Personally, I have a really good memory for general (and mostly useless) information. This makes it really easy for me to place a movie quote or some such just from hearing a one-liner, and can usually cliff-notes the plot of an entire movie from just that single statement. But I usually need something to grab onto and pull at to get that info-stream going. Since I'm using DnD Beyond for my character sheet, I just have Word open and take simple notes of significant entities and their related details. The name of the town we start in, and it's general state. The name of the captain of the guard. The nature of the relationship between the people and the petulant lordling in his hilltop manner. Rival faction fomenting unrest in local people. That one goblin was wearing a different uniform. The half-orc Ranger/Barb NPC is clearly using his mannerisms as an escape mechanism from some element of his past that he is actively concealing from everyone. Etc. If a subject ever comes up that could be or is related to something that happened before, either I already remember it, or I have the "hook" to that knowledge in my notes.
Predominately, it's proper names and how they relate to our party, a location, or each other. Sometimes I find I should have asked for repeats of information that either went by too fast and I missed, or I sit bolt upright in bed and start kicking myself for not doing an Investigation or Insight check to expand on something that I knew was fishy but couldn't figure out, and now I know I/we have missed something that could be important later. Like the fact that Countess Ceyza, vying for the succession after the death of the King (probably her fault), is not only fomenting rebellion in the people, but also allying with the Drow to attack the neighboring Dwarven kingdom, hiring Goblin, Hob-Goblin, and Bugbear warbands to spread fear in the land, and probably also promising gifts or leadership or whatever to the Orc tribe in the swamp. Yes, she's an evil mastermind and probably our ultimate foe. And all of that because nobody thought to check the one Goblin the DM specified was wearing a different uniform than the rest.
I have a pretty good memory, so I don't take much in the way of notes during a session as a player. But I usually dump my thoughts into Microsoft Word after the fact. These type of notes are very player/character centric most of the time and read as a journal in style. If it is one of those "the DM says its important" I'll type it up with my Bluetooth keyboard, to my Samsung Tablet right then, and put it on the DnDBeyond character sheets. But for the rest, for two different campaigns I have taken the notes and rewrote them as stories, which have become "cannon" for a campaign.
As a DM, I am pretty organized on critical NPCs, places, and the like. So I only keep track of the improvisations and results from encounters. Sometimes the result from an encounter, might crop up as a part of the play later on (hey remember that Bard we fleeced a year ago...well he's been telling stories that we were bad guys). And that might occur a campaign later. I used to do this by hand, but now electronics make it easier to track key events. Any event that makes us laugh, wince or cry are good ones to note, as are key things that the players miss/skip/avoid. Some times there are consequences after all. :)
Coming from other RPG systems, that had you acquire and level up individual skills, I have put my notes into narrative chapters of a campaign story between game session. Chapters alternated between group adventures and individual characters chapters that highlighted what kind of skills I had trained, improved etc. If you can get other players to participate, you will get a lot of chances for personal story arcs and backstory, while your DM can use the POV perspective to check what kind of clues & knowledge your group really has.
During game sessions I used to keep a list with bullet points and short sentences to keep track of what is gong on
We have started using OneNote to organise our notes - the bonus being it is easily shareable/editable by all members of the party. Our DM has been adding background info (things our characters would know in game) to help us too.
As OneNote is free, and available on android, iOS and windows platforms, easy to share outside of the sessions and access the info/update when playing. Plus you can dump pictures/maps in there and PDFs.
I take notes as a cop would, just the facts. I tend to remember the atmosphere and emotional side of things. Then, I find it fun to write-up a journal of what happened as my character remembers or misremembers the story. The DM loves the write-up and it gives him a general journal history of the session.
I like writing my notes as I think there is something magical that happens when you write as opposed to typing. If you can afford a high-end iPad, 2-1 laptop with a pen, or MS Surface, then write the notes directly there. As others have said, Onenote is great and free, but I hear that Bear is great on the iOS for note taking. If you don't have that type of cash to outlay, I highly recommend the Rocketbook notebook in conjunction with Onedrive, Google Docs, or Evernote.
