Soundboard

Keep the sounds for a tavern, journey, or encounter together on a board. Each pad holds an audio file you can play with a click or tap from the GM Screen.

Boards belong to the world, so its campaign GMs can work with the same collection. Audio currently plays on This screen: the device where you press the pad.

Build a board

Open Soundboard in the GM Screen's Media cabinet. Choose New board (the plus icon beside the board's name), give it a name that makes sense at the table, choose its columns and rows, and select Save board. For an existing board, choose Edit board (the pencil icon) to reach these controls; it becomes Done editing while you work.

Choose Add sound to fill the next empty pad with audio from your own vault or a new upload. Uploads appear in your vault too, so you can reuse them on another board. While editing, select a pad to open Edit sound.

• Label — the name you want to see during play.
• Mode — play the sound once, or loop it until you stop it.
• Repeat at random intervals — for a sound that plays once, such as thunder or crows. Set the shortest and longest gap in seconds. Pressing the pad plays it now, then again after a random gap in that range, until you press it again or use Stop all. Between plays the pad shows Waiting and stays in Now playing.
• Volume — set the sound's starting level relative to your other pads.
• Fade — choose no fade, a short fade, or a long fade.
• Group — Effect, Ambience or Music. Starting a Music pad fades out any music already playing, from any board, so one track hands over to the next. Ambience and effects play alongside everything else. Music and ambience pads show a small note or wave icon.
• Cover art — add an image to help you recognize the sound at a glance.
• Hotkey — reserve a number for the pad. Press that number while the pad is visible in the GM Screen. Existing GM Screen shortcuts take priority.

Variations give one pad up to eight sounds: its own and seven more. Each press plays one of them at random, never the same one twice running, so a door creak or a sword clash doesn't sound identical every time. In Edit sound, choose Add a variation to pick another sound from your vault, or Remove to drop one. These changes save right away. A pad with variations shows how many sounds it holds, such as ×3.

Choose Save sound, then Done editing when you are ready to play.

Moods

A mood saves the sounds that set a scene, such as a storm at sea or a crowded tavern, so you can bring them all back with one press. Start the looping and repeating sounds you want, at the levels you want, then choose Save mood under the board's volume controls and give it a name. Sounds that play once aren't saved.

Choose a mood to play it. Sounds that aren't in the mood fade out, and the mood's sounds fade in at their saved levels; anything already playing stays and moves to its level. Moods include sounds from every board in the world. A pad you press yourself afterwards plays at its own volume again. To remove a mood, choose Edit board, then the × beside it.

Moods can also start on their own. Choose Edit board, then:

• Play when combat starts — pick a mood to play when you start combat on the GM Screen. When combat ends, the sounds that were playing before it come back.
• Mood for “scene” — appears while a session scene is active. Pick the mood that plays whenever you activate that scene. If you activate a scene during combat, its mood waits and plays when combat ends.

Keep controls nearby

On a wide screen, choose Float soundboard to move the board out of Media. Drag its heading, or focus Move soundboard and use the arrow keys. The Collapse chevron keeps compact playback controls visible; Expand restores the board, and the Dock icon returns it to Media. Narrow screens keep the board in Media.

Shared media panel

The placement controls use icons: an outward arrow to Float or Detach, chevrons to Collapse or Expand, and a side-panel icon to Dock. Hover over a control to see its name. With shared media panels enabled, the Audio Player and Soundboard use these same controls, and Float sits in each section's heading in Media. A floating Audio Player keeps to playback: track, position, skip, play or pause, and volume. Dock it to change, embed, remove or disconnect its source. Floating both joins them in one Media panel. Choose Detach on either section to keep two separate panels; Combine brings them together again.

Each section can collapse or dock on its own. The Media heading can collapse or dock both together. Collapsing keeps playback running, and moving between panels keeps your board edits. On narrow screens, both return to Media; widening the screen restores your floating arrangement.

The Audio group in keyboard shortcuts lets you assign board toggle, Stop all and Mute. Stop all and Mute need a modifier key, such as Ctrl, Command or Alt, so they remain safe to use while browsing the world.

Upload audio

Supported uploads include MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, AAC, M4A, and WebM audio, up to 200 MB per file. Uploads count toward your account's storage allowance.

If an upload offers Retry saving, use it to finish saving that file. Keep the editor open while you retry. A browser may accept an audio format for upload but be unable to play it; try MP3 if a sound does not play on your device.

Arrange your pads

In edit mode, select a pad and find Move or swap. Choose a target row and column, then select Move sound. Moving it onto an occupied position swaps the two sounds. Save any changes to the pad's settings before moving it.

Shrinking the grid keeps the pads outside its visible area. The board shows how many sounds sit outside the grid; expand it again to reach them, or use Show sounds outside the grid while editing to move one back. Removing a pad does not remove its audio file from your vault.

Play and stop sounds

Leave edit mode, then press a pad to start its sound. Press a playing pad again to stop it. You can combine sounds, such as a looping rain track and a single thunder effect.

Use the slim Volume slider below each pad to balance that sound against the others. Hover over it to see its percentage, which is saved for future plays. Adjusting the slider does not start or stop the sound.

Turn on Duck music, the music-note button beside Edit board, to lower music pads while an effect plays, so a door slam or a roar cuts through; the music comes back up when the effect ends. Ambience is left alone. The choice is saved on this device.

Use This screen volume to adjust the overall level. Mute silences this screen while keeping the sounds running, and Stop all ends the sounds together. During the fade, the button changes to Cut now if you need silence immediately.

Sound continues as you browse other pages and articles within the same world. The floating player keeps playback controls nearby outside the GM Screen. Leaving the world or reloading the page stops this screen's sound; pausing the session does not.

Control sound while browsing

Expand the floating sound player to see each playing sound. Use its Volume slider to balance an individual sound, Restart to play it from the beginning, or Stop to end it. Collapse the player to keep its main controls nearby. On wide screens, Move to right or Move to left changes the corner it uses. The player stays out of the way while a phone drawer or keyboard is open, or a map drawer leaves too little room. Close the drawer or widen the window to bring it back.

A second tab in the same browser can show sounds playing in another tab of the same world. Those rows say Other tab. The player's Stop all and Mute all sounds controls, including their assigned shortcuts, control the sounds shown across these tabs. Mute other tab affects only that tab. Closing the tab that started a sound ends that sound and removes its row.

After Stop all, choose Undo while it is offered to start those sounds again from the beginning. After a page reload, choose Resume to restart saved loops, or Dismiss to leave them stopped. Sounds that were removed or replaced are not restarted. If the player cannot check the saved sounds, it keeps the offer so you can try again.

Missing sounds

A pad marked Sound missing has lost its vault file. Edit the pad to choose a replacement, or remove the pad. A GM can adjust a shared pad without owning its original file, but any replacement must come from that GM's own vault.