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The Questwright Manual

Everything you need to play, and to run a table of your own. Start anywhere.
I'm here to play

Make a hero, join a table, take your first turn.

Start with chapter 1 ›
I'm running a game

Build a campaign, invite players, steer the story.

Jump to Running a game ›
⚔ Fantasy · 5th Edition ✦ Sci-fi · Spacewright ☠ Horror · coming ● Spy · coming
Chapter 1

Getting started

What Questwright is, how to get in, and how to go from a new account to your first turn at a table.

What is Questwright?

Questwright is a tabletop roleplaying game you play in your browser. A Game Master runs the story for you and your friends:

  • it describes the world;
  • it voices the people you meet;
  • it asks for a roll when the dice should decide;
  • it remembers what your party did last week.

You can play alone or with a group, and pick up where you left off whenever you like. Two systems are open today: 5th Edition, for classic fantasy, and Spacewright, for science fantasy among the stars. More are on the way. When one opens, it will appear in the system picker and in this manual.

Getting access

Questwright is in an invited beta. Ask for access from the sign-in page. When you're in, sign in with Google, Discord or Twitch, or with your email and password. You'll be asked to accept the Terms and Privacy Policy once, and again only if they change.

Your first hero

Open Characters and choose Create a hero. Pick a system, then work through the steps. In 5th Edition they are:

  1. Race and name
  2. Class
  3. Background and backstory
  4. Ability scores
  5. Equipment
  6. Spells
  7. Voice: how your hero sounds when the story reads them aloud.
  8. Review

Spacewright follows the same pattern with its own steps, including feats. You can go back to any step before you finish. Nothing is final until Review.

Pick the game system first. You can play 5th Edition or Spacewright today.

Pick the game system first. You can play 5th Edition or Spacewright today.

  1. 5th Edition
  2. Spacewright
The creator goes step by step; here you set your ability scores.

The creator goes step by step; here you set your ability scores.

  1. Where you are in the steps
  2. Point buy, standard array or roll

Joining a table

A campaign is a table. Start your own from Campaigns, or open an invite link from a friend. Bring a hero from your roster and take a seat. There are no sessions to start or end: a campaign is always open. Come back, and the story is where you left it.

Your first turn

On the play page, type what your hero does in your own words and send it. The Game Master answers. That's the whole loop. Chapter 2 covers the rest.

TipThe fastest way to learn: make a hero, start a solo one-shot, and play a few turns.
Chapter 2

Playing a session

You tell the story what your hero does, in your own words. The Game Master answers, asks for rolls when the dice should decide, and keeps the world moving.

Your turn

The composer at the bottom of the play page has four modes:

  • Say: speak in character. "We're not here for trouble."
  • Do: describe an action. "I climb the wall and look over."
  • Attack: pick a weapon or spell and a target.
  • Party: a message to your party that the Game Master doesn't answer.

Continue asks the story to move on without you acting. If an answer went somewhere that doesn't fit, the table's DM can use Redo last response to have it tried again.

Choose Say, Do, Attack or Party, then write what your character does.

Choose Say, Do, Attack or Party, then write what your character does.

  1. Mode
  2. Action slot
  3. Continue lets the story go on
  4. Hold pauses your turn

Playing as a group

When several players want to act together, press Hold to queue your action. When everyone is ready, anyone presses Go! and the queued actions are sent as one turn. The out-of-character chat is for table talk that isn't part of the story.

Rolling dice

  1. Pick Do and describe it. "I sneak past the guard toward the gate."
  2. Roll when asked. A Stealth check appears in the feed; tap it to roll.
  3. See what happens. The result and the story's answer land in the feed for the whole table.

If your table rolls real dice, the Game Master can switch on manual rolling; then you type your result instead, like 1d20+5.

1d20+5One twenty-sided die, plus 5
2d6Two six-sided dice, added
2d20kh1Advantage: roll two, keep the higher
2d20kl1Disadvantage: keep the lower
4d6kh3Roll four, keep the best three
TipYour natural 20s and natural 1s are counted on your profile (chapter 4).
When the story asks for a roll, tap Roll, or roll your own dice and type the result.

When the story asks for a roll, tap Roll, or roll your own dice and type the result.

  1. Roll
  2. Type your own roll

Combat

When a fight starts, initiative decides the order and your turn is marked. On your turn, the combat slots show what you have left: Action, Bonus Action, Movement and Reaction.

In a fight, the turn order shows who acts next and each side's health.

In a fight, the turn order shows who acts next and each side's health.

