Welcome to Helm, your interactive companion for running tabletop adventures. Before you set sail on your first voyage, this tutorial will chart the waters ahead and show you how to navigate a scene in Helm. Every feature you'll encounter below is live. Click things. Poke around. Nothing here bites.

How Helm Works

Helm is built around one core philosophy: we give you everything you need to know, and how you present it is up to you.

This means Helm works for every kind of DM. If you want to run things exactly as they appear on the page, you can do that. If you'd rather improvise, riff, and make the adventure your own, Helm gives you the room to do that without worrying about missing critical information or breaking the game. Either way, everything you need is here.

This is made possible by two systems working together: scenes and the compendium.

A scene captures what is happening right now at a specific moment in the adventure. It's your live tool at the table: who's here, special events that kick things off, and what you do when your players react. They're flowcharts.

The compendium holds everything that is always true about a character, a location, or an item, regardless of when it appears in the adventure. It's your reference library: backstories, room descriptions, item properties, world lore. They're encyclopedias.

Scenes and the compendium never repeat each other. The scene tells you a character is nervously stirring a pot. The compendium entry tells you she's a halfling chef with a fear of fire. Together, they give you everything you need. And anything not covered by either is yours to decide.

Lets begin by breaking down Scenes

Scenes

A scene begins by telling you where the scene takes place. Before the scene starts proper, It will be important to convey the location and its description if the players are entering it for the first time in this scene. For example, This scene takes place in A Location (Well, not really... its taking place in Helm).

A scene will then give you a reference point for what characters are doing at the beginning of a scene.

When you first open this page:

• You are here, reading this for the first time.

• A Character is NOT here. (She is patiently waiting for you over at the compendium section.)

Flavor Text

You'll always recognize flavor text by its distinctive styling, a quoted block set apart from the surrounding text. After a flavor text box, the scene opens up into the information you'll need to run it.

Interaction Blocks

Scenes rarely involve the whole party doing the same thing at the same time. The tabbed section below is an interaction block. Each tab holds a different piece of information, and clicking between them lets you quickly find what you need. In play, you flip to whichever tab matches what a player is doing right now. Try clicking through them.

Each tab in an interaction block covers one point of engagement: an object to inspect, a topic of conversation, a phase in the interaction, ex. The tab's title tells you what it covers. The content inside tells you what happens when the players interact with it, what they learn, what rolls might be required, and how a character responds.

Whenever a scene has a lot of information you might need to switch back and forth between, interaction blocks organize it into tabs so you can find the right piece instantly. During prep, read through all the tabs to get a feel for a scene. During play, flip to the one that matches what's happening at the table

Waypoints

At the bottom of every scene, you'll find a set of branching boxes. These are Waypoints. They tell you where the adventure goes next based on what the players choose to do.

Each Waypoint has a condition as its header. That's the situation that needs to be true for this path to open up. When that condition is met, just click the linked scene name inside and you're on your way.

Think of Waypoints as the ports on your chart. When your players sail into one, you'll know exactly where to go next.

Compendium Entries

As you read through a scene, you'll notice certain words are styled as clickable links. These are compendium references. Clicking one opens a compendium entry in a panel on the right side of your screen: a self-contained profile of a character, location, item, or other key element. The entry stays open beside the scene you're running, so you can reference both at the same time.

Compendium entries come in several types, including A Character, A Location, A Handout, A Lore Entry, A Rule Each follows a consistent format so you always know where to find what you're looking for. Try clicking one of those links now to see what a compendium entry looks like and learn how to read it. For example, uh oh! Your are playing out a conversation with A Character and they are really interrogating poor Dr. Character. See if you can pull up A Character's knowledge section to figure out what they know!

You're Ready

That's Helm. Flavor text sets the stage. Interaction blocks organize the options. The compendium fills in the details. Transitions keep you moving. The Star Map shows you where you are. Everything works together. Remember, these adventures are meant to answer all your questions and tell you what happens in the world of your story. Its up to you and your players to figure out the best way to tell that story! Relax, improvise, use the tools at your disposal, and have fun!

The best way to get comfortable is to open an adventure and start running. The tools do the heavy lifting. You bring the voice.