PROFESSIONAL DM GUIDE
Archivist for Professional Dungeon Masters
Skill and a great table get a pro DM booked once. What brings players back is the world around it, and the time and insight Archivist gives you to build it.
Published October 12, 2026 · 7 min read
By Greg H. & Greg W., co-founders of Archivist
← Back to GM GuidesThe Short Answer
Skill and experience get you booked. What you add on top of that is what gets you rebooked. Archivist gives your party a world to explore during and after the session, a dedicated Character Arc page, Hero Awards, and shareable handouts. For you, it saves hours of prep with automated note-taking and gives real insight into the table with Cast Analysis.
Standing Out in a Crowded Market
Every pro DM running a paid game needs skill and a good table, and neither comes from software. What separates a booked-out DM from an empty table is the part of the experience another DM running the same module doesn't have.
StartPlaying, Polyhedra, Arcane Circle, and new marketplaces keep launching, so every GM directory gets more crowded. Most DM software helps one side: a VTT for the table, or a note-taking app for your own workload. Archivist covers both your prep and your players' experience.
What You Get: Time and Insight
A session played on Discord or in text finishes in about 10 minutes: a recap, updated Compendium entries, and a highlights reel. Audio uploads take a little longer since they transcribe first, but still land in minutes. That replaces the evening many DMs spend writing notes by hand for one table before the next one starts. See the full timing on how it works.
"I used to spend 8-12 hours every Monday to capture my notes and prepare for my sessions for the rest of the week. Now with Archivist it takes me only 1 hour."
A professional DM, 15 years running games
Cast Analysis runs on the same transcript, whatever the source: talk share, turn length, and tone per player, plus a single imbalance score for the session. One Archivist user wondered why a player seemed to fade in the back half of nearly every session. Cast Analysis showed a repeatable drop in word count and turn length after the midpoint, and a mid-session break fixed it.
What Your Players Get
Every session builds Archivist's Compendium automatically: characters, factions, locations, and items, updated as the story changes and connected by WikiLinks so a name in a recap links straight to that character's page. It's a world players can explore between sessions, not a GM's private notes doc.
Each player character also gets a Character Arc page tracking their growth across the whole campaign: what they've done, who they've become, what's still unresolved. Session handouts, Hero Awards, key moments, and digital trading cards give every player something to share too, not just the GM. See Compendium, Character Arc, and the Artifacts hub.
Your Campaign Is Your Portfolio
Archivist can publish a campaign to a shareable link anyone can view, no account required: the overview, summaries, characters, factions, locations, and timeline go live, while raw transcripts and GM notes stay private. See what publishes and what stays private.
For a DM competing against other listings running the same module, that page shows the table you actually run.
One Plan, Every Seat
Archivist prices by campaign slot and monthly sessions, not by player. Every paid tier, from Casual at $10 a month up to Legend at $60, includes unlimited player seats, and each campaign keeps its own Owner, Admin, and Player roles: only people invited to a specific campaign can see it.
| Plan | Price | Campaigns | Sessions / mo | Player seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casual | $10/mo | 1 | 4 | Unlimited |
| Seasoned | $20/mo | 3 | 10 | Unlimited |
| Pro | $35/mo | 5 | 20 | Unlimited |
| Legend | $60/mo | 10 | 40 | Unlimited |
Run five concurrent paid campaigns on the Pro tier, and a Tuesday table for one group never shares a roster or an NPC's secret with a Thursday table for another. See the full breakdown on pricing.
Fits What You Run
Archivist isn't asking a paid DM to leave Foundry or Roll20. Foundry VTT sync, Discord live session recording, Obsidian import, and API and MCP access mean campaign memory sits alongside the table and booking platform you already use, whatever that stack looks like.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Archivist help a pro DM stand out from other GMs on StartPlaying or Polyhedra?
Two ways: it cuts your own prep and shows you how the table is actually balancing with Cast Analysis, and it gives your players an explorable world and a Character Arc page of their own. A published campaign page then turns your best session into proof for your next booking.
What is Cast Analysis?
A participation dashboard built from your session transcript: who spoke, how often, how tone shifted, and a scorecard and imbalance score for each player, so a DM can catch a fading player or an uneven table before it becomes a problem.
Does one Archivist subscription cover every player across my tables?
Yes. Every paid Archivist plan includes unlimited player seats. Plans differ by how many campaign slots and monthly sessions you get, not by how many players join each campaign.
Can players from one of my paid campaigns see another one?
No. Access is scoped to each individual campaign through Owner, Admin, and Player roles, and only people you invite to a specific campaign can see it.
Can I use Archivist to help book new paying players?
Yes. Publishing a campaign creates a public, read-only link with your overview, summaries, characters, and timeline, useful as a portfolio piece on a booking profile. Raw transcripts and GM notes never become public.
Does Archivist replace Foundry, Roll20, or StartPlaying?
No. Archivist handles campaign memory and table insight, not the table itself or bookings. It syncs with Foundry VTT, records live Discord sessions, and imports from Obsidian, so it runs alongside the VTT and booking platform you already use.
Run Your Next Paid Session With the Recap Already Done
Archivist's 30-day trial includes two full sessions, no credit card required. Run one paid table through it and see the recap, Cast Analysis, and public campaign page before you decide.