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Nodes

Everything you track in a NexusDM campaign is a node: one character, one place, one clue, each with its own values, connections and notes. A new campaign starts empty, and the nodes you add are what the rest of the app works with: the map, the DM screen and search all show nodes.

What a node represents

A node is one thing that matters at the table. The presets that come with NexusDM suggest the usual kinds:

  • Player characters: the heroes, with their player’s name and their status.
  • NPCs: the people your players meet, with their occupations and motivations.
  • Locations: places to explore, from a whole port down to a single tavern.
  • Clues: what the players can find, and whether each has been given yet.
  • Scenes: the moments you’ve prepared, such as an ambush or a midnight vigil.
  • Groups: guilds, crews, families and factions.

None of these is built in. If your campaign is about ships, a ship can be a node too, with its captain, its crew and its cargo.

Node types are the templates

Every node has a node type, the template for that kind of node. A node type has a name and its fields: the values every node of the type can hold, such as a ship’s Captain or Crew. Every node also has a name of its own, so a type needs no field for it.

You set up node types before you add nodes, either from the ready-made presets or by building your own. They live under the Entities tab: each type is listed down the side, and choosing one shows its fields and a table of its nodes.

The Entities tab with the NPC node type open: the node types down the side, the NPC type's fields, and its table of NPCs

Campaign-level and module nodes

A campaign is split into modules, such as one adventure or one stretch of a long campaign. Each node belongs either to one module or to none:

  • A module node belongs to one module and is seen only there. A clue that only matters in one adventure belongs in that adventure’s module.
  • A campaign-level node belongs to no module, so every module of the campaign sees it. Your player characters, a recurring villain or the city they always return to belong here.

The table above shows both: the Scope column says Campaign for a campaign-level NPC and names the module for a module NPC. When you’re not sure, ask whether a later module will need the node. If it will, make it campaign-level.

Where nodes show up

Once your nodes exist, they appear throughout the app:

  • Their type’s table, under the Entities tab, where you can sort them, filter them and edit them in bulk.
  • The map of each module, which draws the module’s nodes and the campaign-level ones, joined by their connections.
  • The DM screen, whose panels can list nodes, for example as a table or a turn order.
  • Search, which finds nodes by their name, their text fields and their notes.
The Harbour Watch's map: the module's nodes and the campaign-level ones, joined by their connections

Choosing your node types

Before you build a type, decide whether the thing you have in mind needs to be one:

  • A node type for things you’ll connect to other nodes, place on the map or want listed in a table of their own. Ships, factions and locations usually are.
  • A field for something you’d record about a node. A ship’s status (in port, at sea, lost) is a Choice field on the Ship type, not a type of its own.
  • A tag for a loose label you’d like to put on nodes of several types, such as “Act 2” or “red herring”.

If you find yourself making a node type with no fields that you never connect to anything, it was probably meant to be a tag.

More that nodes can do

Nodes have more to them, each covered in its own section later:

  • Connections link two nodes, such as a clue that points to a location, and they draw the lines on the map.
  • Tags label nodes across types, and map filters can pick nodes by their tags.
  • Notes hold longer writing about a node, such as its history or your plans for it.
  • Story beats are moments of your story. Each belongs to a module or to one node, and links to the nodes it involves.
  • Behaviours let DM screen panels use a type’s fields, such as ordering the turn order by initiative.

In this section

The rest of the Nodes section covers each part in turn: