Last Updated: October 1, 2026
This policy covers one app: Initiative Tracker: DM Tools, the combat tracker for game masters running fifth-edition-compatible tabletop games, on Android, iPhone and iPad. Our other apps are covered by the general Illumination Development privacy policy, which does not apply here. That policy describes accounts, reward balances and redemption records that this app does not have.
The short version
We never receive your table. There is no account and no sign-in of any kind. Every character in your party, every saved encounter, every monster you make, every portrait and the fight in progress — names, hit points, initiative, conditions and all — is written to storage on your device and stays there. There is no sync, no cloud backup of ours and no server holding a copy. The only way any of it leaves the device is a backup or a shared file you send yourself, and it goes wherever you send it.
What does leave the device is advertising, anonymous usage analytics and crash reports, plus a support message if you choose to send one. Each is described in full below, along with how to limit it. The app shows ads that can be personalized and keeps analytics, and we would rather say so plainly than describe it as sending nothing.
What stays on the device
The app keeps these things on the phone or tablet:
- The fight in progress — every combatant at the table with the name you gave it, its hit points, temporary hit points, armor class, initiative, conditions and concentration; the round and whose turn it is; and the recent hit-point changes you can undo.
- Your party — each saved character's name, maximum hit points, armor class and initiative bonus.
- Your encounters — each saved encounter's name and the monsters in it, with how many of each.
- Your monsters — stat blocks you create, or copy from the bundled ones and change.
- Portraits — pictures you choose to give a character or a monster, described below.
- Your settings — which rules edition you play and whether table effects are on.
None of it is transmitted anywhere by the app, and there is no profile. If the device backs itself up to iCloud or to Google, that copy is governed by Apple's or Google's terms and your own backup settings, and we have no access to it.
Portraits
You can give a character or a monster a portrait in three ways: take a photo, pick one from your photo library, or draw one in the app. The camera and the photo picker open only when you tap to add a portrait. On Android both are the system's own camera and photo picker, so the app does not ask for camera or storage permission and sees only the one picture you choose. On iPhone and iPad, iOS asks your permission the first time.
The picture is cropped to a circle, shrunk to 512 pixels and saved again inside the app's own storage. Saving it again drops the information photos usually carry, such as the location where it was taken and the camera model. Portraits are never uploaded, never sent with analytics or crash reports, and never shown to anyone except on your screen and in the player view you choose to show your table.
Backup files
Settings → Export a backup writes your party, encounters, your monsters, the fight in progress, your settings and your portraits into one file and hands it to your device's share sheet. Where it goes from there — your own files, a cloud drive, an email — is your choice, and that copy is governed by wherever you put it. Restore from a backup reads a file you pick and replaces what is on the device, after asking you to confirm. We never receive a backup file.
Sharing an encounter or a monster
You can send a saved encounter, or a monster you made, to another game master as a small file — with any portraits on those monsters — or share a stat block as a picture, or share a link to the app's store page. Each goes only where you send it through your device's share sheet. Opening a shared file in the app shows what it holds and adds it to yours only if you confirm; it never replaces anything. We never receive these files.
The monster statistics the app offers are bundled inside it, taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 and the System Reference Document 5.2 under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (the full attribution is in the app, under Settings). Looking a monster up or adding one to a fight does not contact anyone. Initiative Tracker is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored or approved by Wizards of the Coast.
You can remove a combatant, end a fight, clear the table, delete a saved character, encounter, monster or portrait, or erase everything at once with Delete my data, described below. Because the copy on your device is the only copy there is, deleting the app removes it too.
What the app sends
None of what follows includes a character's, monster's or encounter's name as you typed it, a hit-point total you entered, a portrait, or anything else you typed or drew. None of it includes your name or email address either, unless you type them into Contact support yourself. There is no sign-in of any kind, anonymous or otherwise, and no user identifier is attached to anything the app sends.
Usage analytics
The app reports a small set of events to Google Analytics: which screen is open; how long the app took to start; that a fight started, with how many players and how many monsters; that a fight ended, with how many rounds it ran; that monsters were added, with the catalog name of a bundled creature (such as “Goblin”, while a monster you made is reported only as “custom”), how many, and whether their hit points were rolled; that a hit-point change was undone; that an encounter was saved and how many creatures it holds; that a party member or a monster of your own was saved; that damage was dealt to several creatures at once, and to how many; that a death saving throw was rolled; that a lair action was added; that the player view was opened; which rules edition you switched to; that a portrait was added, and only whether it came from the camera, the photo library or a drawing; that a backup was exported, or restored with how many characters, encounters and monsters it held; that a sample fight was started; that the rating prompt was asked for; that an encounter, a monster, a stat block picture or the app's link was shared, and that a shared file was imported, with its kind and how many creatures it held, never what they are; which die was rolled in the dice roller (a d20, say, not the result); and that the privacy policy was opened. The only label attached to the installation is which kind of build it is running. It never reports what you named anyone or anything you typed.
Alongside those, Google Analytics collects its own app-instance identifier, coarse device information such as the model, the operating system version and the app version, an approximate location that Google derives from the IP address, and the advertising identifier described under Advertising below (on iPhone and iPad, only if you allow tracking). The app itself never asks for location permission. We use analytics to see which features are used and which are not, and for nothing else.