  1. Mode
  2. Action, bonus action, movement or reaction
  3. Turn order
  4. Round

Combat Ending & Revival

A fight closes itself, and everyone sees a one-line notice saying why, when:

  • Every hostile is down.
  • The party moves on: three turns of roleplay with no attacks.
  • Surrender or parley: the enemy flees, surrenders or is talked down, after two calm turns.
  • The party falls.
  • The DM ends it with End Combat.
  • Nobody touched it for 24 hours.

At 0 hit points your hero is down, not dead: a Down badge shows and you can't act until someone heals you above 0. Only the combat rules (three failed death saves) or the Game Master can kill a hero. A dead hero shows a Dead badge and can't act. The Game Master can Revive them at any time, back at 1 HP.

Damage narrated outside of an initiative-tracked fight (a fall, a trap, a poisoned blade) lands on your hit points too, so watch the bar as the story plays out.

Conditions

Poisoned, frightened, prone and the rest show on your sheet and in the party list. They are applied by the story and cleared by it, or by a rest or a spell. The Game Master can clear them all at once.

Resting

Rest buttons sit next to your hit points on the sheet. They show when your hero is at a table.

  • A short rest lets you spend Hit Dice to heal and refreshes short-rest abilities (marked SR on the sheet).
  • A long rest restores hit points, spell slots and most abilities (LR), and gives back half your Hit Dice.

Some tables use gritty resting, where a short rest takes a night and a long rest takes a week. Your Game Master will say.

For DMsRest rules and other house rules are set in Conditions & Rules on the GM dashboard (chapter 6).
Chapter 3

Your hero

Your character sheet, your spells and gear, your story, and the roster of every hero you own.

The sheet

Your character sheet is one page that scrolls. The chips at the top jump to each section:

  • 5th Edition: Abilities & skills, Combat, Spells, Gear, Features, Story, and Notes (yours only).
  • Spacewright: Stats, Inventory, Spells, Class & Feats, Starship, Relationships, Story and Backstory.

The strip at the top holds your hit points (with − and + outside a fight), defence and quick stats:

  • in 5th Edition, Armor Class, initiative, speed, proficiency and Heroic Inspiration;
  • in Spacewright, Energy and Kinetic Armor Class, initiative and speed.

Tap a skill or save to roll it.

Your character sheet on a computer: everything on one scroll.

Your character sheet on a computer: everything on one scroll.

  1. Hit points and core numbers
  2. Short rest and Long rest
  3. Section chips jump down the sheet
  4. Edit character, Share and the ··· menu
The same sheet on a phone.

The same sheet on a phone.

  1. Hit points
  2. Section chips (swipe for more)
  3. Edit character and Share
  4. The ··· menu

Spells

Spellcasters see their slots by level and tick them off as they cast. Prepared casters choose their spells from the sheet. Ritual spells can be cast as rituals without a slot, taking longer.

Gear and coin

Your gear lists what you carry and what's equipped. Items and coin you find in the story are added for you. Coins come as copper, silver, electrum, gold and platinum.

Story

  • Backstory: who you were before.
  • Relationships: the people you've met, with a trust level from 1 to 10.
  • Story marks: scars and moments that stay with your hero.
  • Secrets: things only you (and the Game Master) know.

The ··· menu and sharing

Edit character in the sheet header changes your hero's look, identity and story, and their voice. The ··· menu holds Legacy, Unregister, Reset and Delete. Share copies the link to your hero's sheet.

The ··· menu holds the rarer actions.

The ··· menu holds the rarer actions.

  1. Legacy, Leave this campaign, Reset character, Delete character

My characters

Characters shows every hero you own: each hero's table, when that table last played, and whether a level-up is waiting. Show all heroes, those in play or those free for a new table; search by name; sort by last active, level or name. Fallen heroes keep their Legacy page.

Chapter 4

Growing stronger

How heroes level up, and the record Questwright keeps of everything you've played.

XP or milestones

Each campaign levels one of two ways:

  • Experience points: you earn XP for what you do, and level up when you reach the next threshold. 5th Edition and Spacewright each use their own table.
  • Milestones: the Game Master levels the whole party at a turning point in the story.

Levelling up

When a level is ready, your sheet and your roster say so. Level up opens the level-up page, which walks you through hit points, new features, and choices like a subclass or an ability score increase at the levels your class grants them. If you're ready for more than one level, take them one at a time.

Levelling up walks you through each choice.

Levelling up walks you through each choice.

