Obsidian - 2024 Intro for TTRPG and Worldbuilders

[@Ur3rdiMcFly]

I just got into Obsidian today. This video shows what amazing potential this tool has for creating workflows. Great showcase!

[@nlp3000]

This is a really awesome "Show and Tell" of Obsidian. Glad to see you're still creating this kind of awesome content :)

[@Rye_Smile]

I found you through a post you made on Reddit and OMG this looks INCREDIBLE. thank you so much for putting this together!!

[@JoshPlunkett]

@@Rye_Smile join our community discord. There's a while bunch of us getting stuck in. Linked from here. www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com

[@Owofbfbajfbsnsn]

Incredible!!! My jaw dropped at the map support.

[@solaris_cc4353]

Glad this is out! I already watched your many videos on the subject, but having all those topics condensed in a single video is a godsend. Especially since I'm just now preparing to launch a new rpg campaign with my group.

[@JoshPlunkett]

I don't know if people will learn much from this one other than to go oooh I need that 🤣🤣🤣

[@solaris_cc4353]

@@JoshPlunkett Yes! One thing I'm wondering is how you managed to move the DM Screen to the sidebar. I'm currently using a Kanban note to manage my screen as I saw in another video of yours.

[@JoshPlunkett]

@solaris_cc4353 I found I never used the Kanban version so instead I made a new note with simple callout boxes for my dmscreen. You can drag any note into either side bar. Them you can right click the tab and pin it. This means you can click links and the links will open in your primary notes not the sidebar note area. I have maps in there too.

[@snowstarfall]

the way my jaw dropped when you switched between the demo vault and your vault. thank you so much for this!

[@juanyoga]

Thanks Josh! This was mind-blowing. I've been using Obsidian for years, and I thought I was using it efficiently to manage my campaign but I wasn't even scratching the surface...

[@JoshPlunkett]

It can do sooooo much. The trick is controlling yourself to only use the things you need because going too deep down the rabbit hole often means you arent preparing for your session but developing something you likely wont actually use ;-)

[@wallywampa]

Dude, I followed your Fantasy Grounds stuff and it amazed me, but this?! This is absolute genius! I've used it for a year and didn't know you could do all this stuff! Thank you!

[@JoshPlunkett]

@wallywampa i never used fantasy grounds 🫣 might have been Realm Works. If so this is much better!

[@wallywampa]

@JoshPlunkett yes, that's it! Realm Works! Thanks for all the videos you make.

[@andypassion5787]

The best tutorial about Obsidian`s features that i`ve ever seen ( though I don't even play TTRPG 🙂) I think this video deserves to be found on the homepage of Obsidian md

[@Alavna]

I was getting overwhelmed with my Traveller notes and started using Obsidian. It's helped so much. Still setting my Candlekeep vault up though

[@JoshPlunkett]

Have a look at the CLI series. Could be useful.

[@blackmagick77]

This is absolutely insane. I love it! That had to have taken you for ever to link everything like that.

[@JoshPlunkett]

@blackmagick77 about 3 minutes.... the community have some pretty powerful spells.

[@blackmagick77]

@@JoshPlunkett Oh wow not bad at all

[@kiaranlomas1949]

I tried Obsidian some time ago when I was looking for a good Markdown Editor. It didn't really meet my needs. Since becoming a DM, I have revisited Obsidian and found it a great tool. Loving your work, Josh, as I go down the TTRPG rabbit hole.

[@SquatBenchDeadlift455]

Obsidian is a wonderful tool. The recent update on Table support is amazing.

[@mushuable]

Wow. I was tired of One Note, started considering Obsidian today, watched this video, found your website, I'm really hooked! Also your Dungeon is my dream setup.

[@seniorfiance]

What do you use to share the maps with players while you manage combat in the background? Which plugin do you use to have info on the different spells when you click on them?

[@Fabulist]

You had me at “ride sabretooth tiger”. 😎

[@brandonbatista-l3v]

I was considering using world anvil or obsidian, this video is amazing. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this! I also play PF2e and I'm glad to know theres support for the system. Seriously you saved me a boat load of cash and time. Subscribed and Liked!

