June update: GM 101 @ GenCon, new features + new party members

Written By Avery Rosen

  • Happening in NYC and at GenCon: FREE GM 101 workshops to help new GMs get their feet wet

  • Major updates to Campaign Composer that make it easier to organize and access campaign assets

  • Join our new community Discord where we talk shop and get early access to help us make Campaign Composer more inclusive and amazing

  • Fond farewells and warm welcomes

Try your hand at GMing with a coach

You can read and watch all the game master content you like, but for many people — especially “nervous novices” who aren’t sure they’re ready — the best way to learn is to start playing. Enter GM 101, a hands-on workshop to coach would-be GMs through a quick and easy dungeon crawl. 

With the help of our fun and friendly coaches, you’ll practice running a supportive table right alongside other new GMs just like you. Register for a session and stay tuned for updates as we expand the GM 101 program to a game store or con near you:

Major organizational enhancements to Campaign Composer

  1. Over the past few months, we’ve polished the UI, added a compact menu bar to non-MacOS platforms, and introduced several new features we’re really pumped about:

folder management campaign composer bringing fire

2. The ability to add and switch between multiple campaigns.

campaign composer multiple support bringing fire

3. “Entities” to house assets related to aspects of your campaign. 

For instance, you can add a town called “Seven Springs” as an Entity, then add related pages, maps, images, and links in a convenient pull-down drawer for easy access:

  • Did your players just enter the town? Fire up a map and/or link to an ambient playlist. 

  • Wizard asking about the town’s history? BAM! Pull up the town crest and fulfill that history check like a boss.

seven springs campaign composer entity update

Additionally, we’re working on a flexible window that provides a space for you to start prepping your next session during your game.

TTRPG pre stream future updarte campaign composer bringing fire

A new adventure for Stephanie

Last month, our former COO Stephanie Erwin began a new role as Vice President of Strategy, Impact & People at the American Sustainable Business Network. We’re sad to see such an instrumental part of Bringing Fire go, but this new opportunity is bound to bring them closer to their dream job in sustainability and environmental policy. Congratulations, Stephanie!

That said, we’re thrilled to announce two new additions to the BF team!

Bill White joins us as Head of Education to build a GM Academy offering practical, hands-on education for GMs. Bill is a professor of communications at Penn State and incorporates the study of TRPGs (they only use one "T" in academia!) into his scholarship. Fire-bringer Brennan introduced us at PAX Unplugged after discussing GM 101 — turns out Bill had already run a similar workshop of his own!


Software Engineer Jano Roze and I hit it off at a holiday party this past December. Not only was he running a D&D game for the host's daughter and her friends, he was looking for a new project. You can thank Jano for some of the new features we’ve rolled out, but he's more than a pair of coding hands. He quickly impressed us with his ambition, initiative, and good judgment; we knew right away we could trust him with sensitive things like setting up our Discord and researching community influencers for outreach.

That’ll do for now, Fire-bringers. As always, we love to hear from you, so hit us up at any of the links below, and until the next update, may all your sessions be epic!

Help Bringing Fire grow!

Avery Rosen
Previous

Learning from GM 101
Next

Introducing GM101, a hands-on workshop for novice GMs