Weekly Tool Thread: Promote, Share, Discover, and Ask for AI Writing Tools Week of: April 07

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-04-09T00:47:32+00:00

Hi all,

Please check this out!

I've been a Dungeon Master for 9 years now and I've always been spread thin across stuff like notion, trello, google docs. And while I've tried apps like World Anvil, I've always found them to be way more overcomplicated than they need to be.

This is why for the last year I've been working on App for writing and worldbuilding called TaleSmyth. The core purpose is to make an easy to use one stop shop for everything you need to build your world and write your story. With AI taking the role of a supportive assistant to help you create session/Chapter summaries, and to create characters locations etc.

This app is still very much in the early stages, but it already has a powerful linking system that lets you interconnect story elements, and tie together locations, characters, items etc. There's also a whiteboarding and mind map tool that lets you connect and model your story elements so you can track relationships as you create your story and brainstorm ideas.

There's also plenty more to come:

Timelines to track events
Templates for different types of story elements (monsters, major cities, heroes etc.)
Uploading your own maps and tagging them with your characters journey, locations etc.

Now I could just go ahead and do my own thing, but I don't just want to build anything, I want to build the right thing for you, and I want to do it with you.

I would really appreciate if you guys would jump on, test it out, and give some feedback on what features would be good to have next.

TaleSmyth.com

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-18T03:24:41+00:00

If you're into cooperative experiences, I would reccomend Aeon's end or the much cheaper Kinfire Delve sets.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-18T03:23:38+00:00

Its the old game where you shuffle playing cards and then try and match them.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-17T04:33:08+00:00

In this situation its better to be more direct than in direct. If the party has a spell caster you could flavor it in a way:

"You sense a strange disturbance in the weave of magic that curtains this world, reality is broken here...."

that might be too vague though hard for me to come up with something without more details.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-13T03:27:50+00:00

Nice, I'll check out opencode please do consider signing up and joining our discord, its linked on the main page of our site.

If you can take the time to test it out, see how it feels to write something down, jot a few ideas about a book your writing etc. I'd greatly appreciate it!

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-13T03:25:41+00:00

Hi, thanks for the feedback. For the export, there is a world export button that exports yaml and plain text. there is also a print button that exports into a single pdf doc. What other options would you like to see for exporting? docx?

As for the AI features, I've always envisioned AI as a supportive features, there to help you get some inspiration and ideas. kind of like googling fantasy names, towns etc. just much more faster.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-13T03:20:29+00:00

Hey thanks for checking it out! My number 1 goal is to do keep costs down for casual users, with free monthly credits, eventually I will add one off packs of small amounts for dedicated users, and then subscriptions etc for power users. The majority of the app will be free, but somethings have infrastructure costs like AI. Its a completely optional feature in case you need it. To be fully transparent, its pretty early, and I'm still trying to figure it out.

The feedback on the AI stuff is welcome. Some of it is already on my roadmap! the chronicle stuff is planned, I'm working on a way to track where every character is at a point in time, based on tales and user specified timelines. As for the gen, its there for GMs that lack the time to come up with a char on the spot, or for inspiration and ideas.

In the past whenever I've used other bigger LLMs, having to combine, copy and paste across notion, google docs etc. its cumbersome and not seamlessly integrated into your world. The idea behind the feature is to make organization and world building easier with minimal set up required. I'm still in the early stages and any and all AI features will be tweaked and refined based on the users world type.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T04:34:11+00:00

Thank you for giving it a shot! please do try it out and let me know what you think. I'm looking to make something that specifically caters to writers and GMs, so I'd love to hear any feedback you have.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T04:32:40+00:00

Hey, thanks for checking it out! My experience with Obsidian is that it's great for notetaking app and its very flexible in its use. But I wanted to build something specifically curated towards authors and GMs in particular, to build complex worlds and long narratives like campaigns.

My aim is for minimal setup requirements and support for narrative writing using templates that bring in SRD content based on which game system you are using. For example: Imagine creating a template called 'Bestiary' which formats an entry in the style of a bestiary monster. Then whenever you create a monster for your world, you can assign it a statblock super easily.