Crash and diagnostic reports
If the app crashes or hits a handled error, Google Crashlytics sends a report: the stack trace, the app version, the device model and operating system, which kind of build it is, and a short trail of the app's own log lines leading up to it (screen and event names, never anything you typed). No user identifier is attached. This is how bugs get found. Analytics and crash reporting are both switched off entirely in development builds.
Advertising
The app is free and carries advertising from Google AdMob and no one else. There are two placements, both banners: one at the foot of Settings and one at the foot of Party & encounters. There is no advertising on the combat tracker, which is the screen held open across the table while you run a fight, and there are no full-screen or rewarded advertisements. There is nothing to buy.
To serve advertisements, the Google Mobile Ads SDK contacts Google and may collect device and advertising information: an advertising identifier (Google's advertising ID on Android, and Apple's Identifier for Advertisers on iPhone and iPad if you allow it), device signals, an approximate location derived from the IP address, and the request, impression and click themselves. We never see this identifier, and it is not connected to anything at your table.
Advertisements in this app can be personalized, where the law and your choices allow it. The app is not child-directed and does not ask Google to switch personalization off; the choices below are how you limit it. Google's use of the information it collects is governed by Google's own privacy policy.
On iPhone and iPad: the tracking prompt
The app shows Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt before any advertisement is requested. If you choose Ask App Not to Track, the app never receives Apple's Identifier for Advertisers and advertising continues without it. You can change your answer at any time under iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
On Android: the advertising ID
The app does not ask for any runtime permission. The advertising-ID permission is present, because the Google Mobile Ads SDK declares it, and it is used for advertising. You can reset or delete your advertising ID, or opt out of personalized ads, in your device's settings — on most phones, Settings → Privacy → Ads, or Settings → Google → Ads.
In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland
Where a consent regime applies, Google's consent message is shown before any advertisement is requested, and it asks for your choices about personalized advertising and the storing of and access to information on the device.
You can change your answer at any time — Settings → Ad privacy options reopens the same choices. That entry appears only where Google reports that a consent regime applies, which is why people elsewhere will not see it. Your consent decision is stored on your device by Google's consent SDK.
Contacting support
Settings → Contact support is the one place the app asks for anything about you. To send a message it needs your name, your email address, a topic and the message itself. Before you send, the form shows you exactly what else is attached: the app's version and build number, and your device's platform and operating system version. Because there is no sign-in, no user identifier is attached.
All of that is delivered as an email to our support inbox, through a small Google Apps Script service that exists only to forward it, with your address set as the reply-to so that we can answer you. Your email address is used to reply to you and for nothing else.
The form is entirely optional. The app works fully without it, and if you never use it we never receive a name or an email address from you.
Delete my data
Settings → Delete my data does these things, immediately and without asking us:
- It permanently erases the fight in progress, every saved character, every saved encounter, every monster you made, every portrait and your settings.
- It resets the Google Analytics identifiers held on the device, so later analytics start from a new app-instance identifier.
There is no account to delete, because the app never had one. Analytics events and crash reports already sent to Google before you pressed it stay with Google until they expire under its own retention periods; they carry no name, email address or account. If you want those looked at as well, write to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com.
Support messages you have already sent are kept in our inbox, because an email that has been delivered cannot be recalled. You can ask us to delete them at the same address.
What the app does not do
- No account, sign-in, username or profile, and no user identifier on its analytics or crash reports.
- No upload or sync. Your party, encounters, monsters, fights and portraits leave the device only in a backup or a shared file you send yourself.
- No rewards, no coins, no in-app purchases and nothing for sale.
- No chat, no multiplayer, and no way to reach another person through the app. The app never shares what you make; files and pictures go only where you send them yourself.
- A rating prompt at most once per version. Once you have run a few fights, and only right after one ends, the app may ask Google Play or the App Store to show its rating prompt. The store decides whether it appears; the app never learns your rating.
- No location permission. The only location involved is the approximate one Google derives from the IP address, described above.
- The camera and photo library are used only when you add a portrait, as described above. No microphone, contacts, calendar or health data.
- No advertising network other than Google AdMob.
- We do not sell personal information. The advertising described above may count as sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising in the sense the CCPA and CPRA give that term; declining the tracking prompt, resetting or deleting your advertising ID, and opting out of personalized ads are how you limit it.
Children
Initiative Tracker is a tool for people running tabletop games and is not directed at children. It is intended for an audience of 13 and over, its advertising requests are not flagged as child-directed, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has sent us personal information through Contact support, write to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com and we will delete it.
Your rights
Under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA and CPRA, and comparable laws elsewhere, you have rights to access, correct, port and delete the personal information a company holds about you. The only things this app gives us that name you are the name and email address in a support message you chose to send; nothing else it sends carries a name, an email address or an account. You can erase what is on the device yourself with Delete my data, and ask us about anything else — a support message, or data Google already holds — by writing to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com.
Information held by Google from serving advertisements, running analytics and receiving crash reports is subject to Google's privacy policy and the controls described above.
A note about this web page
The app does not display this page — tapping Privacy Policy in Settings opens it in the device's browser, and this website uses Google Analytics to see which pages people find useful. That is described in the general policy, and it applies to your visit to this page, not to your use of the app.
Changes to this policy
If any of this stops being true, this page changes before the version that changes it reaches either store, and the App Store privacy label and Google Play Data safety form change with it. Revisions are posted here with an updated date.
Contact
Email: privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com
You can also reach us through our contact and support page.