So, I was wondering how everyone else organizes their campaign notes or if they have any organization tips. I'm not wondering about what tools people use, but how you would organize each section of notes, what you would keep track of NPCs/factions/locations, etc. Right now I use One Note, and my notes are starting to get difficult to keep track of. I have like 50 NPCs (the game has been going on for awhile), and a bunch of different things to keep track of.
I've been using Google drive to keep a running Campaign Session plan and an overall Campaign Master File. More recently I used the notes in DnD Beyond using the spoiler tag to separate them into each session along with the Beyond Help chrome extension to add monsters stats and tooltips more easily.
I'd love to know how others do this as well. I have a system that works for me, but is probably far from ideal.
I keep my notes in digital form (google drive and my chromebook) and use a bunch of files.
I have a file for each gaming session (basically the notes I want to hit/encounters possible for the party). I update that as the session continues.
For each town/region I have a file with npcs and another with locations and another with encounters Ie npc-phandolin loc-phandolin enc-phandolin
I have another file that has "prominent npcs" that may recur throughout the campaign. Then a file with all my special magic items.
Lastly I have a file with my customized "monsters". It sounds like a lot, but that's easy for me to search and really only a few things are open at once.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I'm running the hexcrawl portion of Tomb of Annihilation right now, so there's a lot to keep track of. I have a spreadsheet containing the weather, terrain, encounters, quick encounter notes, and miscellaneous info for each day. I've got a OneNote notebook with pages for NPCs, story arc notes for the PCs, the hexcrawl map, notes on the story so far, and detailed notes on encounters for the next 3+ sessions that include links to the monsters here on DDB. I also have a small notebook I use during the session to run the encounters and take quick notes on important happenings. Those notes get in plugged into the OneNote pages a day or two after the session when everything's still relatively fresh in my mind.
If you have a growing body of world lore, and campaign notes, some tool that supports hyperlinks is almost essential. Doesn't matter if that's Wiki software, some software-as-as-service like World Anvil, or just some HTML web pages you cobble together and keep in a folder on your desktop.
This allows you to gather all your NPC notes ( for example ) in one place, and then for adventure notes just have a link to the sections for a relevant NPC. That allows you to have indexes as well. For example, if you had your NPCs written in your notes in alphabetical order, you could have an alternate list of NPCs by Organization or Faction, with links to individual NPC entries in your original list. You only ever have to have one write up of that NPC, but you can create many lists.
It also helps if you can create templates for types of entries - Location Template, NPC Template, etc.
How I'd like to have my material organized is.
Index Lists ( Locations by Region, NPCs by Faction, Items by Race, etc. )
Locations
Factions & Organization
Religions
NPCs
Homebrew Material
Rule Variants
Items
Spells
Creatures
Classes / Subclasses
Feats
Upcoming Adventures & Notes
Campaign History
If you can hyperlink across sections, something like Adventures & Notes is really brief - I might sketch out some bullet point ideas for an upcoming adventure, with hyperlinks to the relevant NPCs, Factions, Locations, etc. If I'm writing new NPCs and Locations for the adventure, those get created in their proper sectionand linked to the adventure notes.
New Campaign History notes get bashed out the late evening after a game session ( while it's all fresh in my mind ), but gets translated into updates in the write ups for the NPCs, Factions, Locations, etc. in the next couple of days.
I'm starting to explore & experiment with Homebreweryrecently, as it supports hyperlinks, can be shared, can be published as as printable PDF sourcebook, and is styled to look like an official D&D sourcebook ( which is cool ).
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So, I was wondering how everyone else organizes their campaign notes or if they have any organization tips. I'm not wondering about what tools people use, but how you would organize each section of notes, what you would keep track of NPCs/factions/locations, etc. Right now I use One Note, and my notes are starting to get difficult to keep track of. I have like 50 NPCs (the game has been going on for awhile), and a bunch of different things to keep track of.
I've been using Google drive to keep a running Campaign Session plan and an overall Campaign Master File. More recently I used the notes in DnD Beyond using the spoiler tag to separate them into each session along with the Beyond Help chrome extension to add monsters stats and tooltips more easily.
I'd love to know how others do this as well. I have a system that works for me, but is probably far from ideal.
I keep my notes in digital form (google drive and my chromebook) and use a bunch of files.
I have a file for each gaming session (basically the notes I want to hit/encounters possible for the party). I update that as the session continues.
For each town/region I have a file with npcs and another with locations and another with encounters Ie npc-phandolin loc-phandolin enc-phandolin
I have another file that has "prominent npcs" that may recur throughout the campaign. Then a file with all my special magic items.
Lastly I have a file with my customized "monsters". It sounds like a lot, but that's easy for me to search and really only a few things are open at once.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I'm running the hexcrawl portion of Tomb of Annihilation right now, so there's a lot to keep track of. I have a spreadsheet containing the weather, terrain, encounters, quick encounter notes, and miscellaneous info for each day. I've got a OneNote notebook with pages for NPCs, story arc notes for the PCs, the hexcrawl map, notes on the story so far, and detailed notes on encounters for the next 3+ sessions that include links to the monsters here on DDB. I also have a small notebook I use during the session to run the encounters and take quick notes on important happenings. Those notes get in plugged into the OneNote pages a day or two after the session when everything's still relatively fresh in my mind.
Organizing information is literally a science :)
If you have a growing body of world lore, and campaign notes, some tool that supports hyperlinks is almost essential. Doesn't matter if that's Wiki software, some software-as-as-service like World Anvil, or just some HTML web pages you cobble together and keep in a folder on your desktop.
This allows you to gather all your NPC notes ( for example ) in one place, and then for adventure notes just have a link to the sections for a relevant NPC. That allows you to have indexes as well. For example, if you had your NPCs written in your notes in alphabetical order, you could have an alternate list of NPCs by Organization or Faction, with links to individual NPC entries in your original list. You only ever have to have one write up of that NPC, but you can create many lists.
It also helps if you can create templates for types of entries - Location Template, NPC Template, etc.
How I'd like to have my material organized is.
If you can hyperlink across sections, something like Adventures & Notes is really brief - I might sketch out some bullet point ideas for an upcoming adventure, with hyperlinks to the relevant NPCs, Factions, Locations, etc. If I'm writing new NPCs and Locations for the adventure, those get created in their proper section and linked to the adventure notes.
New Campaign History notes get bashed out the late evening after a game session ( while it's all fresh in my mind ), but gets translated into updates in the write ups for the NPCs, Factions, Locations, etc. in the next couple of days.
I'm starting to explore & experiment with Homebrewery recently, as it supports hyperlinks, can be shared, can be published as as printable PDF sourcebook, and is styled to look like an official D&D sourcebook ( which is cool ).
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.