OpenFray started as a scratchpad for one table and one Game Master. It now runs a fight end to end, so it is open to anyone who wants it: the console is a browser tab, it needs nothing installed, and it needs no account.
It is alpha, and the word is meant. Expect rough edges.
The fight itself
The console is one screen, three columns: everyone in the fight down the left, the selected creature’s stat block in the middle, its controls and the log on the right.
Click Begin and OpenFray asks for everyone’s initiative. It rolls the creatures and leaves the players blank for you to type what they rolled. From there, moving to the next turn does more than move a marker. Timed effects count themselves down and clear, creatures get their reaction back, recharge abilities roll to see whether they return, and a creature makes the saving throw that ends an effect at the start or the end of its turn, whichever you chose.
Turns are tracked by the creature rather than by its place in the list, so adding someone mid-fight or dragging a row to a new spot never loses whose turn it is. Nothing is deleted when it dies: a fallen creature stays in the order, grayed out and skipped, in case it comes back.
Effects are one thing, not two
This is the part OpenFray is built around. Whatever caused it, what lands on a creature is always one of a handful of shapes: a condition, advantage, disadvantage, a bonus or penalty, a reminder, or something a saving throw ends. OpenFray models those, and nothing else.
The useful consequence is that effects have two ends. An effect can sit on a creature and change the rolls that creature makes, or change the rolls made against it. So the barbarian’s Reckless Attack goes on the barbarian and grants advantage to whoever swings at them, and Vicious Mockery goes on the goblin and spoils the goblin’s next attack. Both are the same box, filled in differently, and both are worked into the roll when it happens.
Anything the app doesn’t know about becomes a reminder in your own words. It shows on the row until you clear it, and it applies nothing. You decide what it means.
What creatures have left to spend
A creature’s resources run down as you use them, and come back when they should: legendary actions and their per-round budget, legendary resistance with its separate in-lair count, recharge abilities, limited-use actions, spell uses counted per spell, and the one reaction each creature gets per round.
Spellcasting is live from the stat block. Click a spell and OpenFray fills in that creature’s save DC and attack bonus, spends the use, and routes the spell into the attack box or the group save. A concentration spell starts the caster concentrating, with a timer.
Rolling, and being trusted about it
Attacks resolve from the stat block: pick a target, roll to hit against its armor class, then apply damage that already accounts for what the target resists, is immune to, or is vulnerable to. Critical hits follow your table’s rule.
Group save is the fireball case: one saving throw, every target at once, each rolling its own die with its own bonus, Magic Resistance and Evasion worked in, and the damage applied in one step, full or half per creature. A creature with legendary resistance that fails can turn the failure into a success from the same box.
Every die goes through one place and lands in the log with its numbers showing. Nothing is rolled in secret and nothing is nudged: the dice use the browser’s cryptographic random generator, and there is no smoothing of streaks anywhere in the code. Real dice clump, so these do.
Players roll their own dice. Wherever OpenFray would roll for a creature, it asks you what the player got instead.
Your creatures, your table
The built-in compendium carries the SRD’s creatures and spells, searchable, with full stat blocks and spell cards. Beyond it:
- Build your own. A full stat-block editor for creatures and a card editor for spells. You give the ability scores and the challenge rating; OpenFray derives the attack bonuses, save and skill bonuses, and the spell save DC from them.
- Save your players. Build a character once, with armor class, hit points, abilities, defenses, senses, and private notes, then drop them into any fight instead of typing them again.
- Campaigns. Your table’s rulings, set once: critical hit damage, how surprise works, how creature hit points are rolled, and how initiative ties break. Every fight you run under that campaign uses them.
Signing in is optional
Everything above runs with no account. Your fight lives in the browser tab and survives a reload or a crash; closing the tab is what ends it, and OpenFray warns you first.
Sign in (free, with Discord or Google) and your fight, your creatures, your spells, your characters and your campaigns are saved to your account and follow you between devices. Nothing you did before signing in is thrown away.
What isn’t here
A shared read-only player view: a second screen your table can watch, showing turn order and conditions without showing them your notes. The data is already shaped for it. It is the next real thing.
Until then, open the console and run a fight. If something is wrong, such as a rule OpenFray gets backward or a creature it renders badly, the issue tracker is read.