D&D Battle Assets · Personal project
Built for Both Halves of the Table
A dungeon master running a table of total beginners and seasoned veterans at once, and one interface that had to work for both.
A progressive disclosure and multi-tier user challenge: one set of battle assets serving both first-time players and seasoned veterans at a live D&D table, without compromising either experience.
The Hook
Half my table had never heard of “HP” or even “mages” before. The other half were seasoned gamers and D&D enthusiasts. As a first-time DM and professional product designer, I wanted to create assets to enrich our sessions while also making a classically complex system more approachable for gaming newbies.
Problem Statement
New players at the table need to know what they can do on their turn, and how, without freezing up or asking for help every time — losing track of the mechanics was pulling them straight out of the roleplay they came for.
Experienced players need full visibility into HP, conditions, and their complete ability set, and an interface built for beginners was slowing them down.
As the DM, I needed every piece of mechanical and campaign information in one place, because switching between three sources mid-encounter broke the story’s pacing every time.
User Needs
- Know what I can do on my turn without asking for help
- Know when and how to act outside my turn — reactions, counterspells — without missing the window
- See HP, conditions, and my full ability set without an interface built for someone newer than me
- Get every mechanical and campaign detail from one place, without breaking the story to go find it
The Tension
Simple enough that someone who’s never touched a d20 can follow it unassisted. Complete enough that someone with a decade of tabletop experience never feels like information is being hidden from them. Both requirements are real, and they pull in opposite directions by default. Also, as a DM, I need to be able to run a session live and ensure my players have the information they need in order to stay immersed and engaged.
The Approach
- Player character cards — A layered structure where the top layer is everything a new player needs to act on their turn, with the character's full ability set underneath for anyone who wants it. An improvement on the classic D&D character sheet which is famously difficult to discern.
- An initiative tracker — Full turn-order visibility, so players can prepare for their turn instead of getting caught off guard.
- An enemy tracker — The same layered structure as the PC cards, scaled down to HP, status, and key abilities.
- A battle map prototype template — One consistent structure across encounters, so the table isn't relearning a new layout every session.
The Prototype
The Outcome
- These assets ran at the table for the first time, and they worked exactly as intended
- New players stayed inside the story instead of stalling on mechanics, with the information they needed for each section placed neatly right in front of them
- Experienced players had what they needed without a beginner-facing interface slowing them down
- A few specific improvements surfaced from actually watching it in play, and those are feeding directly into the next pass
- The plan now: take what one successful session proved out and formalize it into a real system, rather than treat a good first run as the finish line
Working with Claude as a Creative Partner
The place Claude has actually earned trust on this project isn’t generating story content — but tracking it.
A living D&D campaign accumulates branching storylines, half-decisions, and versions of the world that shift as actual play changes what’s canon. This is where Claude comes in to help me keep track of where in the world we are, what has changed, where we’re headed, and how decisions affect the game world.
Claude is useful as a brainstorm partner for finding an angle I’m missing, and as a continuity-keeper across that branching history.
You can’t replace human creativity. Claude can help tease out ideas but should not be expected to help generate actual storylines.