Campaigns

A campaign is one game you run in your world: its plan, its sessions and what its players know. A world can have many campaigns, and they share the world's articles.

Starting a campaign

Campaigns → New campaign. A new campaign opens on Sessions, ready to plan the first session; the Research board and Players are the tabs next to it. Then Edit details:

Status: Planning, Running, Paused or Finished. A campaign becomes Running by itself when you mark its first session played.
Theme and Goal: a line each, for you.
When it's set: From and To in your world's calendar, and Players know up to: the present day of the campaign. Players never see events dated after it, nor passages held back until a later date. Move it forward as the story goes on.
Players: who plays, and which character article is theirs. Players who join with an invite link appear here by themselves. If a player's account is deleted, they show as Former player, marked account deleted: their name goes, their character stays.
Notes: anything else, for you only.

Running a published adventure

Running an adventure from a book? You don't need to write the world first. Three steps:

Start a campaign for the adventure (on an empty world's home page, or Campaigns → New campaign).
Paste the cast onto the board. On the Research board, under People, tap Add several… and paste the adventure's characters, one per line. Do the same for its places under Places. Each name is pinned as Not written yet until you write it, so you only write the ones you need, when you need them.
Make the chapters into beats. On Sessions, add a Session, then tap Add several… under it (or under Unscheduled) and paste the chapters, one per line, with the page after a comma: Ch3: The Gatehouse, Ch3 p.50. Each line becomes a beat with that page as its Source, so the book is open at the right page at the table. Players never see the Source.

When the players go past a scene, Skip its beat: it stays in the book's order, folded away, and hands nothing out. Hand out what they find with Hand out… as it comes up (see At the table).

The research board

The Research board tab is for prep. Make columns (Places, Suspects, Hooks…), pin articles to them and add notes. You can pin names you haven't written yet; they're marked Not written yet and show up in To write in the sidebar until you write them (see Writing articles).

To pin many names at once, such as the list of characters from an adventure, use Add several… under a column: paste one name per line, and add a note after a comma if you like (The Ferryman, lies about the lights). Names that match an article (or one of its other names) pin that article; the rest are pinned as not written yet. Names already in the column are skipped.

On a big board, type in Find on the board to show only the cards whose name, other names, template or note has those words. When the board holds articles of more than one template, chips under the search box (Character, Location…) show only that template. Filtering only hides cards on your screen: the board, its order and your files stay as they are, and Show all brings everything back. You can still drag cards while filtering; they land between the cards you can see. Pinning something new clears the filter, so the new card shows.

Worth a look suggests articles connected to what's on the board and to the players' characters.

To pin from any article, use Pin to campaign on its page. It starts on your Active campaign.

The Active campaign

Active, in the sidebar under Timeline, is the campaign you're running right now. Picking one gives every article page a share button for it (who has this article, and when), starts Pin to campaign on it, and puts a link to its next session under the picker. The share button sits under the article's title, so you can see whether players have it right away.

If your world has only one campaign, it's Active by itself. Pick None to turn it off.

Canopy remembers your choice for each world: for a world in your account, in your account, so it's the same on your other devices; for a world you made earlier in this browser or a folder, in this browser.

Sessions and beats

The Sessions tab holds the plan: sessions, each with beats, the scenes, moments and reveals you prepared. A beat has a title, text (type @ to link articles), an optional date in the world and handouts: articles, secrets or held-back passages players get when the beat happens.

While you type a beat or a recap, a linked name shows as just the name, marked like a link: Meet Old Nettle, not the link code behind it. Backspace right after a name takes the whole name out, link and all. Pressed Esc instead of picking a name? The list closes and the @ goes, so what you typed stays as plain words, not a link.

