Build a campaign home note, then organize campaign material into a small set of folders for sessions, characters, locations, quests, factions, and templates. Link session notes to the people and places they involve, and use a few consistent properties to make recurring note types easy to search. Obsidian does not require a particular RPG layout; this is a practical starting point you can adapt.
Start with a campaign home note and a small folder structure
Create one note that acts as the campaign’s navigation hub. From it, link to the next session, party roster, major locations, open quests, factions, house rules, and GM planning. Keep the top level compact so you can find material quickly during preparation or play.
Campaign Name/
Campaign Home.md
Sessions/
PCs/
NPCs/
Locations/
Quests/
Factions/
Items/
Templates/
Maps and Handouts/This resembles the folder categories in the Campaign Codex community plugin listing, which is an example to adapt rather than an official Obsidian standard. Add a folder only when it solves a recurring retrieval problem; an elaborate world encyclopedia is not a prerequisite.
Choose between a separate vault and a campaign folder
Obsidian defines a vault as a folder on your local file system. It holds notes, attachments, and Obsidian-specific settings; notes themselves are Markdown-formatted plain-text files. You can create a new vault or open an existing folder. See Obsidian’s guides to creating a vault, how data is stored, and managing vaults.
#1 Best Overall
- Ultimate 5e Player's Journal for D&D Campaigns: Take your Dungeons & Dragons experience to the next level with this expertly designed Player’s Journal, tailored specifically for 5e campaigns. With a detailed layout, it enables both beginner and veteran players to meticulously track every facet of their character's journey, from creation to campaign’s end.
- Track Spells, Equipment, and Character Stats: Keep everything you need in one place with dedicated sections for spell tracking, equipment management, and character stats. The journal ensures you’ll always have the critical information at your fingertips when planning your next move or leveling up.
- Massive Notes Section for In-Game Details: Stay organized during sessions with a generous notes section that allows you to jot down key details, NPC interactions, quests, and important developments. Never forget a plot twist or character moment with this essential tool for detailed campaign tracking.
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| Approach | Best fit | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Dedicated vault for each campaign | You want a distinct workspace, independent settings, or a clear boundary between campaigns. | Campaign material is isolated from shared notes and references in other vaults. |
| Campaign folder in an existing vault | You want one search space and easy access to shared rules references or notes. | Campaign content lives alongside the rest of that vault’s material. |
These are workflow choices, not rules imposed by Obsidian. Whichever layout you use, keep GM-only planning clearly separated from anything you intend to share with players.
Use templates and properties for recurring note types
Create templates for the notes you make repeatedly: sessions, characters, locations, quests, and factions. Obsidian properties support types such as text, list, number, checkbox, date, date and time, and tags. Templates can contain properties and merge them into a note. The official Properties guide explains the feature.
Rank #2
- Ultimate 5e Player's Journal for D&D Campaigns: Take your Dungeons & Dragons experience to the next level with this expertly designed Player’s Journal, tailored specifically for 5e campaigns. With a detailed layout, it enables both beginner and veteran players to meticulously track every facet of their character's journey, from creation to campaign’s end.
- Track Spells, Equipment, and Character Stats: Keep everything you need in one place with dedicated sections for spell tracking, equipment management, and character stats. The journal ensures you’ll always have the critical information at your fingertips when planning your next move or leveling up.
- Massive Notes Section for In-Game Details: Stay organized during sessions with a generous notes section that allows you to jot down key details, NPC interactions, quests, and important developments. Never forget a plot twist or character moment with this essential tool for detailed campaign tracking.
- Stylish Art and Design for a Personal Touch: Not just functional, this journal features stylish art throughout, adding personality and flair to your character’s story. It’s a practical tool that also looks great on the table, adding an extra layer of immersion to your gaming experience.
- Multiple Color Options and Portable Size: Available in Black, Blue, Green, Orange, Yellow, Purple, and Red (one color per pack), these journals are compact and portable at 5.63" x 8.27" x 0.59". Bring it to every session with ease and combine with our 5e DM’s Journals for full campaign tracking power for the entire group.
Possible fields below are organizational suggestions, not a prescribed Obsidian schema. Keep only fields you will actually use for search, filtering, or consistency.
| Note type | Possible properties |
|---|---|
| Session | type, date, status, party, locations, open_threads |
| NPC | type, faction, location, status, first_appearance |
| Location | type, region, faction, status |
| Quest | type, status, patron, related_locations, next_step |
Connect session notes to recurring campaign entities
Link each session note to the relevant PCs, NPCs, locations, factions, and quests. This gives you direct paths from a session to related campaign material without requiring a complex database. When a recurring character or location changes, update its own note rather than copying the same facts into several session records.
Rank #3
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For visual brainstorming, relationship diagrams, or arranging map references, Obsidian Canvas can hold cards that refer to notes as well as text-only cards. Canvas data is stored in .canvas files using the JSON Canvas format. One useful limitation to know: text-only Canvas cards do not appear in Backlinks; convert a card to a file if it needs to function as a note with backlinks. See the Canvas documentation. Canvas is optional—ordinary notes and links are enough for a functional campaign vault.
Add campaign automation only when it solves a real need
Campaign Codex is a community plugin listing for running campaigns in Obsidian. It describes an initialization command that creates campaign folders and templates, along with entity and session-management features. The listing also identifies Templater for customizable prompts and Dataview for advanced queries. These are optional community tools, not requirements for the folder-and-link approach above. The listing is a plugin description, not independent evidence of reliability or universal compatibility.
Quick Recap
Best Value
- Two 64-Page Character Journals
- Books measure 4.75" x 7.5"
- Pages contain fields for game information, character data, and level-by-level notes
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