[@PresidentMystry]

I have tried world anvil twice and its UI is too difficult for me to get into. I love Obsidian because it is an easy UI and fairly simple to get started with, but then as you learn the tool, you can slowly add things that fit a specific need

[@Capo4242]

Thanks for this great overview video. I use Obisian since 2-3 Months now for my personal notes. As i see there are a lot of Plugins for TTRPG and its quite overwelming. All videos are great, but in my opinion they all loose "cogwheels" on the Table. I think whats missing is the "assambly" of all the Videos into a working "clockwork" Here my video idea: Take a well known (and free available) DnD Adventure (Lost mines of phandelpher, or stormwrack isle, etc.) and set that up in Obsidian. Install, get the Plugins, set up the Maps and the NPC's, prepair the encoutners and stuff. So all your brilliant vidoes comes to a working "clockwork"

[@lm2jag]

I love this idea.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Sure thing sounds like a good idea.

[@PrakharAgarwalplus]

Amazing. Had no idea you could do all that in Obsidian!

[@tekabe5150]

Oh my god. I've never been a dungeon master or even played frp. But I can't tell you how excited I was when I saw this video. It seems to contain very valuable uses and ideas not only for frp but even for academic use. I decided to become a dm just because of this video and I'm jumping into the rabbit hole. I hope I can handle it, it looks a bit complicated

[@JoshPlunkett]

This is awesome. Join the community discord if you have any questions. There's lots of people who can help you on this journey.

[@freakfire74]

Still doing awesome work, Josh! Thanks for your efforts. I recently started playing D&D again after a two year hiatus where I was mostly playing Call of Cthulhu RPG. Started looking into using Obsidian again and it's such a great tool. I am already well underway of preparing my first session, the Rick & Morty D&D scenario. Afterwards its back to Planescape again. I still have my old Planescape Vault with a LOT of the second edition stuff. BTW, if I join, support and subscribe is there some way to get extra monsters (besides the SRD etc)? Thats the thing I'm mainly looking for. Always on the lookout to expand my monster collection (in the past I entered them myself but it was such a pain).

[@JoshPlunkett]

No need to subscribe for that. The patreon is really just a way for people to say thanks. There is a foundation vault as a benefit but if you already have a vault you probably don't need it. Look up my videos on yhr CLI process.

[@quentenwalker1385]

Josh, I wonder if you could do a step by step tutorial series of videos, building on this video, or perhaps which of the videos you have already posted should be seen in what order. i like Obsidian, but am so confused by all the videos and have no idea what order to watch them. What I would really like is a list of the different commands eg how to make something bold, or italic, or a link, and all the other types of things, eg zoom etc. I wonder if you could go slowly over an example campaign put into Obsidian. And I have just joined your Patreon and Discord.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Sure thing. Start at the top and work your way down. obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Getting+Started/Getting+Started

[@julianb4157]

As always, I love your impassioned evangelisation of this tool. And, the tool itself is pretty damn good.

[@ad-mc]

I'm just getting going with using Obsidian to manage my campaign. I'm also using a Rocketbook for note taking, and I've hooked them up together with a Google app script. So I can take handwrititen notes in my Rocketbook using Markdown syntax and they get converted to text using OCR and show up in my Obsidian vault automatically, with a picture of the original scan included in case the OCR gets it wrong.

[@SergeyGrodetskiy]

Very interesting, can you tell us how you managed to make pictures in your notes, in the center or to the right of the text?

[@JoshPlunkett]

I use the its theme. It includes the functionality. Have a look here. obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Getting+Started/Getting+Started

[@apoclaydon]

Looks intresting. I wonder what systems it supports and whether it's not too difficult to use unsupported systems

[@JoshPlunkett]

Its very system agnostic. Most of the examples you see will be DnD 5e or PF2e simply because thats what the majority of the world are playing but you can do whatever you like with it. We have lots of people using it for other systems in the Discord.

[@oxide7]

This is amazing. The hover links are so good! Wish there was an included Shadow of the Demon Lord premade vault. I guess I'll have to try to make it work, not good at obsidian but why not.