I use an app called Quest Tracker. You can customize your categories. I have quests, NPCs, places, and factions. You can also build associations between entries and they will link to each other. It's really helpful.
I just started playing D&D and I couldn't find any good note taking apps, so I decided to try making one (since my handwriting is terrible). Currently, I'm just running it locally, but if others would be interested, I could put it on a domain so that others could use. I put together a screen recording of what I've created thus far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjPIXOhqzY
Let me know if anyone would be interested in using this (don't want to spend the money on domain and hosting if it's not useful to anyone).
I do mine in character. With doodles, ramblings, suspicions, etc... for me it's not about efficiency. It's about what my character would know or think to write. This journal has "plot armour". :)
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Rule for drama. Roll for memories. If there isn't a meaningful failure condition, do not roll. Ever. (Perception checks, I'm .... clunk, roll, roll, roll, stop... 14, looking at you... maybe?)
I love One Note for meetings and work (because of the pen), and I may transition it over to when I'm a player, but I'm still using paper.
I found over the years keeping it chronological helps. So I start on one page and tag at the start of each session. It helps when going back and for when people (even the DM) need to know what happened when. I use references when things connect back to old notes (NPC's, Places, etc). I'm also usually mapping so I put numbers on the map that reference any notes I've taken.
I have had adventures where at the end I could pretty much run it from my notes, and others where I barely wrote a thing. All depends on the game.
As a player, I hate taking notes. As a DM, I hate it when my players take notes. When I'm talking, setting a scene or revealing story details, I would like for my players to be listening to me, not scribbling every third word in their notebooks and asking me seven times "wait, what was that again?" because they're too busy with said notebooks to pay attention.
Try giving your players notes, instead of having them take notes. Make up NPC, location, or quest cards that players can keep. If it's part of a video game U.I., you shouldn't be forcing your players to figure it out themselves in the malicious hope that they'll forget some detail you knew was critical but they didn't that you can then TPK them over later.
one way is google documents, that way if you have an internet connection and also have other people taking notes, you can compile them on a "Live" document which everyone adds to, and you can get onto it every time you gather to play, and everyone has the notes and clarify information for everyone else.
accessible on any device with internet, such as phone.
Came across this post and thought I would add my two cents even though it is long after the fact. Playing via computer for the last two years I have found https://airtable.com/ to be a great resource for recording new NPCs, Locations, Items since its a database everything can be easily linked and cross-referenced after you set it up you can also share limited view versions of the data if you have your own player character-specific notes you don't want to share with the rest of the party but still want to let them have access to a shared list.
You can have separate sections designated to important things.
TOWNS: A description of what it's like, what it's known for, and notable people in that town.
PEOPLE: A list of people and what makes them important. Also not a bad idea to mention skills they're good at and where they are located.
QUESTS: A nice way to keep track of the quests you are working on or past quests you've done. Also not a bad idea to take notes on who you did the quest for.
GENERAL IMPORTANT INFORMATION: You put any important information here that doesn't really fit anywhere else but you know it'll matter and may pertain later in the campaign.
MISCELLANEOUS: You put any random information here that may be good to know but won't necessarily pertain to the whole campaign (Ex. you might sketch a random maze you find on a statue you stumbled across in case it may be of importance in the future).
Hope this helps! Let me know what you think. If you have any other questions feel free to PM me, I'd be more than happy to help.
EXACTLY! Make a template in your favorite word processor that dedicates a page to each location and the various types of establishments. I recommend keep quest notebook separated separate from the first set of notes. If there’s anything integral to both, write that “thing” in one of the notebooks and reference the page number in the other notebooks. Also, an hour or two after you wrap up a session, review the notes to really solidify what you’re annotated.
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TheMadArkitekt
Minister of Fear Chairman of the Bored and Mayor of a little village just up the coast...
