Hello everyone!
My name is Casey Baggz and I’m the Founder & CEO of Nurl a new app that uses advance algorithms to deconstruct the rules, player sheets (and everything else that makes TTRPGs hard for players and GMs) and presents it in a holistic and conversational way. Likewise, we also add in realtime notes & chat (similar to Notion and Slack/Discord) and combine it with an extension library so you can have all the tools you need in one magical place.
I’ve been working hard to make sure we ship in less than 10 weeks and so far have received a perfect-score feedback from all players/gms we have user tested with ranging from 13-50 year olds who have played anywhere from “being curious” to 20 year vets.
Today, the waitlist is officially open and if you join you will get access to the app before the general public. I’m currently a GM and started as a player and built Nurl because I have yet to find a good solution for a tool that helps streamline the game in an elegant way that works with IRL/hybrid sessions (i.e. it’s not a VTT).
As a game master, there is so much time and improve you need to have to deliver great sessions. As a player (new or experienced) character sheets and rules can be extremely overwhelming, intimidating, and confusing.
Today, I can confidently say that Nurl will help remove that burden and enhance your games so you can spend more time focusing on the story vs. planning.
If you are interested, you can join the waitlist at: https://nurl.website
Is it an AMA ?
Is it yet another VTT ? How does it compare to other VTT ? Why use this one rather than roll-20/Let’s role/Foundry ?
Do you need to program a rule-set or is it a LLM reading a rule-book and turning it into a dynamic application ?
How does it deal with “story NPC” rather than just rules and combat (Remembering who wants want and who has which information ? ) Similar question for lore, which in some games/campaign can be intimidating
How much room does it let to the GM ? Fudging the dice, changing a map/monster on the fly and all the stuff that GM do
Great question! It has a AMA feature - but it’s not an AMA. It’s more so like a “group hub” for your games if you will? It’s also not a VTT - that problem has been solved already.
Nurl aims to support and enhance game sessions for people who still love to play IRL/hybrid game sessions. Having said that, you don’t need a rule-set because our proprietary engine Nuro™️ manages all that on your behalf. Basically, using the app should allow you to just focus on the story or playing the game vs. managing the details. As a GM, the last thing I want to do is waste more time “doing stuff” vs. telling the story. The app has helped me go from taking 3 hours to plan my sessions down to 15 minutes (very nice).
We are building the engine to do some really cool things regarding NPCs and custom lore that you can learn more in our blog posts (see both the chat and notes). So, with all that context, it is meant to empower both the GM and Players so changing or learning about anything on the fly has no limits (I can validate that as a GM who does it pretty much in every game session…except fudging dice - if the players can’t fudge, I choose not to fudge which makes a more interesting and engaging story IMO).
I hope that answered all your questions? Please let me know if it didn’t and what I can do to be more helpful!
Why do you think rules lookup is not part of the holistic experience?
Thank you so much for this question Obituary! From my perspective it’s not so much about looking up rules not being holistic - rather a blocker to a game session and potentially to the game itself (i.e. some rules are very abstract and require X level of experience…which even then is not reliable). Thus, Nurl instead helps to try and streamline that experience when it needs to happen, doing so in a way that a 13 year old can understand. Of course, it’s opt in, so you don’t have to use that feature - but speaking from experience (I’m a GM with a hybrid group of 6 players. All are new except one who has been playing for 20 years), it has been an invaluable resource in our group.
The holistic nature being more around character sheets and other tools you need to play a game.
I disagree with your take and that approach in general. However, I wish you luck. Hope this works out for you even if it’s not for me or my ilk.