Obsidian - Custom DM Screens with Kanban

[@timpetersen1938]

I was hoping that this would be made soon. I had seen these cards in you other videos and was just waiting for it.

[@JoshPlunkett]

I legit forgot about this lol. Thought I would have most certainly made the video but went back and had a facepalm moment haha.

[@its_nuked]

Lifesaver! Appreciate the showcase yo, exactly what I needed right now. Big ups to you 😁✨️

[@JoshPlunkett]

@@its_nuked for what it's worth I don't recommend this method anymore. A simple note with callouts is way more useful.

[@its_nuked]

@@JoshPlunkett Heyo, a reply this far down the line since video posting is rare, and as such much appreciated ^^. Could you trust me with how you got to that conclusion? 😁, i was just about to go transfer my notes to here but I do want to see what makes you say that and if I should just have that ^^

[@JoshPlunkett]

@its_nuked if you jump in the community Discord and tag me I can share the note I use these days. Link from here. www.obsidianttrpgtutorials.com

[@Mightyfoxling]

I'd like to second the question of how you take notes for prep, or how you store or break down your notes! I'm always looking for more inspiration there.

[@deutschesinferno3078]

Thanks for heeding my request. Kanban is amazing and you can do all kinds of things with it. Having seen all your Obsidian videos, I could always only catch a glimpse at your file structures. I am having a lot of trouble deciding on the structure I want my notes to follow. For example: In my World Almanac (as you call it), should I have three folders: Settlements, Locations, Factions? Or should I have hierarchical Structures like: Region > Nation > Settlement But then what about smaller units that aren't part of a bigger one? This all has got me very confused and I'd like to see some inspiration on how others do it. Could be a video idea for you, if you have got something worth sharing. I'd also like to see how you take notes in prep for sessions. Do you have a big file with all the ideas in there, or do you have smaller files such as: Potential Scenes, Encounters, Rewards, etc. Thanks again for the amazing guides! You made my DM life so much easier.

[@JoshPlunkett]

I can certainly do a video about it. There's a consideration to be made in that windows does not support long file paths and in my testing I discovered that dataview starts to struggle with long file paths. So I've had to rethink my entire folder structure to bring the length down.

[@gorkensgork]

i've recently looked into johnny decimal system, select 10 "areas" and for each select 10 "categories", im testing it out in a player vault. The general idea is to not have more than a 2 folder layer to reduce the typical folder layer mayhem. With the strong linking of obsidian, there is nothing wrong in breaking away from the hierachy and just put all regions in a region folder, all nations in a nation folder and all settlements in a settlement folder. The various files/notes should be linking to their respective nations, regions and settlements and thus create the web instead of letting the folders do it. Its difficult to embrace at first, i still find myself creating sub/sub/sub folders adventures/adventurename/dungeonof/monsterrosterofthisdungeon etc... its a work in progress :D

[@Valkenvr]

@@gorkensgork Absolutely, and you can add the Local Graph to that. So you would open the Region note, and you would see all the Nations from that region in the Local Graph.

[@Cinnius]

Cool video so much ispiration from this! on a side note, how did you make the separation line between "Condition" and "Combat Action"?

[@JoshPlunkett]

That's just a scroll bar because the list of items is longer than the page.

[@Cinnius]

@@JoshPlunkett oh thanks for the information, it's a bit sad you can't put a separator

[@JoshPlunkett]

@@Cinnius with this tool you never know what's not possible. Whi knows what some custom css might be able to do.

[@JeffreyRees]

Nice stuff. You can also just drag/drop an existing note to create a card.

[@JoshPlunkett]

O.0 oooh really!

[@marcocormagi5028]

What about the headings? can we create a fast board from the notes(as title) and headings as list (with links)?

[@arcanpup6669]

What logo creator did you use to make the images? I am trying to make a kanban board for something else and wanted to utilize images as separaters.

[@Eddycareless]

Fantastic walkthrough. What do you do for those generators in the first column?

[@JoshPlunkett]

That's pretty much just a list of notes that use s to various websites with cool random generators. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nqPJpJZ9ZZJrhsU

[@MrJBARRON]

Great video, Josh. Going into Style Settings and ticking those same boxes Kanban Adjustments & Kanban Notion Style don't yield the same results that you're getting in this video. Nothing I do seems to get me those "dots" at the end of each entry. Must be some other setting I'm not aware of

[@JoshPlunkett]

Sounds like you are using simple text in your cards where I have everything represented as a link [[Pagename]]. Typing this here for others really since we already solved this via Discord :)

[@MrJBARRON]

@@JoshPlunkett Thanks Josh, you're exactly right. Once I went back in and more closely examined your own page it made perfect sense.

[@mrabomination]

Very cool demonstration, I will have to try this out. How are you getting your DM screen to be a kanban board and a folder at the same time?

[@JoshPlunkett]

That's using the folder note plugin. One of my first videos in this playlist covers it off.

[@GurgleThaGobbo]

Ay mang, is just your DM screen notes and stuff downloadable if i'm a Patron? Yours is so nice! I went and got your icons but just wondering if I gotta go through card by card and add each thing one at a time or not.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Sure do. My patreons get access to all my templates so they can strip it apart for pieces and learning.

[@julianb4157]

Is there a way to see non-Kanban content on the same page? Headings, notes, etc.? I can see it in markdown mode, but not in kanban view. And in markdown mode, I can't see the kanban.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Check the Kanban doco. They might have a way to embed a Kanban in another note perhaps. I've not tried it myself. I don't actually use a dm screen or thus note 🤫

[@julianb4157]

@@JoshPlunkett, thanks for a crazy fast reply. I had a laugh at you making this vid about your DM screen's config but not using a DM screen. :) I didn't see what I'm after on that doco, but I can work around that. And - thanks for all these vids. A week ago I'd never heard of Obsidian. My wife is already sick of "hey! it can do this! ... come see...!" (I'm sure she wishes I'd still never heard of Obsidian :) )

[@tjrobertsP55631]

Hey Josh. The only way I was able to get the web page embedding to work on the Kanban cards was to put them in separate notes and then link to the notes. Seems to work and I can hover and access the web pages or click and access them from the note. Is there any better way to do this or is that how you were doing it as well? Also, how did you get the back and forward navigation arrows up on the top menu bar? Mine are on the title bar for the note panes and I cannot figure out any way to move them in any of the settings menus. Thanks.

[@JoshPlunkett]

Have you updated Obsidian? The back forward icons moved with 1.0 from memory. Check settings and about. I do the same thing in that a website if embedded in a note and them I link the note to the Kanban card.

[@TakoWeiss]

where i can find the RND NPC generator?? Thx for the video

[@JoshPlunkett]

They are just website tools. I just find a random generator that I like and use the Custom Frames plugin or a standard Iframes to bring them into Obsidian as a note.

[@trushdaitalian]

Could you share your obsidian file? That DM screen is awesome.

[@JoshPlunkett]

My templates are available to my Patreons to download so they can pillage and plunder how I do things.

[@shadowtheory7500]

@@JoshPlunkett A really smart way to do things!

[@DerUnglaublicheFrank]

Great Video although I am not impressed by the Kanban plugin. What is shown is basically the same as creating a note and writing a list with all the other notes which points to it. Its just visually different.

[@JoshPlunkett]

It can do more than what I show. But you hit the nail on the head for why I use it. It's just a different way to present data. Tbh, I barely use it in games. It's an unnecessary idea as most of the stuff I contain in my dm screen I already know.