How to use When We Play?

If you're a Player

1. Sign in with your email. Type your email and we send a one-tap link — no password needed. Prefer a password? Set one on your profile to sign in directly (the link always still works).
2. Joined by a link someone shared? Follow it, give your name and email, and you're in — no admin needed. If you already have an account, it'll ask you to sign in first rather than take your word for it.
3. Set your timezone on your profile (top-right menu). Every time then shows in your local time.
4. Mark your availability. On the home page, switch to My availability. A slot starts at · no reply; click to toggle ✓ available / ✗ can't make it, shift-click for ? maybe. A game only counts you when you're a firm ✓ — maybe is just a tentative heads-up.
5. Set it once with standing rules. Usually free (or busy) Wednesday evenings? Set it on your profile and it fills in every week. A dashed border marks a slot that came from a rule — click to override it for that date, or click back to clear the override.
6. Going away? On your profile, under When I'm away, add the dates you're out of town and every slot in that range is marked unavailable automatically — no clicking each day. It applies across all your groups. If you'll be back in time for one session, just open the home page and mark that single slot available (it overrides the away window). Your standing availability returns on its own once the dates pass.
7. See who's around. Each slot lists everyone with a dot for available, maybe, or can't make it. Below the names are the games that could play that slot — tap one to see its roster. (Scheduling is the GM's job.)
8. Want games on your calendar? On your profile, tick Email calendar invites to. You'll get an invite for any game you're scheduled in, so it lands on your calendar without anyone copying times by hand — and if it's easier, you can send them to a different address than the one you sign in with. You only get an invite for a slot you marked ✓ available; a ? maybe doesn't count. Change your mind and the invite follows: drop out of a slot and the session is removed from your calendar again. Replying in your calendar app doesn't do anything — accepting or declining there changes nothing here, so update your availability on the schedule instead.
9. Want every session on your calendar regardless? Under that tick box is …even if I haven't said I am available. With it on you get an invite for every session of every game you're in — whether you said ✗ can't make it, ? maybe, or nothing at all — which is handy if you like seeing what's on before deciding. It also means changing your availability no longer takes the session off your calendar; only the GM unscheduling it does.
10. Keep forgetting to fill it in? In the same section, tick Send me a weekly reminder to update When We Play if my upcoming availability is unknown. Once a week you'll get a short email — but only in a week where a lot of your next few weeks is still tbd, which is the same thing the heads-up at the top of the schedule is telling you. A week where you're filled in sends nothing at all. It's separate from calendar invites: you can have either without the other, and both go to the same address.
11. Prefer time to flow the other way? The slots read Evening → Morning by default. Tick Invert Y-Axis on your profile to flip them to Morning → Evening everywhere — boards, games, the lot. It's just your view; nobody else's changes.

Two icon toggles sit top-left, by the Key: one swaps the wide side-by-side table for a stacked day-by-day view; the other collapses each slot's names to a row of availability dots, for scanning a long schedule. The Key explains both.

If you're a GM

You do everything a player does, plus you put games on the calendar. Anyone in the group can start a game — that makes you its GM.

1. Start a game. + New game on the Games page creates one and makes you its GM. Every game in the group shows there — yours on top — each card with its roster, when it can play, and a Manage button on the ones you run.
2. Set the roster. Each player is Required (the game needs them) or Optional. A game is viable for a slot when you, the required players, and enough optional ones are all available. If some of them haven't answered yet, the game isn't ruled out — it's just unconfirmed, and the board says so with a ? rather than a red !.
3. Schedule a game. Each slot shows a member dot by every name (you first, then GMs), so you can read coverage at a glance: available, no reply, ? maybe, can't make it. Below the names, each game that could fill the slot shows a + pill; a red ! means it can't run there as things stand, and an amber ? means it might — someone just hasn't answered. You can schedule either one anyway. Tap a pill to review, then Schedule from the top of the card; tap a booked game to Unschedule. Both are two-step, so a stray tap never changes the schedule. Once a slot is booked, the other games still list below it with a ⇄ instead of a + — pick one to swap it straight in, no need to unschedule first.
4. Watch the status mark. The same two marks appear on a booked game, and mean the same things: red ! = it can't run any more; amber ? = worth a look — someone hasn't answered, or has changed their mind since you booked. Think of it as can't versus don't know yet. Someone becoming newly available never raises a mark — that only ever gives you more options, so it isn't worth an alarm.
5. Open the pill to see who moved. Everyone whose availability changed since you booked gets an amber diamond at the end of their row. Their own dot at the start of the row says which way they went: diamond next to a means they dropped out, next to a means they're newly available. The names are spelled out underneath too, so you get "Dropped out since scheduled: Steve" rather than a vague "something changed". When the game is only waiting on people, you get the list to chase instead: "Waiting on Steve, Chuk".
6. Calendar invites go out on their own. If your group's admin has turned invites on, anyone who opted in gets one automatically for a game you schedule them into — there's no "send invites" button to remember. They're sent a few minutes after you schedule, not instantly, so booking something by mistake and undoing it straight away never emails anyone. Change a game's time and everyone who has it gets an updated invite; unschedule it and they get a cancellation.
7. Email your group. The ✉ on a game's card opens a message to the GM and every member.
8. Bring people in with a link (group admins). The People page has an Invite link you can share instead of adding each person by hand — whoever follows it adds themselves as a normal member. It starts switched off; the ? beside it explains what to watch for.
9. Manage a game (its GM or a group admin) from the Manage button on its card: upcoming sessions, roster, the viability rule, and default times.
10. Decide how much of a game you want to see. On the Manage page, Show on the board sets when the game turns up as a suggestion: Always (even where it can't run — those pills carry the red !), Only if the GM is available, or Only if it meets the player requirements. Each one shows you less: the last hides the game everywhere it definitely can't run, which also means you stop seeing the slots it's one person short of. All three keep the amber ? slots — a game waiting on answers is missing information, not ruled out, and those are the slots where going and asking someone actually changes the answer. A game that's already booked always stays on the board.
11. Put a game on the shelf. The Active button at the top of the Manage page turns a game Inactive — it stops being schedulable and stops being suggested on the board, but nothing is lost. It keeps its card on the Games page (marked Inactive), its roster and settings stay editable, and any sessions already booked stay on the calendar — deactivating never cancels anything or emails anyone. Click the button again to bring it back. Use this for a campaign that's finished or paused; deleting a game is separate, permanent, and group-admin only.
12. Give a game its own time. On the game's Manage page, the Schedulable times grid lets you set a custom start/end under any block it plays — that block then always uses that time for this game. For a one-off change to a single scheduled date instead, click the clock on the booked pill on the board and set the time there; that changes only that date.

Showing part of the schedule

Above the board, Show sets how much is listed. Three dropdowns, read left to right.

• All / Scheduled / Scheduled/able. All lists every date. Scheduled lists only dates with a game booked. Scheduled/able also keeps dates where a game could go — its requirements are already met, or nobody has ruled it out yet — even if it isn't booked.
• All Games / one game. Pick a game to show only the dates and time slots it can play — the rest drop away, so you can see when that one game could happen.
• Weeks out. How far ahead the board reaches.

While a filter is set, Show turns into a button — click it to clear the filters. The weeks-out setting stays.

When a game is booked

When a game you're in is scheduled for a slot, your availability box for that slot shows the game's colour.

✓ A-Side

This is a game that has been scheduled, and that you're playing in.

✗ ?

This game has been scheduled, but you're unavailable to play in it (or aren't sure you can make it).

No colour means nothing's booked in that slot, or the booked game isn't one of yours.