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Why I Built Sinister DM Tools — One Person, One Mission

· 3 min read
Elliot Davidson
Creator, Sinister DM Tools

Sinister DM Tools is a one-person project. There's no team, no investor deck, no roadmap committee. Just me, a DM who got tired of fighting the tools instead of running the session.

The Problem I Kept Running Into​

Every virtual tabletop I tried was either built for D&D 5e specifically, or tried to be everything for everyone and ended up being overwhelming for most people. Character sheet builders, marketplace integrations, compendiums, automation engines — all useful in their context, but not what I needed when I just wanted to track initiative, share a map, and manage a handful of NPCs.

I wanted something that would get out of the way and let me DM.

So I built it.

Simple on Purpose​

Sinister DM Tools is deliberately simple. That's not a limitation — it's the point.

The initiative tracker doesn't calculate modifiers automatically. That's because half my players use homebrew classes or rulesets where automatic calculation would be wrong. The NPC library doesn't have stat blocks pre-filled from a compendium. That's because the creatures in my campaign aren't from any compendium.

Simple tools flex. Complicated tools assume.

Ruleset Agnostic by Design​

This is the part I feel most strongly about: Sinister DM Tools works for any TTRPG, and that's intentional.

Whether you're running D&D 5e, Pathfinder 2e, Dragonbane, Mothership, Ironsworn, a system you made up last weekend, or anything in between — the tools work the same way. There's no stat block schema that only makes sense for one system. No spell slot tracker tied to one edition's mechanics. No assumption about how much HP your bosses have or how your initiative order should work.

You bring the rules. The tools bring the table.

What That Looks Like in Practice​

  • Initiative tracker: You type in names and numbers. You decide what the numbers mean.
  • NPC library: You name them, describe them, and set their HP however your system defines it.
  • Battle maps: Grid size is configurable because not every system uses 5-foot squares.
  • Sessions: Session notes are free-form. No structured encounter templates, no expected data shapes.

The campaign calendar is the best example of this. Instead of a Gregorian calendar with seasons baked in, you define your own months, week structure, and year length. Because if you're running a setting where the year has two moons and three seasons, you shouldn't be fighting your tools to represent that.

One Person, Real Accountability​

There's something I like about single-developer tools: you know exactly who to talk to.

When something is broken or missing, the feedback loop is short. When you submit a support ticket, I read it. When I add a feature, it's because someone needed it — not because a product manager thought it would improve engagement metrics.

Sinister DM Tools will stay focused because one person can only stay focused on so much. That's a feature.

If you're running any kind of tabletop campaign and want tools that stay out of your way, give it a try. The 14-day trial starts when you subscribe — just create an account and explore first.

And if something's missing or broken, tell me.