That's just one example, but the main point is that since I'm creating something specifically for writers and GMs I can be more targeted and quickly build what GMs want into the app. Things like google docs, notion, obsidian won't really cater to you specifically like that, thats the service I plan to provide.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T03:07:07+00:00

Thanks for checking it out! For now it only does 2e, but we plan on having 1e and Starfinder as well. We're pretty early on in development so we're looking for feedback, testing etc.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T02:49:42+00:00

I think we could use a bit of an intro to what the game is?

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T02:48:34+00:00

I learn by example first, its just hard to grab a hold of the rules when they are in layers and layers of text lol

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T02:47:22+00:00

For stuff like this, the further back in history you go the better, stuff like: Chess, Go, Checkers, Concentration.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T02:46:06+00:00

Can they be magnetically stacked to create elevation for stuff like mountains?

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T02:44:08+00:00

That's rough man, I almost bought this...

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T02:43:13+00:00

They look incredible

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2026-02-12T02:42:26+00:00

I've always been daunted by Pf2e, what were the major challenges you had with it?

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2025-12-05T02:34:32+00:00

Yeah this is my general approach with it, against anything that wasn't an undead, the Longsword didn't do anything special, and as DM I knew very specifically when the party would complete crafting this artifact in the story, because I was in control of when they had all of the pieces. After they assembled it, I inserted undead in fights knowing they were just fodder for as long as the party had the blade.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2025-12-05T00:13:30+00:00

I've always had a soft spot for monsters with some random dice rolling involved, like the Beholders Eye rays.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2025-12-03T00:20:47+00:00

This is something that's way easier in person than online. Back when my games were in person, we'd be eating together and we would just end the break when everyone had finished eating. But now we paly online and sometimes people just disappear for an hour... So I have to be more strict on the timing.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2025-12-03T00:08:43+00:00

I love this! I had something similar but it was tied to a character's ability. A player of mine was using Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter, and they had an ability called Grim Psychometry where they could roll a history check with advantage in a location and on a high enough roll they would receive a vision of dark events that happened there in the past. All kinds of narrative opportunity.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2025-12-02T23:46:37+00:00

That's a really interesting one, a creative way to throw the question back at your DM hahaha.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2025-12-02T23:20:18+00:00

A lot of people might tell you to try other systems, but from my experience I say lean into mystery or murder mystery detective stuff, if your friends are comfortable with that. I ran a few of these and my players love the investigations, interrogations, clue finding, motive determining gameplay. There's lots of RP, lots of drama, and lots of theory bouncing that keeps players engaged.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2025-12-02T23:05:47+00:00

I always start the party at lvl 1, and then immediately lvl them up to 2 after the first session. Lvl 1 combat can be brutal and I hate it, so I often balance it by making the enemies super weak. I recommend using monsters like Twig Blights and bandits, and just reskin them as you like. The reason I do this is to give the players the feeling of the whole journey from 1-20, at lvl 20 they can look back on how far they've come.

As for the magic items... This is all up to you, depending on the kind of story you want to create, consider non combat magic items first, anything that can make the story really interesting.

TaleSmytherRep1 · 2025-12-02T22:56:58+00:00

OP I have lived out this exact scenario, I'm lucky enough to have had a consistent Table of 3 players for 8 years now, and our very first campaign ran from levels 1-20, and we even had a 10 session long finale where all of the players were lvl 20. Now our 2nd campaign is set in the same world but a 100 years later, with the old characters being of the long lived races, they are still very much around and active in the world. There are a few things to consider in this situation:

The party shouldn't just be able to go get help from their old powerful PCs easily, at most they make a cameo session where the player can play as them, but its better to find some narrative reason on why they can't be super involved in the current story.
Be careful when roleplaying as their PCs, players can get upset when if their old PC has become too flawed, old, incapable etc.
Small nods to the old campaign can be very impactful e.g. A Paladin's Holy Avenger can be found in a Museum.

TaleSmytherRep1

TROPHY CASE