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Personally, I have a really good memory for general (and mostly useless) information. This makes it really easy for me to place a movie quote or some such just from hearing a one-liner, and can usually cliff-notes the plot of an entire movie from just that single statement. But I usually need something to grab onto and pull at to get that info-stream going. Since I'm using DnD Beyond for my character sheet, I just have Word open and take simple notes of significant entities and their related details. The name of the town we start in, and it's general state. The name of the captain of the guard. The nature of the relationship between the people and the petulant lordling in his hilltop manner. Rival faction fomenting unrest in local people. That one goblin was wearing a different uniform. The half-orc Ranger/Barb NPC is clearly using his mannerisms as an escape mechanism from some element of his past that he is actively concealing from everyone. Etc. If a subject ever comes up that could be or is related to something that happened before, either I already remember it, or I have the "hook" to that knowledge in my notes.
Predominately, it's proper names and how they relate to our party, a location, or each other. Sometimes I find I should have asked for repeats of information that either went by too fast and I missed, or I sit bolt upright in bed and start kicking myself for not doing an Investigation or Insight check to expand on something that I knew was fishy but couldn't figure out, and now I know I/we have missed something that could be important later. Like the fact that Countess Ceyza, vying for the succession after the death of the King (probably her fault), is not only fomenting rebellion in the people, but also allying with the Drow to attack the neighboring Dwarven kingdom, hiring Goblin, Hob-Goblin, and Bugbear warbands to spread fear in the land, and probably also promising gifts or leadership or whatever to the Orc tribe in the swamp. Yes, she's an evil mastermind and probably our ultimate foe. And all of that because nobody thought to check the one Goblin the DM specified was wearing a different uniform than the rest.
I have a pretty good memory, so I don't take much in the way of notes during a session as a player. But I usually dump my thoughts into Microsoft Word after the fact. These type of notes are very player/character centric most of the time and read as a journal in style. If it is one of those "the DM says its important" I'll type it up with my Bluetooth keyboard, to my Samsung Tablet right then, and put it on the DnDBeyond character sheets. But for the rest, for two different campaigns I have taken the notes and rewrote them as stories, which have become "cannon" for a campaign.
As a DM, I am pretty organized on critical NPCs, places, and the like. So I only keep track of the improvisations and results from encounters. Sometimes the result from an encounter, might crop up as a part of the play later on (hey remember that Bard we fleeced a year ago...well he's been telling stories that we were bad guys). And that might occur a campaign later. I used to do this by hand, but now electronics make it easier to track key events. Any event that makes us laugh, wince or cry are good ones to note, as are key things that the players miss/skip/avoid. Some times there are consequences after all. :)
Coming from other RPG systems, that had you acquire and level up individual skills, I have put my notes into narrative chapters of a campaign story between game session. Chapters alternated between group adventures and individual characters chapters that highlighted what kind of skills I had trained, improved etc. If you can get other players to participate, you will get a lot of chances for personal story arcs and backstory, while your DM can use the POV perspective to check what kind of clues & knowledge your group really has.
During game sessions I used to keep a list with bullet points and short sentences to keep track of what is gong on
We have started using OneNote to organise our notes - the bonus being it is easily shareable/editable by all members of the party. Our DM has been adding background info (things our characters would know in game) to help us too.
As OneNote is free, and available on android, iOS and windows platforms, easy to share outside of the sessions and access the info/update when playing. Plus you can dump pictures/maps in there and PDFs.
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I take notes as a cop would, just the facts. I tend to remember the atmosphere and emotional side of things. Then, I find it fun to write-up a journal of what happened as my character remembers or misremembers the story. The DM loves the write-up and it gives him a general journal history of the session.
I like writing my notes as I think there is something magical that happens when you write as opposed to typing. If you can afford a high-end iPad, 2-1 laptop with a pen, or MS Surface, then write the notes directly there. As others have said, Onenote is great and free, but I hear that Bear is great on the iOS for note taking. If you don't have that type of cash to outlay, I highly recommend the Rocketbook notebook in conjunction with Onedrive, Google Docs, or Evernote.
Taking notes with bullet points, different colored pens/highlighters works for me!
