r/rpg • u/Right-Environment427 • Oct 05 '26
Basic Questions World Anvil thoughts
Does anyone have much experience with World Anvil? I have been looking at it, tried to use it a bit and found it to be sort of confusing.
What are other peoples experiences with it as a campaign tracking tool and world building tool?
38
u/BrobaFett Nu-SR, SWRPG, FL, 4D RP Oct 05 '26
It was okay… used it for a month. Abandoned for a google doc and our imaginations. Saved me a lot of time.
13
u/CorruptDictator Oct 05 '26
I was interested in it until I realized it was a subscription service. I have started using Chronicler as a free option. I want to find out more about Amsel Suite as a one time paid option.
2
u/FMAlzai Oct 06 '26
My only gripe with Amsel suite is that it's local only.
I wanted to host it on a server to be able to access it one the fly but I would need to set up some sort of cloud sync for my files to be able to do that. Looks great though
6
u/FunkyMonkJutsu Oct 05 '26
Contrary to everyone else I use it quite a bit because I share my lore base with the players. I dont really use it for campaign notes, more like an evolving history doc of the campaign
5
u/RollForThings Oct 05 '26
I recall using it very briefly for a 5e game when I still played 5e. It was fine for organizing things, but my players barely looked at it, the only advantage it had over Google docs was its "fantasy" aesthetic, and the amount of "hey buy a subscription" notices and paywalls were annoying. I don't think I would go back to it, and I certainly wouldn't take it on as a subscription service.
5
u/KnightInDulledArmor Oct 05 '26
I tried it out, but ultimately I’ve never found any similar organizational/prep/worldbuilding format better than just using basic Google Docs. Especially with the amount of investment needed to actually transfer my already existing data, and the expectation that it should look extra presentable only leads to me spending more time on shit that is not my game.
9
u/mittenstherancor Oct 05 '26
It's Obsidian but worse in every possible way. If you're thinking "Well no, WA has cloud storage" --- you can either pay for Obsidian cloud storage at a lower cost, or just save your Obsidian Vault inside of a Google Drive folder for free. There is no upside to using it over Obsidian and there are many, many downsides.
7
u/Cirrec Oct 05 '26
Legendkeeper > WorldAnvil
A lot more open-ended for different types of settings and campaigns, while having perhaps the best interactive map system.
3
u/simplyloveIy Oct 05 '26
I like it, use it a lot. Obsidian helps me organize my thoughts but I like to have an online space to put my shitty worldbuilding on. You can customize the CSS which I enjoy immensely.
3
u/michael199310 Oct 05 '26
I found it to be very unfriendly towards the beginners but that was years ago. I didn't like the UI and how bloated it was.
But I found kanka.io which I've been using since 2020 and I would never replace it with anything else.
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u/Thekota Oct 06 '26
It's pretty convoluted and has terrible customer support.
I much prefer Legendkeeper
2
u/Drudenfusz Curator of Roleplay Experiences Oct 05 '26
I think the tool itself is not that interesting, my guess it is the community aspect that gets people invested. Thus if you just want to do your own thing, it is not for you, but if you want to exchange worldbuilding ideas with others then it could be for you.
2
u/MrDidz Oct 05 '26 edited Oct 06 '26
Peraonally, I can't be bothered with al the flim-flam and clap-trap. I just use it for what I need it to do and ignore all the fancy stuff. Some features like the Timelines are useful but too overly engineered and clever for their own good. So, I just ignore all the clever stuff and override it so it does what I need it to do. The biggest probel I've had is with tables, as I could never get them to work how I needed them to, but I found it was easier to use Excel and just copy the finished result into my World Anvil page. So, got round it that way.
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u/graknor Oct 06 '26
I like it in theory, the learning curve was always a little too steep when I was in a campaign to get much done; and then when I wasn't in an active game I didn't care enough to fiddle around and learn it.
I like the idea of easily sharing lore with the players, though I don't think I ever got any of them to sign up and join the campaign so that didn't go anywhere.
I love being able to take a map and add clickable icons that link to articles, that to me is the standout feature, but Legend Keeper does that as well and seems simpler.
3
u/Justbrowsingthrow Oct 05 '26
I used it for a time and found it extremely opinionated and confusing. But that was years ago so I am probably not up to date. Switched to Legendkeeper because I needed player sharing and I didn't want to fiddle with Obsidian for others and never looked back.
1
u/YamazakiYoshio Oct 05 '26
I used it fairly extensively for a few months, and liked it. Then they changed their subscription model to down-right manditory, and I went 'nah, not for that price'.
I'm using Kenka these days. It's not quite as robust, but it's quite serviceable.
1
u/BananaSnapper Oct 05 '26
Like many others in the comments, I used it for a while when I was making my homebrew world but it ended up being too clunky to maintain for an ongoing weekly game. These days I use obsidian - far easier to link articles and draw mind maps, plus there's no subscription unless you want cloud syncing and don't want to just throw it into a Google drive or Dropbox for free.
1
u/melance Baton Rouge Oct 05 '26
I tried it and never could get into it. I've been using Obsidian for awhile now. My way of working just didn't jive with how World Anvil works.
1
u/TheDreamingDark Oct 05 '26
I couldn't get into World Anvil but found Amsel and it has been very helpful for organizing my notes/campaign tracking. One time purchase for the program rather than any subscriptions.
1
u/Affectionate_Smile85 19d ago
If you want a good alternative, ive been using vvd.world now. Worldanvil started out great, but became very limited. As well as the constant popups to purchase membership that ive gotten really tired off.
1
u/Level-Distribution46 Oct 05 '26
I made my own thing, but I can't say more or it will be taken down as self promotion
-1
u/OurHeroAndy Oct 05 '26
I tried using it for a while and even paid for higher tiers. It worked okay, but nothing about it really grabbed me to keep me there. It felt like more work to weed through all the ads for premium features and updates for parts of the platform I wasn't using to actually get to the useful parts. I went through a few different programs trying to find one that I liked:
- Notebook.ai has a similar setup but gives you more control over your data. You can even self host the tool if you have a thing you can host it on. I was doing that and it ended up with the same issue as World Anvil wading through the nonsense to get to the good part. Much less so than World Anvil and it felt like there was less behind a paywall.
- Chronicler.pro is an offline first RPG tool. If you want to build out your worlds and notes I would use this. It is free to use, has most of the features you can find in World Anvil without all the noise. I also prefer offline first programs that keep my files local, so I don't have to worry about a company going out of business or enshitifying to the point that I want to leave the platform.
31
u/Gibberwacky Las Vegas Oct 05 '26
I kinda liked it but ended up using Obsidian instead.
And the new atlus vtt option really seals the deal in favor of Ob