Wyrdli vs Google Docs: which one runs your campaign?

I built Wyrdli, so you know which side I'm on. Google Docs is what most GMs use, for good reasons.

Which one should you use? Depends on when you open it.

Writing one mystery for next Friday? A Doc is enough. Four months in, and you can't remember which clue points at which secret, or whether the party ever talked to the kid? That's the evening I built Wyrdli for.

What is Google Docs good at?

Being there already. You have a Google account, so you have Docs. Nothing to learn: open a page, type. Share it in two clicks, pick who views and who edits. It works on your phone, offline, and with several people typing at once.

That's why so many GMs try a wiki and crawl back to a Doc a month later. The wiki wanted a second job. The Doc just wanted notes.

The complaint I read most in GM forums: things got too interconnected. Twenty pages in, the secret is on page three, its clue on page eleven, and the NPC carrying it lives in another file. A Doc holds the words. It has no idea they're connected.

What is Wyrdli good at?

Wyrdli is built around situations, not plots: scenes the party can walk into, secrets they can find out, and clues that lead there, each carried by an NPC or an item. Open a secret and you see every clue pointing at it and who carries each one, and the campaign keeps track of what the party has found and what's still buried.

Take the sample campaign, The Dragon of Thornwick. Farms are burning and everybody blames the green dragon. The secret: the baron's court wizard is paying kobolds to set the fires. Four clues point at him. Lamp oil on the straw that didn't catch. A healer who sees oil burns and no dragon poison. Pip, nine, who saw little men run to the mill. A brass button under a charred beam.

Ten minutes in a Doc. I'd do it myself.

Then comes session three. Thornwick is one mystery of five, and you're scrolling to find out whether anyone picked up the button. In Wyrdli you open the secret: oil found, Pip ignored, button and healer still waiting.

A Doc also can't listen. Play on Discord, press record, and Wyrdli transcribes the session and drafts the recap. On the AI plans it adds what your players loved and wished for, plus NPCs, scenes and complications to accept, edit or bin. The AI never writes your players' characters. Audio goes after 14 days. Essentials has no AI, and Wyrdli runs fine without Discord.

What doesn't Wyrdli do?

Plenty of what a Doc does FOR FREE.

Wyrdli costs money. No free plan: the sample campaign opens without an account, your own needs a subscription after the 14-day trial. It's something new to learn. No offline mode. One map image per campaign. And it's young and small.

Side by side

What do they cost?

Prices checked on 24 October 2026.

Google Docs (euros): free with any Google account, which comes with up to 15 GB of storage. Fill it and Google One Basic gives you 100 GB for €1.99 a month. Campaign notes won't get close.

Wyrdli (euros):

Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial. Players never pay. Export works on every plan, even after your subscription ends.

Can I keep Google Docs and use Wyrdli too?

Yes. The Doc keeps the house rules, the session zero notes, the handouts. Wyrdli holds the campaign: the secrets in play, the clues pointing at them, what the party did last Friday, and the calendar with the next session on it.

You copy across by hand, so skip the backlog. Move the mystery you're running now and the NPCs carrying its clues. That's next week's prep anyway.

Running a one-shot, or a short mystery that ends in three sessions? Stay in the Doc. You don't need me.

Open Thornwick and see it for yourself, no account needed: wyrd.li/demo.

A Doc remembers every word you wrote. It just can't tell you which ones the party found.