[@JoshPlunkett]

They have a Foundry VTT module... might be able to use the Foundry Markdown Exporter plugin to export the content into Obsidian. It's not always the simplest of processes (handlebar templates) but might be quicker than copying from a pdf.

[@mae3002]

I see that when you mouse over certain parts of your notes, it says "share with players" and I'm really curious about how you have it setup to know who the players are and how you set that up?

[@JoshPlunkett]

I have a player facing TV. That is basically just a link that I can click that triggers the Second Window plugin that sends the image to the player facing TV.

[@mae3002]

@@JoshPlunkett Fast reply! Bummer, I am a DM for an all online group and I was hoping for a way to have them all be able to edit notes at the same time, but that seems like it might be a bit more involved to setup since there is no way to personalize permissions in official sync yet.

[@JoshPlunkett]

@mae3002 yeah it's certainly not designed to do that. You cm achieve coop sync with Obsidian Sync and we have tested with 10 dms all live editing the same vault at the same time using Github but it's not what I would call use friendly for the non technical.

[@jonathanweberde]

That's a really impressive system you developed! I would love to adopt your map approach in another project of mine, and was wondering which tool you used to create the map itself - ts there a map-builder you can recommend? Thanks in advance!

[@JoshPlunkett]

@jonathanweberde I use campaign cartographer 3+ generally. Not sure I would recommend it these days. It's old and tired. Incredibly powerful and has the best selection of map styles but not easy to learn.

[@jonathanweberde]

@JoshPlunkett thanks, that helps a lot!

[@SharkeyDNA]

Your videos have been amazing! For the life of me though, I cannot figure out how to get the Pathfinder fonts activated in the theme and style settings. Is it something to do with css? Do I need to copy and paste something into a snippets folder? I have been trying to figure this out for an hour now and I can't find any answers.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Jump into the discord and ask for help in there. You will be better quality responses as we can share files and screenshots. What you need to do though, depends on what data you are using. Pf2e has changed a lot so there's a few different ways to solve it. obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Community+and+Support

[@artoriasthegrey]

Hey man, I know this is an older video but I recently switched to obsidian to track my campaign. How did you create the DM screen tracking NPC and your session journal? Ive used markdowns and the Kaban board but Im not happy with the look. The red lines and sections you have are much more neat. Could you point me in the right direction?

[@JoshPlunkett]

@jamesvandevender1603 those are dynamically updating tables made with the dataview plugin. Let's you write queries that return results from your note and their properties.

[@Tom-cs8ns]

is there a way to import custom world maps and use a plugin or something to calculate the travel distance and time?

[@JoshPlunkett]

Sure the leaflet plugin supports measurement. I have videos on using it and metabind to calculate the travel distance.

[@The_Matrix_I_Am]

how do you get that brown weathered look? My light view is just plain old white.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Sounds like you need to enable the sub-themes within the ITS theme. I'm using the WOTC/Beyond option in most of my videos.

[@cracyfrogs1002]

What a Beauty

[@6midlan]

Hi Josh! Wondering if you could help me with an issue. I'm using Jeremy Valentine's Initiative tracker and in the player view it doesn't seem to be formatting correctly? Everything is in the same column rather than having a column for initiative, name, status etc. like it is in this video. Any ideas why this might be happening? Cheers

[@JoshPlunkett]

Jump into the community discord. Raise an issue and post some screenshots so we can see the problem. Javalent is in there with us and lots of people to help. Check the community and support section for the link. obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Getting+Started/Getting+Started

[@FreakyWerewolf]

Can you go into detail of the AI generator that you have going on? Such as the sudden Inn that was created with the Inn Keeper. This will help me soo much!!

[@JoshPlunkett]

Sure. Here you go. obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Plugin+Tutorials/Text+Generator/Text+Generator

[@odiousweasel551]

What fonts are you using, and how do you change the fonts in the ITS theme?

[@JoshPlunkett]

Im using the fonts that come with the ITS Theme. They are linked from the documentation.

[@louisfrnd]

Hello .. I love those plugin like the statblock one .. but is théière a way to translate them in French ? Cause playing all time in English with the stats in English is to difficult for me

[@JoshPlunkett]

I'm not aware of any bulk methods I'm afraid.

