A Second Brain for GMs: Designing a Smarter Worldbuilding Experience
Helping Game Masters access campaign details instantly through live search, auto-linked creations, and customizable detail pages.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Second Mind is a lightweight, recall-first worldbuilding tool designed for Game Masters who prep digitally but run games in physical tabletop environments. As a GM, I struggled to find a tool that helped me quickly recall characters, items, and story details during live play. Existing apps were either too complex, too slow, or built for authors rather than GMs.
I created Second Mind to solve that gap: a fast, intuitive “second brain” that helps GMs stay organized and access information instantly, without disrupting the flow of their sessions.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Existing worldbuilding tools like World Anvil, Kanka, and Campfire Writing are designed for authors and long-form storytellers, not for Game Masters running live tabletop sessions. While powerful, their interfaces are dense, feature-heavy, and require significant setup before they become useful. Navigating these tools mid-session is slow and disruptive, making it hard for GMs to quickly recall characters, items, or plot details on the fly.
Define
As I explored how to design a worldbuilding tool for in person Game Masters, I quickly identified several gaps that traditional platforms do not address. Live tabletop play requires immediate access to information, minimal navigation, and a workflow that supports improvisation rather than rigid templates. My focus became speeding up information retrieval, allowing worlds to grow naturally, and giving GMs control over how their information is organized.
These insights led to three core design directions for Second Mind: instant recall through search as you type, organic world growth without manual linking, and customizable creation layouts that reflect each GM’s unique needs. With these requirements defined, I began translating them into early wireframes to explore how the interface could bring these ideas to life.
Notable hurdles
One of the more challenging problems that emerged during design was determining how creations should nest under categories in a way that felt both flexible and intuitive. Game Masters often want specific types of content organized within broader categories, such as storing all weapons under Items and then sorting them further by weapon type.
To solve this, I introduced an explicit nesting option within the creation’s meta block. Instead of relying on rigid templates or automated assumptions, users can now choose exactly where a creation belongs and what it nests under. This approach keeps the categorization system clear and fully customizable while preserving the lightweight, search first experience. It gives Game Masters control over their taxonomy without requiring them to create deep hierarchical structures, striking a balance between organization and simplicity.