Sounds amazing,I would love to see photos of your notebook and methods!
I use an app called Quest Tracker. You can customize your categories. I have quests, NPCs, places, and factions. You can also build associations between entries and they will link to each other. It's really helpful.
It's called a notebook and a pencil a beautiful thing really
I just started playing D&D and I couldn't find any good note taking apps, so I decided to try making one (since my handwriting is terrible). Currently, I'm just running it locally, but if others would be interested, I could put it on a domain so that others could use. I put together a screen recording of what I've created thus far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjPIXOhqzY
Let me know if anyone would be interested in using this (don't want to spend the money on domain and hosting if it's not useful to anyone).
Thanks!
I do mine in character. With doodles, ramblings, suspicions, etc... for me it's not about efficiency. It's about what my character would know or think to write. This journal has "plot armour". :)
Rule for drama. Roll for memories.
If there isn't a meaningful failure condition, do not roll. Ever. (Perception checks, I'm .... clunk, roll, roll, roll, stop... 14, looking at you... maybe?)
I love One Note for meetings and work (because of the pen), and I may transition it over to when I'm a player, but I'm still using paper.
I found over the years keeping it chronological helps. So I start on one page and tag at the start of each session. It helps when going back and for when people (even the DM) need to know what happened when. I use references when things connect back to old notes (NPC's, Places, etc). I'm also usually mapping so I put numbers on the map that reference any notes I've taken.
I have had adventures where at the end I could pretty much run it from my notes, and others where I barely wrote a thing. All depends on the game.
Everyone is the main character of their story
<REDACTED>
As a player, I hate taking notes. As a DM, I hate it when my players take notes. When I'm talking, setting a scene or revealing story details, I would like for my players to be listening to me, not scribbling every third word in their notebooks and asking me seven times "wait, what was that again?" because they're too busy with said notebooks to pay attention.
Try giving your players notes, instead of having them take notes. Make up NPC, location, or quest cards that players can keep. If it's part of a video game U.I., you shouldn't be forcing your players to figure it out themselves in the malicious hope that they'll forget some detail you knew was critical but they didn't that you can then TPK them over later.
Why you shouldn't start ANOTHER thread about DDB not giving away free redeems on your hardcopy book purchases.
Thinking of starting ANOTHER thread asking why Epic Boons haven't been implemented? Read this first to learn why you shouldn't!
one way is google documents, that way if you have an internet connection and also have other people taking notes, you can compile them on a "Live" document which everyone adds to, and you can get onto it every time you gather to play, and everyone has the notes and clarify information for everyone else.
accessible on any device with internet, such as phone.
Came across this post and thought I would add my two cents even though it is long after the fact. Playing via computer for the last two years I have found https://airtable.com/ to be a great resource for recording new NPCs, Locations, Items since its a database everything can be easily linked and cross-referenced after you set it up you can also share limited view versions of the data if you have your own player character-specific notes you don't want to share with the rest of the party but still want to let them have access to a shared list.
I do mine in a notebook, and only note things like names, places and events, and the quotable quotes (even then it is pretty brief).
I try to keep notes for my character separate from the party notes.
I then pad it out in a Google Doc as the "story" with possibly a few embellishments along the way.
Odo Proudfoot - Lvl 10 Halfling Monk - Princes of the Apocalypse (Campaign Finished)
Orryn Pebblefoot - Lvl 5 Rock Gnome Wizard (Deceased) - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Deceased)
Anerin Ap Tewdr - Lvl 5 Human (Variant) Bard (College of Valor) - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
EXACTLY! Make a template in your favorite word processor that dedicates a page to each location and the various types of establishments. I recommend keep quest notebook separated separate from the first set of notes. If there’s anything integral to both, write that “thing” in one of the notebooks and reference the page number in the other notebooks. Also, an hour or two after you wrap up a session, review the notes to really solidify what you’re annotated.
TheMadArkitekt
Minister of Fear
Chairman of the Bored
and Mayor of a little village just up the coast...