I am about to be a first time DM and was hoping people with more experience could help me out. What is the best way to organize story and information? Going through the book to find information on locations, people, and events seem's like it would slow down gameplay. Because I don't have the time (or patience) to commit everything to memory I was wondering what has work's for other DM's to condense and organize information in an easy to access way, should I use flash cards? write it on my arms like I'm getting ready for a math test?

Thanks in advance,

cheers 

My answer is that you'll be surprised how much time you actually have.  Players spend a LOT of time RPing with each other, discussing their next action, etc.  What you learn to do is use that time to load up on the information you're going to need, while keeping one ear open to hear their plans.  And when in doubt, you just make it up--I keep a notepad where I write down all the important things I BS to keep it straight from session to session.  

Thanks for the reply! I'm surprised Beyond doesn't have a system for this yet.

It's in the works, but the long-term works.

The best advice I can give you is don't over prepare. The general rule of thumb that I go by is this:

• Spend an amount of time preparing equal to half the time you expect the session to last.

That means if you expect it to be a 4 hour session, limit your preparing to only 2 hours. Now this doesn't mean you shouldn't "think" about your campaign ahead of time. I typically spend my commutes to / from work thinking about what's going on in the campaign world and how my player's actions are affecting it.

I like to divide my campaign up into "Episodes" with completion of an "Episode" being worth a player level. I also use milestone leveling up instead of experience leveling up, but that is just my preference. At the start of an "Episode" I'll typically ask a few questions:

• What are the antagonist(s) goals for this episode?
• How are the antagonist(s) going about to meet those goals?
• Where are the protagonist(s) in relationship to the antagonist(s)?
• Are the antagonist(s) aware of the protagonist(s)?
  • If so are the antagonist(s) feeling threatened by them?

There are other questions I might ask depending on the specific episode, but don't over complicate the answers. Stories can get too complicated and muddy if you try and juggle too many story-lines at once.

After each session I also like to ask a few questions related to the session:

• What did the protagonists accomplish?
• What did the antagonists accomplish?
• How will the world react to these accomplishments?

The answer to that third question, especially when related to the antagonist's goals for the "Episode" will often times dictate some of the scenarios that might occur in the next session.

The most important thing to remember is as GM you are supposed to be having fun as well. So don't get too stressed out planning. :-)

Thanks a lot, that's great advice I think I may be getting in my own head a little. I just don't want to miss any plot points or fun bits while my players are stumbling around the quest.   

Quote from Phteven >>

Thanks a lot, that's great advice I think I may be getting in my own head a little. I just don't want to miss any plot points or fun bits while my players are stumbling around the quest.   

I've started my first big homebrew campaign. I've got the background politics generally worked out and a general idea of the region they can reach in each session. I've set some optional goals for the PCs to pursue so I can guess what they'll be doing this session. My main strategy is to prepare some more or less plug and play encounters. Not random exactly (although that too), but the sorts of thing that fit the story that could happen anywhere. E.g., they're helping a faction in a foreign country try to steal a royal baby - it'll be better for the continent if this faction wins. Consequently there's another faction and powers they know nothing about after the baby and a related artefact. Encounters with troops and agents can happen anywhere, and it's easy to make up other stuff on the spot.

It sounds like you are using a published adventure?  Do you own it in print or here or DDB?  Which one are you running? 

I'm running Tomb of Annihliation and have the "book" both in print and on DDB.  I make prep notes with links in the campaign notes option here, and set up a variety of tabs to have quick(er) access to things.

There is some good discussion of how people are using dndbeyond to manage campaigns here 

I use onenote to track most of my “DM stuff” like overarching story, encounters, plans, notes, game logs, npc personalities, maps,etc.  I link to specific items in dndbeyond from there. I’ve found it the best way to bring together and keep track of all the parts of a campaign.

Even if dndbeyond had their own campaign management tool, It would be difficult to beat this solution for me - onenote is just such a mature, feature rich, and polished product.

Quote from Phteven >>

Yeah I am using a published adventure and I have it on beyond. You can create your own links to thinks on the site in notes?

Quote from ArwensDaughter >>

 

Quote from Phteven >>

Yeah I am using a published adventure and I have it on beyond. You can create your own links to thinks on the site in notes?

 

There are two types to links:tool tips, which are similar to bbcode, to link to monsters, spells, magic items, etc.  pinned near the top of one of the forums is a post from VillainTheory that lists all the tool tips and how to use them. 

You can also use  url links. This is easiest to do if you are prepping on a computer using The Chrome browser and the Beyond Help extension. One of the features of that extension is to put a little icon by section headings when you hover over the header. If you click on the icon, it copies the url for that secti , and you can paste it in your notes. It even formats the link so you just see the heading name. Unfortunately mobile versions of chrome don't allow extensions, so the prep work must be done on a laptop or desktop. But once made, these links can be used on mobile.