[@louisfrnd]

@@JoshPlunkettok i understand ! That’s sad 😭 could have been incredible

[@LeeJCander]

Are there videos/tutorials to install the different plug ins and get it to the level you have? I’ve found the map/notation tool leaflet didn’t seem to work. Great video though! Super impressive

[@JoshPlunkett]

Sure my channel is dedicated to them. I also have www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com available.

[@LeeJCander]

@@JoshPlunkett I just checked the rest of your channel! Feel dumb now 😂 got loads on your channel thank you so much.

[@monty4612]

Do you have any plug-ins for Exalted 3rd edition?

[@JoshPlunkett]

@monty4612 I've never played so hard to say definitively however all the plug9ns are system agnostic. I show a lot of 5e and pf2e because that's what I play but that doesn't mean they can't be used for other systems.

[@lordleif1]

Woav your Obisidan looks so much different now, than last time i followed a tutorial. The new DM screen, auto opdating information, "front page" with session notes, newly changed npc's, locations and such. How do you do all of this?

[@JoshPlunkett]

I have it available as a vault to ky patreons if you want the easy answer. Alternatively it's all covered via lots of tutorials LOL. www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com

[@lordleif1]

@@JoshPlunkett Thanks mate

[@lordleif1]

@@JoshPlunkett Can you point to what tutorials to recommend, in regards to setting up the DM Sideboard, with buttons to create new stuff, and your homepage and Session notes thingy?

[@JoshPlunkett]

@@lordleif1 Oh there's a few. You want the New Home Tab plugin to create the home page. The Sideboard you need to learn how to use Metabind and Templater. Session notes are all Dataview.

[@niesaforster9945]

Do you sell the base DM vault youve setup?

[@JoshPlunkett]

No, I cant legally share my own vault. I do have a foundation vault that is setup the same way with plugins, templates, themes etc. You just need to add your own content to it. It's available to my Patreons.

[@niesaforster9945]

@@JoshPlunkett I did get the Patreon after I commented. This is amazing! Thank you for all the hard work.

[@JoshPlunkett]

@@niesaforster9945 thanks for your support! Yell out if you think I can add to it a In any way. I'm thinking about adding more templates soon.

[@RobertMcGovernTarasis]

(why does the browser not support comments at timestamp, seriously) @3:25 oooooooooo want that vault 👀 oh my.

[@mopskrops6531]

A big thanks for you videos. I am currently transferring all my notes to obisidan and your videos are perfect! 🙌 I thought that my graphic view looks big, but compared to yours... My whole world is just one cluster of yours ^^ Your depth is astonishing. For how long do play in this ttrpg world?

[@JoshPlunkett]

Haha I have about 12 years of notes in here. Its more than 1 campaign though.

[@themlasu]

Need to figure out how to import my Traveller campaign into this.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Depending on where your notes are now... there's a new official import plugin that will import your notes from other tools. There might be a way.

[@nicklasandersen7785]

How you you customize ITS to look like yours, I've downloadded the vault template from Patreon, but my ITS is blueish. EDIT: Never mind man, I found your video on it, seems like you covered everything, thanks!! :D

[@abethecop1]

You are a lifesaver!!! ❤❤❤❤❤

[@Gatinjin]

Very informative video, even for a long time user! Could you share how you got AI to work in Obsidian or did I missed something in the video?

[@JoshPlunkett]

That using the text generator plugin. I have a video on it. I'm using a chatgpt4 subscription to do the insge creation. If you stick to chaltgpt 3 it's much cheaper.

[@Gatinjin]

@@JoshPlunkett Ah, thanks for the info!

[@Balmong7-y4s]

@@JoshPlunkettnot gonna lie. I’d love to see a small video talking about the difference between ChatGPT 3 and 4 and how you find the subscription in terms of cost and worth. Especially if its image generator has been successful for you. I really don’t like the Midjourney discord server setup and could probably be convinced to pay for ChatGPT if its image generation works well when coupled with the text stuff which I already use in ChatGPT3 quite a bit.

