Play-by-post, purpose-built.
Every PbP group knows the drill: Discord channel, Google Doc character sheet, dice bot, shared Drive folder for lore, and a prayer that the campaign lasts more than three months. Convoke puts it all in one place — because play-by-post deserves a real platform.
No credit card. 5e today, more systems coming.
Why PbP campaigns die
The three killers of play-by-post campaigns.
1. Momentum loss
Someone does not post for a week. Then two weeks. Then the campaign is dead and nobody officially ends it.
2. Organizational chaos
The lore is in pins nobody can find. The character sheets are in a Google Doc that has not been updated since session 3. The NPC the party met four months ago? Scroll up 10,000 messages.
3. Tool friction
You are running a campaign across Discord, D&D Beyond, Google Docs, a dice bot, and Doodle. Every new player needs a 20-minute onboarding just to find the right channels.
Convoke fixes all three. One platform. Everything connected. Nothing lost.
Built for PbP
Built for the way play-by-post actually works.
IC/OOC that never bleeds
Dedicated in-character and out-of-character channels with visual distinction. Tone tags set the atmosphere of each post. No more "wait, was that in character?"
Inline everything
Dice rolls embedded in your narrative post. No switching to a bot. No "!roll 1d20+5" breaking immersion. Roll, write, post.
GM as NPC
When the GM speaks as an NPC, the avatar changes. The tavern keeper talks like a tavern keeper. The dragon talks like a dragon. Players always know who they are hearing.
Whispers that work
Pass a note to one player. The GM always sees it. Everyone else does not. Perfect for secret backstory reveals, pickpocket attempts, or private conversations.
Push notifications by scene
Get notified when it is your turn in the active scene. Mute the campaign-wide OOC when you are busy. Granular controls so the app respects your time.
Lore that grows with the campaign
After 6 months of PbP, you have generated a novel's worth of worldbuilding. Convoke's lore wiki captures it all — searchable, linked, and with per-player knowledge.
The end of manual bookkeeping
The single biggest chore in play-by-post is the GM tracking gold, purchases, and rewards by hand across thousands of messages. Convoke's in-world shops and quest boards do it for you: players buy from curated shops with the coin math handled server-side, and finished quests pay out XP, coin, and loot automatically. Nothing to add up, nothing forgotten two sessions later.
- Curated shops with automatic, server-checked coin math
- Quest boards that pay out XP, coin, and items on completion
- No gold ledgers, no forgotten rewards
If you have played PbP before, you already know what to do.
Convoke feels familiar because it is built on the same principles that made forum-based and Discord-based PbP work. We just removed the parts that do not work.
Chat
What you do now
Discord channel + dice bot
What Convoke does instead
Integrated chat with inline dice
Sheets
What you do now
Google Doc character sheet
What Convoke does instead
Live 5e character sheet in the same app
Lore
What you do now
Pinned messages for lore
What Convoke does instead
Searchable wiki with knowledge levels
Activity
What you do now
"Who is still alive?" roll call
What Convoke does instead
Activity tracking and push notifications
Reference
What you do now
Scattered reference docs
What Convoke does instead
NPC library, scenario templates, media library
Looking for a PbP group?
Convoke's LFG board lets you filter by play style (PbP), system, tone, posting frequency, timezone, and content boundaries. Find a group that matches your pace.
Play-by-post deserves better tools.
Free in open beta. Start a campaign or find one.