - also weather, found itens, etc. Other than that, I haven't found anything especially useful; but there are good automatic PC/hireling generators out there (especially B/X, DCC and 5e) which I could use.

Having a random name generator at hand is also useful IMO.

Maybe one could elaborate a good old school encounter generator - including reaction and morale. That might be cool.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 19, 2021, 11:56:16 AM
There are fan-created tools who roll d100 encounter tables for Tomb of Annihilation, for example - also weather, found items, etc.

Sauce, please!