August 5, 2026
The best tools for D&D campaign notes (2026): an honest roundup
The short answer: for DMs who enjoy building interconnected notes, Obsidian is the community favorite. Kanka is the best free purpose-built option. LegendKeeper is the most polished paid campaign wiki. OneNote and Google Docs are the low-friction picks that never get in the way. And if the real problem at your table is that nobody keeps the notes system alive, that is the specific case Lorevia was built for, and full disclosure, we make it. The comparison below is honest anyway; most tables are best served by one of the other tools on this list.
The comparison
| Tool | Best for | Upkeep required | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Obsidian | Power users who enjoy linking NPCs, places, and quests into a personal knowledge graph | High, and part of the fun if you are that person | Free (local files); optional paid sync |
| Kanka | Structured campaign database: NPCs, quests, calendars, DM-only notes | High: every entity is created and linked by hand | Generous free tier; optional premium |
| LegendKeeper | A polished wiki with interactive maps and staged player reveals | High: manual, though the editor is fast | Paid, with a trial |
| World Anvil | Deep worldbuilding: articles, timelines, maps, public lore | Highest: a hobby in itself | Free tier with limits; paid plans |
| Notion | Tables whose players collaborate on shared docs and databases | Medium-high: you design the system yourself | Free tier; paid for teams |
| OneNote / Google Docs | Just writing things down with zero setup and easy sharing | Low to write, high to find anything by month three | Free |
| Lorevia | Tables whose note systems die from neglect: paste session notes, the wiki builds itself | Low: you review what it extracts instead of writing pages | Free plan (1 campaign, 2 organized sessions/month); paid from $6/mo |
The question that actually decides it
Every tool on this list works if someone at your table genuinely enjoys maintaining it. So the honest deciding question is not about features, it is: who maintains the notes, and do they actually want to? If the answer is a happy yes, pick by taste: Obsidian for linking, Kanka for structure on a budget, LegendKeeper for polish, World Anvil for worldbuilding depth. Their communities are full of DMs who love them for good reasons.
If the answer is “well, someone should,” be honest about what happens next, because it is the same thing that happened to your last campaign doc: three sessions of diligent notes, then a gap, then a pile of loose fragments nobody can search. A more structured tool does not fix that; the structure is the part that takes the time. That failure mode is the one Lorevia targets: you paste whatever notes your table already produces, rough fragments included, and it extracts the NPCs, locations, quests, and factions into running entries with a recap, which you review before anything becomes canon. The maintenance work is the part that got automated, because it is the part nobody was doing.
Going deeper by category
If you are specifically comparing the dedicated wiki platforms, the head-to-head is in World Anvil alternatives for campaign notes. If you are weighing the AI-assisted options (audio-first tools, notes-first tools, and DIY with a chatbot), that category has its own trade-offs, covered in AI tools for D&D session notes.
Frequently asked
What do DMs actually recommend most? In community discussions the names that come up over and over are Obsidian, Kanka, LegendKeeper, and OneNote, and that matches this roundup. Newer AI tools appear when the question involves automating the work rather than organizing it.
Do I need a dedicated tool at all? No. A notebook or one shared doc plus a good habit beats any tool without one. The habit, and a template that makes it a five-minute job, is in the session notes template.
What is the best fully free setup?Kanka if you want structure, Obsidian if you want linking and are fine with local files, OneNote if you want zero learning curve. Lorevia's free plan is also a real plan (one campaign, two organized sessions a month), not a trial.
Details checked in August 2026 and may change. And if the neglected-wiki case sounded like your table: grab your last session's notes, however messy, and paste them into Lorevia on the free plan. Five minutes tells you whether it earns a spot on your list.