  1. Hit points
  2. Ability score improvement or feat
  3. Spend your points

Your record

Profile › Stats keeps your record across every hero: sessions played, turns taken, your dice (natural 20s and 1s), and the heroes who fell.

Achievements come in five tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Prismatic. Families of achievements show your next goal and how close you are.

Your record: every roll and achievement across your characters.

Your record: every roll and achievement across your characters.

  1. Show all characters or one
  2. Your totals
  3. Your d20 across every roll
  4. Achievements closest to the next tier
Chapter 5

Shops and coin

Where to spend your coin, and how to talk the price down.

Shops

Towns have shops. Open one from a location, or from the shop drawer on the play page when your party is somewhere with a merchant. Buy what's on the shelf, or sell from your gear for part of its value. Shops are open in 5th Edition campaigns today.

Standing in a shop, open the drawer to buy without leaving the table.

Standing in a shop, open the drawer to buy without leaving the table.

  1. Your purse
  2. Buy
  3. Haggle

Haggling

Try Persuade or Intimidate before you buy. A good roll lowers prices for this visit. A bad one raises them, and intimidation can sour the shopkeeper toward you.

Win the haggle and prices drop for this visit.

Win the haggle and prices drop for this visit.

  1. The roll
  2. The old and new price

Party treasury

In Discord, a party can pool coin in a shared treasury (chapter 9).

Chapter 6

Running a game

For DMs: making a campaign, steering the story, and the tools on the play page and the GM dashboard.

Your role

In Questwright, the Game Master narrates and you steer. You set the campaign's premise and tone, keep secrets, voice NPCs when you want to, and decide the moments that matter. The story runs even when you step back.

Making a campaign

Campaigns › New walks you through:

  • the system;
  • Multiplayer or Solo;
  • the setting and starting location;
  • a starting date (the season follows from it);
  • a villain;
  • leveling by XP or milestones.

The custom campaign builder lets you write your own module. Save drafts as you go, and submit a finished module to the community shelf.

Campaigns can be exported to a .qw file, as a template (a fresh start) or a full save (everything so far); you choose when you export, and importing follows the file. Reset and Delete live in the campaign's Danger Zone.

Steering the story

Start a message with DM: to give the Game Master a direction it must follow, like "DM: the storm arrives tonight". Players see it in the feed, so keep secrets in Secrets. The campaign's DM Instructions hold standing guidance for the whole game.

The GM panel (play page)

  • Pause and Resume
  • Time skip and Scene change
  • Quick events: Combat!, Discovery, or a custom event
  • Speak as NPC
  • NPCs and Secrets, added on the spot
The GM panel on the play page (test campaign).

The GM panel on the play page (test campaign).

  1. Pause and Resume
  2. Redo the last response
  3. Quick events
  4. Speak as an NPC

The GM dashboard

The full dashboard holds:

  • session controls, secrets and scenes;
  • NPCs, including striking one the story made up by mistake, so they stop coming back;
  • the party and milestone level-ups;
  • companions and travel bonds;
  • rulings you've made, so they stay consistent;
  • NPC voices;
  • conditions and rules, such as disadvantage handling and manual rolling;
  • the Danger Zone.
Heads-upIn a solo campaign you are both player and Game Master. The GM tools warn you before showing you secrets meant for the Game Master.

Maps

The Maps tab on the play page shows where the story is, at three scales: World, Region and Local. World maps show regions, roads and travel times. Drag to pan and scroll to zoom, or use the + and − buttons.

The world your players meet

  • Calendar: days pass as the story moves. Fantasy tables keep the Questwright calendar, with festivals like Hearthfast and the Vigil of Stars. Spacewright keeps Concord Standard time.
  • Weather and seasons follow the calendar and the region.
  • Travel: routes take time.
  • Factions remember what the party did; your standing with each is on the campaign's factions page.
Chapter 7

Game systems

What changes from one system to the next. Two are open today; more are being built, and each appears here when it opens.

5th Edition

Classic fantasy.

5th Edition: hit points and Armor Class.

5th Edition: hit points and Armor Class.

  1. The numbers that matter
  • Rolls: a d20 plus your bonus; advantage and disadvantage roll two.
  • Health: hit points, temporary hit points and death saves.
  • Defence: Armor Class.
  • Levels: 1 to 20, by XP or milestones.
  • Rests: short and long, with Hit Dice.
  • Look-ups: the rules reference covers this system's monsters, spells and magic items (chapter 10).
Chapter 8

Voice narration

Have the story read aloud, with a voice for every NPC.

