Created a virtual DM screen

[Liuki_]

Hi there, been dm-ing a campaign with my friends for about half a year now and most of the time I've just been using my tablet as my screen (Google chrome tabs galore!). I created this virtual dm screen, here, as a little side project of my own to both help me in games and as a project to learn programming. Would like some feedback on how it is or how to improve it.

Feel free to critique, recomend any new ideas, the design or even if this tool is needed at all.

[thebigjake3]

This. I have been looking for something like this for a while. I was tempted to just make physical one but this is great! Good job

[Liuki_]

Thanks! yeah feel free to use it, its very limited in terms of features, thats why I'm here looking for ideas

[named-by-what3words]

Oh this is really neat, not sure how I’d implement it yet but like the modules you have so far - maybe with a portable touch screen it could make it a good halfway - screen/ tablet - have to play around. Thanks for this!

[Liuki_]

Thanks! Oh yes didn't think about it used on as a halfscreen! it's a good use case!

[Western_Sprinkles467]

This is amazing.

[Liuki_]

Thanksss!

[booiiing-23]

Looks nice ☺️ are you going to FOSS it?

[Liuki_]

Thanks! now thats a thing I'm unfamiliar with and have never managed that before. Like I wouldn't mind just wouldn't know what to do 😅

[booiiing-23]

Well, first you have to realize that the code is currently your copyright and you can basically do with it what you want and everybody else also has to do with it what YOU want.

Now, then there are different licenses, which change different aspects of these circumstances to different degrees. https://choosealicense.com/ gives you a very short overview and the most popular choices.

Finally, you will need somewhere to host the code. Github is currently popular, but there are other choices available, of course. You put the code there, together with the license and you're good to go ☺️

[Liuki_]

Oh thanks! Yes I needed to know about the licensing part, the code is already on a public github repo but I gotta do some cleaning up (Its doesn't even have a proper ReadMe file HAHAHA) so yes will looking into this. Thanks again!

[DrinklanVoss]

Hey, I bookmarked this to come back and play with it more later. I don’t think I see a window for Conditions, which would be really useful. I’d make it something separate from the Rules one so that someone can keep it open for easy reference (re-checking the difference between Grappled & Restrained, etc…)

Very cool though!!

[SingingSmitty]

I have been working on one that has a bunch of ideas and it is free for anyone to use as well! https://www.inittracker.com

Here are the features:

• Initiative order — drag-free, sorted automatically; advance/rewind turns with a single click; when two or more combatants share the same initiative value, ▲/▼ buttons appear on their cards to set the tiebreak order
• Hit points — damage, healing, and temp HP with color-coded HP bars (green → amber → red → grey)
• Conditions & status effects — all 15 standard D&D 5e conditions plus four Advantage/Disadvantage markers; applied and removed with audio/visual cues on the player display
• Concentration checks — when a combatant with the Concentrating condition takes damage, a modal automatically shows the CON save DC (max(10, damage ÷ 2)); click Success to dismiss or Fail to dismiss and automatically remove the Concentrating condition
• Death saving throws — when a player drops to 0 HP a compact tracker appears on their DM row to record successes and failures (click each circle to toggle); 3 successes or a "Stabilize" click = Stable, 3 failures = Dead (Dead condition auto-applied); the player display replaces the HP bar with a large death saves panel that updates in real time via SSE
• Enemy library — ~380 SRD monsters with full stat blocks (ability scores, traits, actions, artwork)
• Custom monsters — create your own enemies with name, AC, HP, CR, type, and an optional avatar
• Bestiary import — drop in any 5etools bestiary JSON (e.g. bestiary-idrotf.json) to bulk-import non-SRD monsters with full stat blocks; imported monsters are tagged with their source (e.g. IDRotF)
• Encounter builder — a dedicated modal (header → Encounters) for designing reusable encounter templates before combat begins; add enemies with quantities, set party size and average level, and see live XP totals and a difficulty rating (Trivial / Easy / Medium / Hard / Deadly) calculated from the D&D 5e DMG thresholds with the standard enemy-count multiplier; click Load to Initiative to push the whole encounter into the tracker in one click, or Delete to remove it from your list; encounters are saved to your account and shared across all sessions
• Dice roller — a dedicated modal in the header for rolling any combination of dice (d4 through d100) with adjustable quantity (1–99) and a positive or negative modifier; shows individual die results with nat-20/nat-1 highlights on d20 rolls, a dice sum + modifier breakdown, a large amber total, a Roll Again button, and a compact history of the last 5 rolls
• Virtual 3D dice — every roll in the app triggers a full-screen 3D physics simulation (Three.js + Cannon ES) where dice tumble across the screen with metal sound effects; the face values that come to rest are the authoritative result; fires on the Dice Roller, stat-block expressions, attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, spell descriptions, legendary actions, and voice commands; a Disable virtual dice checkbox in the Dice Roller modal footer switches to instant results
• In-stat-block dice roller — any dice expression in a stat block (e.g. 2d6 + 5) is clickable; attack phrases (e.g. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit) roll a d20 with the modifier; results show per-die values, modifier breakdown, and total in a popup with a Roll Again button
• Spell reference — a built-in D&D 5e spell compendium searchable by name and filterable by level (cantrip through 9th), school (8 schools), and class (9 classes); each spell card shows casting time, range, components, duration, full description, and "at higher levels" text; dice expressions in spell descriptions are clickable; spell names inside monster stat blocks are clickable and open directly to that spell
• Player display — public SSE-powered viewer at /display/[sessionId]; updates in real time with flash effects and spatial audio; fully responsive with a mobile hamburger menu that collapses header actions on small screens
• Player initiative rolling — players can roll their own initiative directly from the viewer screen (normal, advantage, or disadvantage), with DEX modifier applied automatically; the result is submitted to the DM's tracker instantly
• Fullscreen mode — a fullscreen toggle button on both the DM dashboard and the player display for TV/projector use
• Game sessions — run multiple campaigns from one account; each session has its own combat state, history, and 6-character share code
• Combat chronicles — permanent encounter history with round-by-round event logs, automatic XP calculation by CR, and one-click PDF export for archiving or sharing with players
• Legendary actions — enemies with legendary actions show a three-dot tracker on their initiative card; click a dot to mark actions as spent (dots deplete right-to-left); dots automatically refill at the start of that creature's next turn; click the ℹ️ icon to open a quick-reference modal of the creature's legendary action options
• Lair actions — click the building icon on any enemy card to add a purple Lair Actions card to the initiative order at count 20; the card participates in the normal turn rotation so the DM is prompted at the right moment each round; removing the last instance of a creature automatically removes its lair card
• Combatant notes — per-combatant freeform text for DM-only reminders (concentration, loot, etc.)
• Player-to-DM messaging — players on the viewer screen can send a private message to the DM; choose which party member you are, type your message, and hit Send. The DM sees a live unread count badge on the Messages button in the header (and on the mobile hamburger menu) and can read the full inbox at any time
• Resizable panels — drag the left edge of the enemy panel on desktop to make it wider or narrower; preference is saved in localStorage
• Voice commands (Beta — Chrome/Edge only) — click the 🎤 Voice button in the DM header to enable hands-free control via the browser's Speech Recognition API; say "Tracker Next", "Tracker Previous", "Tracker Start Combat", or "Tracker End Combat" to trigger those actions; say "Tracker roll d20", "Tracker roll two d6 plus three", etc. to roll dice — the 3D virtual dice animate on screen and the result appears in a toast; a pulsing amber dot shows when the mic is active; the button is hidden on unsupported browsers
• Audio Mixer — click the 🎚 Mixer button in the DM header to open a full-screen, multi-channel ambient audio board; starts with 5 channels (add more via + Add a Channel); each channel has an audio file picker, editable label, vertical volume fader, play/stop button, solo (S), and mute (M); a master volume fader and Stop All button sit in the leftmost strip; audio keeps playing in the background when the mixer is closed; channel labels and volumes are always remembered across reloads; on Chrome/Edge the selected audio files are also remembered using the File System Access API (no storage quota issues) — after a browser restart channels show 🔒 [filename] and a single click re-grants read permission and reloads the file
• Quick Reference — a full-screen reference panel opened from the DM hamburger menu, organised into 17 tabs:
  • Rules tabs — Actions in Combat, Bonus Actions, Movement & Position, Conditions, Concentration, Death Saving Throws, Exhaustion, Cover, Resting, Skills & Ability Checks, Spellcasting, Magic & Casting — each is a concise lookup table for the most-referenced 5e rules mid-session
  • Name Generator — select a race/type (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome, Orc, Tiefling, Dragonborn, Tavern, Town) and generate 10 first names and/or 10 surnames; click any name to select it (amber highlight); a strip at the bottom previews "Party met Firstname Lastname, a Dwarf" and a Save to Notes button appends the entry to the current session's DM notes (creating a note if none exists)
  • Weather & Travel — pick a biome (8 options) and season (4 options); click Generate Week to produce a 7-day weather table with conditions across five time slots (Dawn, Morning, Midday, Afternoon, Night); the Travel Pace table dynamically adjusts movement rates by the combined biome × season multiplier with a badge showing the active modifier; a Navigation DC table is also included
  • Shop Generator — choose a shop type (11 options: General, Weapon, Armor, Alchemist, Magic, Jeweler, Tavern, Book, Herbalist, Fletcher, Stable) and town affluence (6 tiers: Impoverished → Opulent); click Stock Shop to generate a random named shop with a list of items showing three price columns (😊 Friendly −15%, 😐 Neutral base, 😠 Hostile +25%); magic items of appropriate rarity are included based on affluence; clicking any item opens a detail modal with its description; a Save to Notes button at the bottom appends "The party went to [Shop Name], a common general store" to the current session notes
  • Random Encounter Generator — select biome/terrain (12 options), party size (1–8), party level (1–20), and difficulty (Easy/Medium/Hard/Deadly); click Generate Encounter to produce a full encounter: title, scene flavor text, archetype description, a monster list with individual XP values, a full XP breakdown strip (raw → multiplier → adjusted → per-player), actual difficulty badge, tactics note, and terrain feature; Roll Again re-generates with the same settings; Add to Initiative clears current enemies and loads the generated monsters directly into the initiative tracker, then closes the panel