It feels good to watch videos about the “BEST
methods” for HOW to take RPG campaign notes, but this completely misses the
point for WHY we take notes! Look at this rare, inspirational YouTube comment: “Keep session notes!… We’ve finally started doing this. Wish to the gods I had more
than vague memories of our adventures and campaigns from the past 4 decades.” From this kinda tragic experience,
we get two simple takeaways: 1. Note taking will help you remember the fun
times you had playing RPGs over 40 years later. 2. Without taking notes, you can still have a
perfectly fun time playing RPGs for 40+ years! It doesn’t ruin the game if you can’t
remember ~the name of that NPC!~ You made up the name! So ask your players, and
if they don’t remember, just make up a new name! Therefore the POINT of notes is not
to quickly and accurately canonize hundreds of minute made-up details
so you can trip over them later. It’s to create a record that helps you
recall the fun times you have playing RPGs! So with that goal in mind, we ARE going to talk
about the best ways to create that long term record, including a fun method that I’ve used,
but I’ve never heard anyone else talk about, because I’m Bob, this is where we learn
how to have more fun playing RPGs together, and we gotta start by identifying
the 3 incredibly simple categories of campaign notes that apply
to players and game masters... Kind number 1:
The notes you take BEFORE a game session - your prep Kinda number 2: The notes you take DURING a game session - your
hastily scribbled jargon. And say it with me. kinda
number 3: The notes you take SUBSEQUENT TO a game session, very good. This is what becomes your long term record. But for each of these categories, we have the
choice between digital notes and physical aka analog notes, which have significantly
different strengths and weaknesses! Analog notes are freeform, but kinda messy!
They're perfect for quickly capturing tiny pieces of information because once you have
the “device” in hand, you are 100% ready to take notes. You can scribble names, keywords,
sketches, lines and arrows all over the place, cramming whatever info you need
into whatever size page you have. DURING a session when you gotta
take notes without even thinking, this analog freeform speed
and flexibility is perfect. "What she's writing is INSANE!" Also, *apparently* handwriting notes
helps you retain information in your brain better than typing notes.
Might not be the case for everyone, but I do think it is the case for me, so BEFORE
a session, use whichever method helps YOU keep more info in your head so you don’t have
to pause and look at your notes so much. Now, digital, on the other hand,
is rigid and organized! Perfect for retaining lots of information over time,
but once you have the device in hand... is it charged, plugged in, is it updated, is your
notes application updated, are you logged in, how's your connection speed, are the device
and the application just working properly?? And is all of that going to work properly
for the entire duration of your session? Maybe, but it’s out of your control. And even so, you are usually limited to
line by line written words. Altogether, digital provides the opposite
of the fast and loose note-taking style required DURING an RPG session. But digital
provides the PERFECT thoughtful, organized, searchable, accessible, and lasting style of
note-taking you need SUBSEQUENT TO your sessions. Digital helps you organize
those messy mid-session notes, and create the long term record of
your adventures that you will look back on 40+ years later. And for digital
notes, you have a couple good options! Today, there are several robust digital platforms
built specifically for RPG campaign notes, so if you have a favorite platform to use,
share what makes it great down in the comments, while I talk about a nice, simple, *lite* digital
platform built specifically for RPG campaign notes, which also happens to be this video’s
sponsor: Lore Frog! … also it’s got a great name! Using an intuitive NESTED design,
your campaign can be broken into arcs, and those arcs are filled with
sessions as your main journal entries. But within *Lore Frog* session entries, you
can identify and cross-reference specific player characters, factions and the NPCs within
them, locations and sublocations within them, and so on for events in history,
or any other named creations! Lore Frog is a growing platform, so they’re
actively working on more tools for things like collaborative note-taking between GMs and
players! And with a free Lore Frog account, you can start up to three campaigns with
a total of 24 sessions, or go premium for unlimited sessions and campaigns.
Check it all out through the link below! There are several very popular document-based applications which *can* be used to
record RPG notes, --Microsoft Word-- But none of them were designed
specifically with RPGs in mind, so I just use the most simple
one out there: Google Docs. Yep, a good ol’ Google Doc contains even the
first RPG campaign I ever played in with info about our characters, and the world,
and all the goofy quests we went on, and I really treasure that document. Not
to mention, Google Docs are accessible through any device, their servers will
probably outlive the entire human race, and it’s completely free to use… unless you
value your personal data and online privacy. Again, you gotta organize it yourself
in whatever way works best for YOU, but here are my best tips for doing that. Title page: what’s the campaign
title and spoiler free summary? Party page: summarize the details,
backgrounds, major abilities, and important equipment of each player character.
(As the GM, you should check out this party page before every session to come up with fun ways to
challenge specific characters, and as a player, you should check it out to come up with fun
ways to roleplay with specific characters!) Index page: NPCs, factions, locations, items, and
other lore. Just single lines of text summarizing only the most important details, and if it’s a
really important NPC or location or whatever, include the number of the session that
contains the full details not mentioned here. On that note, the GM may want to keep a separate
doc filled with lore and secrets and ideas. But then the rest of this
record is just a bunch of small, numbered paragraphs summarizing
the events of every game session. And ideally dated with the real world date and
the in-world date, because as D&D co-creator Gary Gygax once said: “YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL
CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.” By the way, 1 Like = 1 Time Record Kept, so
make Gary proud and give this video a thumbs up. The ultimate digital option I’ll
recommend is much more unique because I don’t think many people
have ever done it this way…video. A few years after my first RPG campaign, I
sat down with the GM and a few other players, aka my friends, and we just talked about the
campaign for an hour but we did it on camera! So while our Google Doc has way
more details about specific NPCs, locations, and quests, I really prefer
this home movie of my friends and I just laughing and reminiscing about
our characters and our adventures, because I think it’ll be much more fun to watch
this back 40 years from now, than it will be to re-read a Google Doc! But this brings us back
to the second takeaway from that comment... Without taking notes, you can still have a
perfectly fun time playing RPGs for 40+ years! Besides the GM, I’m the only player from that
OG campaign who contributed to our group’s Google Doc! But we all had a great time! Most
of the group was just super casual about TTRPGs, and that’s okay. You can’t force
other people to invest in the game, or even to take notes. If you want
to preserve a record of your game, it’s on you to do so. So just do it
in an easy way that works for you! For example, from my current
campaign going on for almost a year, I’ve only got like 11 pages of analog pre-
and mid-session notes, because my method is very minimal! Let me know in the comments
if you’d like to see a video about it! And guess what, I’ve got ZERO pages of
post-session notes! But what I do have are several videos on this channel
about homebrew rules that recount a few awesome moments from the
campaign that I want to remember! --like in this video on your screen! So
check it out and hit the like button and subscribe if you found this helpful. Thanks
to the Bob World Builder Patrons and YouTube channel members for making this possible! Thank
you for your support, and keep building! :)
