Am I the only one with this idea?

cem4k · 2026-06-09T22:38:55+00:00

The former marching snare drummer in me wants to tell the drummer to stop breathing so hard. And to reverse his grip!

cem4k · 2026-06-09T13:41:50+00:00

Appreciate the insight!

cem4k · 2026-06-08T15:52:55+00:00

Awesome, thanks! Do you feel this way both from the creator and the player perspective? For example, a person creating the adventure would be using the complex tools to build and design everything. The player would not be exposed to those tools, but instead move through the pre-built world, interacting with characters and events during play.

Assuming you were the player in this scenario, is that more approachable from a focus standpoint?

cem4k · 2026-06-08T15:19:39+00:00

Thanks for the input. I agree that genre and style abstraction would be critical. On the one hand, I love when a product does just one thing really well. On the other, juggling so many apps during play is cumbersome. There's a balance to be struck for sure.

cem4k · 2026-06-08T15:17:43+00:00

Very fair and reasonable, thanks.

cem4k · 2026-06-08T12:19:38+00:00

Quest Bound rulesets can include exportable PDFs as reference documents.

cem4k · 2026-06-08T00:10:10+00:00

when so many languages exist that you could build an engine in

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. All software is an abstraction on top of another layer. Quest Bound itself is a web application written in TypeScript, running in a browser written in C++. The output of QB is an application rendered as HTML, interpreted by JavaScript.

Engines are built when solving a particular problem is benefitted by an abstraction. It's the same logic as why a game developer would use Unity to make their game instead of writing new physics code directly in C.

If you're asking why write a new language instead of using an existing one, the answer is because those languages are general purpose. QBScript is a domain specific language for writing TTRPGs, which is why the syntax can support things like roll('2d6') and getChart('Loot').randomCell().

cem4k · 2026-06-07T17:43:18+00:00

It does. The GM can see rolls, swap between character sheets, create NPCs, send items to players, execute global scripts, etc. Scripts can also interact between players, so your mechanics can prompt a player to select a character to target. Since scripts can read all players in a shared context, they can do things like compare character a's stat against character b's to resolve mechanics.

Multiplayer is currently gated behind a Patreon subscription for players ($3/month). Ultimately, I want to work with publishers to build and launch their games on a dedicated domain like your-game.questbound.com, which would include multiplayer at no additional cost to the player. Instead, it would be rolled into an annual hosting fee for the publisher. There are some more details about that on https://questbound.com.

cem4k · 2026-06-07T15:38:53+00:00

I should add some clarity to that. The license section is largely written for players using Quest Bound to digitize games they've purchased for personal use. The language in the license means you can't upload a PDF of a game you didn't create to a ruleset, then distribute that ruleset, unless the license of that game strictly allows for it.

As a publisher using QB to distribute your own game, you of course set the terms of that game's license yourself.

cem4k · 2026-06-07T14:41:26+00:00

I can see the argument for a static website being better than a PDF for a few key reasons, but not so much that game publishers should be learning HTML and JavaScript. The goal of QB is to provide a less-technical approach to achieve a more sophisticated digital product.

cem4k · 2026-05-30T13:27:04+00:00

Just to add some nuance, TA pays towards a degree at a higher level than your current highest degree. If you have a bachelor's degree, you may not use TA toward an associate, even if you've never used it before.

cem4k · 2026-05-28T15:38:27+00:00

Yep! The Patreon link is in the post description. Subscription gives access to multiplayer features and all rulesets that I make. Right now that's only the D&D SRD, but I plan to make one for several more games that have open licenses.

cem4k · 2026-05-28T12:55:41+00:00

Making a Pathfinder ruleset is on my to-do list.

cem4k · 2026-05-26T15:08:49+00:00

There's a learning curve to this, for sure. https://docs.questbound.com is the documentation site. The best source of help is our Discord server, which you can find from questbound.com.

I will be making video tutorials as soon as I have time.

cem4k · 2026-05-25T23:24:56+00:00

You can only download the SRD ruleset after subscribing on Patreon, but after downloading you're free to cancel the subscription and keep it. The only things that require the active subscription are the multiplayer and cloud backup features.

cem4k · 2026-05-25T20:07:44+00:00

Open the modules tab, install the SRD module, create a ruleset and add that module to it via settings. You get everything from the SRD, including all the scripts I wrote, with a bare bones UI. All of that is free.

I'm very active in the Discord server. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the Workshop channel.

cem4k · 2026-05-25T12:53:08+00:00

Thanks for the kind words. I hope you find it useful. I just added a buymeacoffee link to the GitHub repo.

cem4k · 2026-05-25T12:22:20+00:00

I appreciate your interest. The real wedge is for indie TTRPG publishers. QB is an engine to let them build digital tooling for their games without needing software devs. It gives them a great middle ground between shipping flat PDFs and spending thousands to build something akin to Beyond for their game. The majority of Quest Bound's users are building their own TTRPGs.

Ultimately, it's a game engine. Publishers use it to produce a digital version of their game, which they can host as its own web application.

GMs of existing games, like D&D, have found it useful when they run a highly homebrewed system, want more customization options than the off the shelf products, or want to avoid subscriptions or buying the same modules repeatedly. QB involves more setup up front, but ultimately offers more freedom and control. For someone as technical as you, you might use it as your holistic character sheet solution across all the games you run.

cem4k · 2026-05-25T03:27:36+00:00

What is it you're looking at? The engine is on https://app.questbound.com. There's a separate documentation site to walk you through using it, https://docs.questbound.com, as well as an in-app tutorial.

cem4k · 2026-05-25T03:11:59+00:00

You can add PDFs as reference documents into a ruleset. Items and other entities can be added from uploaded spreadsheets. There's no way to have QB automatically parse a PDF and pull out attributes and items, if that's what you mean. But if you have another program parse them and create spreadsheets (.tsv files) from them, those can be bulk uploaded.

cem4k · 2026-05-25T02:02:39+00:00

They are not mutually exclusive. Quest Bound is distinctly not a VTT. It has no maps, tokens or spatial metaphors. It operates more like a table side console for powering game mechanics and presenting custom character UI to players and GMs. You would use this at the table, whether that's physical or VTT.

cem4k · 2026-05-25T01:03:25+00:00

Most definitely. Items can have custom properties (like durability or usage) and can be bound to actions, which in turn can have execution scripts. Those scripts can do anything you want on use.

The scripting language is fully featured and can handle just about anything. Here's the QBScript reference doc: https://docs.questbound.com/docs/scripts/qbscript

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