How to get the rest of the party to take notes?

[Campbell]

Is it just note taking? Is there an overall lack of engagement from other players during the session?

 

[isaquelazaro]

I have punished players for not remembering important data about the campaign, but agree it's not the most friendly way to make them take notice of the importance.

 

[fjw70]

Sounds like the issue is a disconnect between the game the players want to play and the game the DM wants to run (and you seem to want the same thing as the DM).

Personally I loath taking notes. I hated it in collage (and rarely did it) and still do. So if I miss a plot point sometimes then oh well. If the bad guys destroys the world because I didn't remember someone's name, oh well. The group I am in now already had a note taker when I joined so thing work fine. He doesn't mind taking notes and I don't mind him doing it.

Bottom line is play the way you want to and let everyone else play the way they want to. Don't have your character be an in-world note taker. Just take notes out of character and share as much or as little as you want.

 

[Sunseeker]

Tell the players "No offense, but I'm getting tired of taking notes for the party all the time. I'm going to stop, so please take your own notes from now on. Thanks."

If that gets them upset, too bad. It is not your responsibility to take notes other players and the other players have no right to expect someone else to do it for them.

Yeah, I suspect I will comment on it tomorrow. I've been dropping hints over the past couple games. I might just need to say it

So yeah thanks for all the comments, some quick response to everyone:

When DM, i try to take a moment at the beginning of a session to do a super-brief recap. If your DM does not do this, you could perhaps step up to do it, instead, which might cut down on the in-game exposition.

I have done this, but I haven't tracked its effects on people paying attention the rest of the game.

One way to look at it would be that your character is getting plenty of opportunites to not be, as you say, a selfish jerk. But that doesn't mean they have to succeed every time. If character growth was easy, everyone would do it. I bet your character's development would still be interesting, even if they draw a line in the sand to keep from being taken advantage of.

Yeah I've thought about taking a Jedi-like approach to it, offering up information as it becomes useful for me to do so to accomplish my goals.

IMO, most of the notes you are talking about should ideally be supplied by the DM. Complex information about towns and locations should be available as maps. Lore and social information should take the form of Knowledge checks.

It is. I take supplemental notes for myself because it's what I do.

A game requiring "copious notes" for the players to keep track of everything going on is not normal in my experience.
...
OTOH, it's possible that the other players are simply being lazy. In which case I would probably just stop taking notes, step back from the leadership role, and see where the adventure goes for a session or two.

As I have mentioned before, I'm a political scientist, I quite enjoy complex. I would much rather people step up than dumb the game down. The latter would more than likely make me uninterested in playing. But yes I have been stepping back from the leadership roles and will likely continue to do so.

As for the particular situation the OP is in, I can think of a few possible ideas - some more radical than others, all in-character except where obvious:

- next time in town, pick up a similar notebook to the one you have without anyone else's knowledge, and burn it nearly to a crisp. Then, next time you get hit with any significant fire effect tell 'em your book got fried and show them the "evidence". You still secretly have your original book and its contents, and it's up to you (both in and out of character) whether you decide to keep on updating it.
- with co-operation from your DM, next time you're in a combat and get bashed around a bit claim you've suffered some mild brain damage and have forgotten a great many things...including how to write.
- give the book to another literate character and flat-out tell that character "Right - that's my secretarial tour of duty over with. Your turn.".
- or, the most radical solution: again with co-operation from your DM, leave the party and take your notes with you. Turn your character over to the DM as an NPC and roll up something else to play in the party. Then the DM, using your old character and its notes as a foundation, builds a party of NPCs who go on to become direct competitors to the played party...only they now have all the information.

The first two ideas above are intended to wean the other characters/players off their reliance on you as secretary. The third is an obvious passing of responsibility. The fourth...well, maybe not for everyone's tastes but I see the potential for some inteesting developments down the line.

Lanefan

HA! I like that first one, and it would not be difficult to pull off..

Is it just note taking? Is there an overall lack of engagement from other players during the session?

I think there's a lack of engagement from at least one player, but I'll think about this point more after tomorrow's session.

 

[Blue]

In my last two campaigns I gave bonus XP for updating the wiki between sessions which could be recaps, notable NPCs or locations, or also doing things like writing myths of your people or the such. Some people loved it, some people never did it.

Those campaigns were rather realistic and had shades fo rey all over the place. My current campaign is more turned-up-to-11 and I just recap and remind players when "this new bit of info seems to fit with X and Y that you learned back when Z". (Though for all of that one of my players takes fantastic notes because he loves to, and will talk about minor NPCs of places we haven't visited in the past 12 month real time and I have to ask him "who from where?!")

 

[Grogg of the North]

When I DM, I send out an email after each session. The email consists of a Last Time recap, Next Time teaser, a homework question and any housekeeping I need to address, like XP. It's helpful for everyone, myself included, to have something I can quickly skim through to remind me of what's happening.

 

[MarkB]

When they ask you about something, say "I'll tell you, if you write it down." And stick to it - watch them taking notes, have them read them back.

And the next time someone asks the same question, say "Bob wrote that one down, he'll tell you."