Sections in your GM Notebook

[PencilBoy99]

Hi. I'm struggling to organize my GM Notebook for peoplesoft. What are the sections/contents of sections you use in your GM Notebook (regardless of format) (e.g., NPC's, Session Prep, Threats, etc). If you can include a quick line abut what is in that section and the format if it's ambiguous that would be great!

 

[Razjah]

I tend to break it down into the following:
Map/location info- I keep this broad and add details as necessary/as prep occurs
NPCs- to keep them organized. If I use different voices I make a note so I remember who is who.
Enemies- I like to keep a handy reference for who the main/current enemies are.
Combat- any specific notes or stuff on previous encounters I want to reskin/reuse/retry to improve (example: rooftop chase did not work for [reasons] need to try [possible solution] to get the chase scenes better for Abby)
Plot guidelines- I find extensive details lead to railroading, but I keep a plot summary/synopsis to refer to.
Goals- I want a goal or three for every session. I try to hit them all, if not the remainder become the new goal for next session.

You can also use sites like Obsidian Portal to link between everything for easy searching. I am sure other sites do this as well, but I don't recall their names.

 

[innerdude]

I've found for me that the free OneNote app that comes with every Hotmail account works best for me. It lets me easily embed images on pages, keeps everything organized, and I never have to worry about transferring my work between computers, since it's all in the cloud.

My sections are as follows:

• Scene Framing - This is sort of my mental train-of-thoughts around what the players are doing, and how I expect various things inside the game world will respond to what the characters are doing. Note that this is NOT in any way intended to create a "plot" or action sequence to which the players must inevitably arrive. Usually these are broader, big picture thoughts and ideas about what might happen if the PCs choose to do certain things, but I've gotten to the point where I have absolutely no problem throwing stuff out or ignoring entire swaths entirely if the PCs seem to be interested in other things. This will evolve fairly significantly over the course of a campaign, or even from session to session. Typically I'll create 1-4 more specific encounter scenarios that could plausibly arise from within a particular scene frame. Again, the idea here is not to force the PCs down any course of action, merely to try and make responses to the PCs actions remain consistent with the game world.
• Places and Organizations
• NPCs
• Encounters
• Grab bag / Scratchpad - I use this when I end up creating something on the spot, like an NPC, tavern, magic item, weapon, etc. It helps me remember names, basic traits, descriptions, etc.
• Session Logs

 

[Dog Moon]

Well, so far in my GM Binder I have a bunch of miscellaneous stuff that could probably still use a bunch of organization. Strangely, despite being a GM for so many years, I've only recently put this together.

So [as I said in order in the Binder but in no real particular order] the binder includes the following:

XP Charts/Wealth/XP by Level/Per Encounter
Table of CRB Armors
Table of Weapons including Firearms
Table with HD/BAB + Save Progressions
Table of Objects
A Spreadsheet for types of rooms, trap locations, secret door locations, miscellaneous terrains and building types - this is for ideas more than anything and to help with building dungeons/locations
List of Names
Basic Treasures valued between 1sp through 5k.
Chart of NPC Quirks
Couple of Monster creation/advancement rules
Creatures Types [to help with monster creating]
Chart of Conditions
Finally, pages of printed Feats and Magical Gear that I would most likely use. Combined the main books and removed the feats/gear I would never give ANYONE to make one convenient location to look through without having to continuously sort through all the junk.

I actually have another entire binder that I'm using to run the Adventure off of, so things like notes and enemies and stuff is all contained within that additional binder. Otherwise I would probably put the notes in a different section of that binder, if I was using something prewritten where I couldn't just make notes on the back of the adventure pages.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Nowadays, at the not helpful level, I use FG.

However, before that, my "binder" was a collection of web pages. Each adventure had up to 6 sections; Table of Contents; Map; Encounters (the actual room description, treasure, monster lists, etc); Combat Stats for the monsters. Frequently, there was a 5th section, Plot, if I had a time-based/event-based adventure. Once or twice, I used Sounds (links to various clips), but I found that to be more work than I was willing to put in. And of course, all the sections linked to each other.

The world/campaign stuff was usually sloughed off to a public website/wiki. That was generally divided into 3 sections - House Rules (subdivided as appropriate), Setting (Countries, Geography, etc), and Campaign (Table Rules, Adventure Logs, etc.).