Running a published adventure? Tap + Source on a beat and write the page, like Ch5 p.122. Once one beat in the campaign has a Source, every beat opens with the Source box ready. It shows small next to the beat's title, so you can find the page in the book. It's only for you: players never see it.
To add many beats at once, tap Add several… under a session or Unscheduled and paste one beat per line. Put the page in the book after a comma (Ch2: Fog on the causeway, Ch2 p.24) and it becomes the beat's Source; a part after a comma without a number stays in the title. Type @ before a name (@Brother Cael at the gate) to link it, like in a beat. You see the beats, their pages and their links before anything is added.
Drag a beat by its grip, or use its ⋯ menu, to move it to another session, to Unscheduled (this campaign, not planned yet) or to the Shelf.
Skip (in the beat's ⋯ menu) is for a scene the players went past. The beat stays where it is, in the book's order, greyed and folded away under Skipped (2). A skipped beat never hands anything out. Unskip brings it back, and so does moving it to a session.
The Shelf keeps beats for any campaign in this world. Take one into a session with From shelf. It shows on the Campaigns page once you have a campaign.
After playing, set the session to Played. Beats that didn't come up can move to the next session, to Unscheduled or to the shelf, or you can Mark skipped, all in one tap. Write a recap of what actually happened. The recap stays yours until you tick Players see this recap right under it, which shows it at the top of their page as Last time….

Once there is a plan, a campaign opens on its Sessions, scrolled to the session Up next. Older played sessions fold away, and in a long campaign the played sessions at the start gather under one line, for example Show 12 played sessions. Tap it to see them again; nothing in them changes.

Finding a date for the next session

Once a campaign has a session, its Sessions has a Find a date button: tap it to ask your players when they're free. (Planning what happens in a session is + Session and its beats, above.) Two choices, both quick:

Players answer with: Whole days, or Morning, afternoon or evening.
Suggest dates (optional): tap the dates that work for you. Players then only answer for those, which keeps the poll short on a phone. Without any, they pick from the next four weeks, one week at a time.

Tap Ask the players. You get a link: Send or Copy it to your group (WhatsApp, Discord, email). Anyone with the link opens it on their phone, taps the times they're free and sends; no account needed, just a name. Players who joined the campaign also see When are you free? on their page, under their bell and on their start page, and answer with their name in the campaign. While they answer, the link shows how many players have answered and, on each date, how many are free (numbers only, never who), so they can see which dates are shaping up. Only players who joined count, as below.

The link shows the campaign's name and the dates, nothing else from your world.

As answers come in, Finding a date lists the dates with the most players free first (earliest first among equals), with who would miss each one and who hasn't answered yet. Only players who joined the campaign count: a date says Everyone free once every one of them has answered and is free then. Someone with the link who isn't in the campaign is shown apart, as Also free … (not in the campaign), and never counts towards it. (In a campaign nobody has joined yet, every answer counts, but no date says Everyone free.) The bell tells you each time a player answers (Noor answered the date poll). Once everyone who joined the campaign has answered, it says so, and the bell's rows for that poll become one: Everyone in … has said when they're free. Pick the date.

Pick a date: it becomes the date of your next session (a new session if every one is played), and the poll closes. The answers are deleted then; only the date stays, in the campaign's file, so it's in your exports too. Stop the poll deletes it without picking. Starting a new poll replaces the old one, and the old link stops working.

Poll dates are real calendar dates, never your world's own calendar. Polls work for worlds in your Canopy account. The sample world has one on The Drowned Crown to try: Sam and Marit (who isn't in the campaign) have answered, Robin hasn't. See as Robin and answer from Robin's page to see Everyone free appear.

Adding a session to your calendar

A session with a date (picked in the poll, or set with the pencil next to its title) has Add to calendar and Share invite. The first time, Canopy asks when it Starts at and its Length (4h unless you change it, written like 3h 30m). The time is on your device's clock: Canopy keeps its time zone with it, so players elsewhere see the right hour in their calendar. The time and length go in the campaign's file next to the date (start: "19:30", length: 4h), so you can change them in Obsidian too.

Add to calendar saves a calendar file; open it and your calendar app adds the session.
Share invite opens your phone's share sheet with the same file, so you can drop it in the group chat. Where there's no share sheet, it saves the file instead.
Change time sets a new start or length.

The invite holds only the campaign's name, the time and a link to your players' page: never the session's title, its beats, the recap or your notes. If the date or time changes, send the invite again: calendars update the event they already have instead of adding a second one, also when you changed the time by hand in the campaign's file.

Players who joined the campaign see Next session with the day and time on their page, with their own Add to calendar.

Coming back after a while

A campaign that's running shows a Where we are card on the world's home page (the Active campaign too, whatever its status), and the same card at the top of the campaign's page:

Up next: the next session, with its date if you gave it one. Tap it to open the session.
Last time: the start of the last session's recap.
Parked: how many beats are Unscheduled, didn't come up in a played session, or are skipped.

Running the session itself is in At the table.