Share the player view

The player view is a read-only screen your players open on their own devices. It shows the turn order and the game log, and nothing else. You decide when it’s on and how much of a creature it gives away. This page covers sharing it, what your players see, and what stays with you.

It works without an account. Signing in lets you give the link a name you can remember.

Sharing the fight

The screen button sits in the top bar, between Sign in and the gear.

1. Click the screen button. A small box opens.
2. Click Start sharing. A green dot appears on the button while sharing is on, and the box shows your Link with two buttons beside it.
3. Click the copy button (two sheets) beside the link, and send the link to your players however you normally talk to them.
4. To see what your table sees, click the open button (an arrow leaving a box). The player view opens in a new tab.
5. When you’re done, open the box again and click Stop sharing.

Your players’ screens fill in as soon as you start. If someone opens the link first, it says it’s waiting and then fills in on its own. Nobody has to reload.

Reloading the console doesn’t interrupt them either: sharing picks up again on its own, and only stops when you press Stop sharing or close the tab.

Anyone with the link can watch

The link is the only thing protecting the view, so give it to your table and keep it off the public internet. Nobody can change anything through it: the player view has no buttons.

What your players see

Their screen has two side-by-side columns, which scroll separately so a long fight’s log never pushes the turn order out of sight. On a phone they stack, log underneath.

• The turn order — everyone in the fight, in initiative order, with their conditions and effects, who’s up, and which round you’re on.
• The game log — the running record of what happened.
• The clocks — how long the fight has taken, and how long it has run in the game.

Player characters always show in full: hit points, armor class, conditions, and death saves. Your table wrote those numbers down themselves. Anyone fighting alongside them shows in full too: a summoned wolf, a hired guard, a creature you’ve made an ally (see Allies).

How much of a creature they see is your call, in the settings covered below.

When a creature appears

Your players see the creatures when the fight starts, and not while you’re setting it up. Until you press Begin, their screen shows the party and nothing else, so lining up six ogres gives nothing away.

You can overrule that for any creature, either way:

1. Click the creature in the tracker.
2. In the controls beside its stat block, click Hide from players to hold it back, or Show to players to put it on their screen. The button always names what the click does, so it reads Show to players before the fight, when no creature is on their screen yet.

A creature you hold back is tagged Hidden on your own tracker, and anything it does stays out of your players’ log. A creature merely waiting for the fight to start isn’t tagged; it appears on its own when you press Begin.

A creature that arrives mid-fight follows your Creatures arriving mid-fight setting, so reinforcements can be held back by default and revealed when the party sees them.

When the fight ends, every creature leaves your players’ screen again, and anything you showed or hid during it goes back to normal. The next Begin puts them all back, so you never reveal the same creature twice.

What lands in their log

Everything that happens on the board, minus the dice a creature rolled:

They see	They don’t
A creature attacking, and whether it hit or missed	The dice, or its attack bonus
What a roll came to, and the damage it dealt	The dice that got there
Whether a creature saved or failed	Its save total, or its bonus
How much damage a creature took, or was healed	How many hit points it has
Conditions and effects landing and clearing, on anyone	—
Concentration starting and breaking	—
Spells being cast, by name	—
Turns, rounds, knockouts, deaths, and rests	—

A roll’s total is safe to show, because the dice and bonuses behind it stay unknown. A saving throw is the exception and shows no number at all: set against a difficulty class your table can work out, a save total would give the creature’s bonus away, so their screen says only saved or failed.

Damage always reaches them, whichever hit-point setting you use. The party watched the hit land, and the number they lost is theirs to know. What stays with you is how many hit points the creature had to begin with.

Legendary Resistance is never spoiled

A creature that fails a save and then spends Legendary Resistance shows your players Saved, and nothing before it. The outcome isn’t shared until you’ve settled it, so the table never reads a “Failed” that you then take back.

Two things never reach the player view, whatever you choose:

• Creature stat blocks — abilities, attacks, traits, and spells.
• Recharge rolls — whether a dragon got its breath weapon back.

When the fight ends

Your players see the same summary you do, for as long as you leave it open: the outcome, the experience earned, how long it took, and the standout hits. Their log clears at the same moment, ready for the next fight. Both are settings, covered next.

Choosing what they see

Click the gear at the top right, choose Settings, then the Player view tab. Every choice applies to every fight, and reaches your players’ screens straight away, mid-fight included. The full list of choices is in Settings & appearance. Four are worth explaining:

• Creature hit points → In words shows a creature as Healthy, Hurt, Bloodied, or Critical, without the number. Your players can tell the fight is going their way without counting hit points down to the last one.
• Creature rolls → Hidden takes the total off a creature’s attacks, saves, and checks. What happened stays: whether it hit or saved, and the damage it dealt.
• Creature conditions → Hidden takes the badges off a creature’s row, and the lines about conditions landing and clearing out of their log. Your players’ own characters keep theirs.
• Game log → This fight only starts their log fresh each time you press Begin and clears it when the fight ends. Yours keeps everything either way.

Naming the link

Without an account you get a link with a jumble of letters in it. It’s yours, it stays the same, and it’s kept in the browser you’re using.

Sign in and you can name it instead:

1. Click the screen button, then type a name in Name the link.
2. Click Save.

Use letters, numbers, and hyphens, something like tuesday-game. Names are first come, first served: if another Game Master has already taken one, OpenFray says so and your current link keeps working, so nothing breaks mid-session.

A named link follows your account, so it’s the same on your laptop and your tablet, and it’s still the same next week.

What isn’t saved

Nothing about the shared view is stored on a server. The board is passed to your players’ screens as it changes and kept nowhere, so:

• when you stop sharing, or close the tab, their screens say the Game Master has stepped away;
• there’s no history to scroll back through after the session;
• two Game Masters sharing at the same time never see each other’s fights.

Where to next

• Settings & appearance — every player-view choice and its default.
• The game log — what gets logged, and how to review it.
• End the fight — the summary your players see with you.
• The tracker — the same order, from your side.