[@JoshPlunkett]

@@Balmong7-y4s that video is already being planned 😀

[@leftcoastfunk]

this looks insanely cool and useful, but also looks about as time consuming as a second full-time job to actually set it up as in-depth as you have. Hopefully it's a bit easier than that, but I'll def have to check it out at some point soon

[@JoshPlunkett]

Honestly I've tried so many tools and I've never found anything even remotely close to the speed I can set this up. Yes it took a bit to learn how I wanted it but now that I'm there I can have a new vault setup for a game system with all mechanics, plugins, themes, settings ready to go in about.... probably an hour tops. Realistically 30 minutes these days because I have a process preprepared. This generally includes a basic copy of the adventure I plan to run. Lots of people just start with my Patreon vault which gives a ttrpg foundation to build on. I spend most of my time these days actually working on the session planning. I could not say that when I used Realm Works.

[@davidbrown6325]

Would love to know what plug-ins your using for all the AI generation! I'd love to incorporate that into my vault!

[@JoshPlunkett]

That's Text Generator. I pay for a chatgpt account. obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Plugin+Tutorials/Text+Generator/Text+Generator

[@TTRPG_Quebec]

Thanks

[@The_Matrix_I_Am]

"what I normally do is go insert" I hit "ins" aka insert on my keyboard and nothing happened.

[@JoshPlunkett]

That's talking about obsidian templates. You can define the insert hotkey in the settings but you should watch my tutorials on how to set up templates first. My.hitkey is alt t

[@canvuser]

please make video with obsidian new version and test how many spaces and notes it can withstand!! PLEASE. because im very disappointed with obsidian claiming you can make a galaxy of notes but a lot of users ive seen in forums complain obsidian crashing with 4k notes,30k notes etc even with high specs laptop!! but this claim with the 30k notes crashing was 6 months ago so i want to see with the new update!! please cuz i plan to have more than 30k notes and idk if i should continue here or go to somewhere else! also this video if you make it can clear doubts with new users like me

[@JoshPlunkett]

This video was made last week and shows I have way too many notes. The tool works fine. The only really area of slowdown is using graph mode or if you have inefficient dataview queries in your notes.

[@Toneee.]

josh did this playlist need to be 99 videos :(

[@JoshPlunkett]

@Toneee. don't watch the play list in order. Start from www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com and only watch what you need.

[@Toneee.]

@@JoshPlunkett THANK YOU

[@ПлюшевыйМишка-ъ8в]

Это какая-то жесть, я не понимаю кем надо быть, чтобы так красиво делать в обсидиане. Я так же хочу, но не понимаю даже и близко как это сделать.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Start by learning the basics and move up from there. obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Getting+Started/Getting+Started

[@Optii87]

Thought this is going to be a a tutorial, but it's a 30 min ad

[@JoshPlunkett]

@Optii87 this is the intro video to show what the tool is capable of. For most people this is the first video they watch before they dive into the tutorials. You can find lots of them over here. www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com

[@minormynah]

Holy…

[@JoshPlunkett]

Haha appropriate 😆

[@valentijnbarendse9044]

Uhm sir, i have no idea how or what you did the whole video

[@JoshPlunkett]

This video is just a showcase. If you would like to learn more... start here. Www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com

[@canvuser]

please make video with obsidian new version and test how many MAX spaces and notes it can withstand!! PLEASE

[@paulmdevenney]

"don't use AI, it's not that fast" ...as it generates 15mins of writing in under 20secs. I'm only just realising how insane this tool is

[@kevinmallory8034]

This looked incredibly interesting. Unfortunately the reviews of the Android version are pretty negative right now regarding persistent, serious bugs. I will have to pass unless they can debug it for Android.

[@JoshPlunkett]

It's certainly something I would recommend on a desktop. There's just so much going on that a mobile device doesn't have the screen space to efficiently get the most out of it. All I ise mobile for is documenting ideas when I'm out and about and those ideas sync back to my desktop so I can male proper notes.

[@SIOSpawn]

I thought this was going to be a how-to video not a giant 30-minute show and tell

[@JoshPlunkett]

@SIOSpawn this is the entry point for the tutorials. Something to show people what the tool can do to get them interested in moving on to the tutorials. Plenty of tutorials over here. www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com