Listening

Turn voice on from the play page header. The Game Master's narration is then read aloud as it arrives. The setting is remembered for each campaign, on this browser only.

Turn narration on or off for this browser.

Turn narration on or off for this browser.

  1. Voice

NPC voices

Each NPC gets a voice that suits them and keeps it, so you'll know who's talking.

Your hero's voice

Choose how your hero sounds in the Voice step of creation, or later under Edit character › Voice on the sheet.

Give your character a voice and a speed, and hear a sample.

Give your character a voice and a speed, and hear a sample.

  1. Voice
  2. Preview
For DMsSet each NPC's voice on the NPCs page, and the narrator's voice and speed from the GM dashboard.
Chapter 9

Account and Discord

Your profile and privacy, your data, and playing from Discord.

Your profile

Profile has six sections:

  • Profile: your name, bio and favorite genres, with a preview of your public page.
  • Account: sign-in methods and linked accounts.
  • Privacy: what's public.
  • Plan (when plans are available)
  • Notifications
  • Preferences: the site language.

Playing across languages

Questwright's menus and pages come in 13 languages. Pick yours under Profile > Preferences. The narrator writes in the campaign's narrator language, one per campaign, which the GM sets in the campaign settings.

Playing with friends who speak different languages? Pick one narrator language for the campaign (English works best). Then each player turns on their browser's built-in page translation to read everything in their own language. You can usually type your actions and dialogue in your own language too. The narrator understands and answers in the campaign's language.

To turn translation on:

  • Chrome: right-click the page and choose Translate, or use the translate icon in the address bar.
  • Edge: use the translate icon in the address bar.
  • Firefox: use the translate icon in the address bar (Firefox 118 or newer).
  • Safari: use the translate icon in the address bar, or the Aa menu.
  • Phones: in Chrome, open the three-dot menu and choose Translate. In Safari, tap Aa and choose Translate.
Good to knowBrowser translation can change NPC and place names, and it may translate text again as the narrator's reply streams in. If a name looks wrong, check it with translation off. Native translation for every player is coming.

Privacy and your public page

Six switches decide what others see: whether your profile is visible at all, and whether it shows your stats, your achievements, your characters, your natural 1s and your character deaths. Your public page shows only what you allow.

Privacy & data: choose what your public profile shows.

Privacy & data: choose what your public profile shows.

  1. Six switches: profile, characters, achievements, statistics, natural 1s, death count
  2. Tap a switch to hide that part

Terms and privacy updates

When the Terms or Privacy Policy change, you'll be asked to accept the new version the next time you sign in.

Your data and deleting your account

Deleting your account is in Profile › Privacy and takes three steps:

  1. See what will be removed. Each campaign you run with other players in it shows one player to hand it to. Tick it to hand the campaign over; any campaign you leave unticked is deleted.
  2. Confirm.
  3. Type your username and prove it's you.

Nothing is deleted until the last step.

Arcane Dust and your plan

Arcane Dust is what powers play. The meter on the play page shows what's left. If it runs out, you can buy a pack or change your plan from Profile › Plan.

Playing in Discord

The web is the main way to play, and Discord works too. Link your Discord account from Profile › Account. The essentials:

/registerMake or bring a hero to this channel's campaign
/claim-character web_username:Link a web hero to Discord
/say /doSpeak or act
/roll 1d20+5Roll dice
/check /saveMake a check or save, with advantage or disadvantage
/attack attack_type:Attack (melee, ranged, finesse or spell), optionally at a target
/hold /goQueue with your party, then send; a queue sends itself after two minutes
/partyTalk to your party without the Game Master answering
/sheet /inventory /gold /treasuryYour hero, gear, coin and the party treasury
/shopVisit a shop
/askdm /lookup monster name:Ask a rules question or look something up
/bug-reportReport a problem
Link Discord to sign in with it and use your characters there.

Link Discord to sign in with it and use your characters there.

  1. Link Discord
Chapter 10

Help and feedback

Rules questions, bug reports, and where to find other players.

Ask the GM

Signed in, the Ask Questwright button on any page answers rules questions. The rules reference covers 5th Edition monsters, spells and magic items.

Report a bug

Use Report a bug in the footer, or /bug-report in Discord. On Discord, the channel, server and campaign are attached for you, so describe what you did and what you expected.

On the web, pick a category and how much it hurts, then say what happened. While you type, Already reported? shows matching open bugs; press Me too on one instead of filing a duplicate. The Known bugs page lists every report with how many players it affects.

Community

Join the guild on Discord to meet other players, find a table, and hear what's coming next.

Join the Discord