For those of you with ADHD, how do you organize your campaigns?

[Faolyn]

I normally do standalone adventures without much of an overarching plot. But my players are really looking forward to my running more of a real game with such an arc. Worldbuilding is easy, but organizing NPCs, factions, background events going off, chains of events... well, there's a reason I didn't do well in school.

So what tools do you have or tips that you use to make it easier for you?

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Notes. Excessive notes.

I manage everything in Emacs, using something called org-mode. Emacs is probably a bit too hardcore to get into if you're not really enthusiastic about it, but I think for this use case it is unbeatable. It allows me to write notes in plain text and then to have sections of the text hidden away as needed. I structure my document like a hierarchy, something like this:

* NPC INDEX
** Bob the Barkeep
Bad temper. Knows about the bandits. Has told the PCs about the bandit hideout.
** Bill the Bandit
Has a hideout near Fiddle Rock.

What's useful about this system is that I can just make emacs hide all the NPCs when I don't need to see them at all. I have a similar structure to store a session log, something like this

* SESSIONS
** Session 1, 2024-02-01
The players met Bob the Barkeep.
Found the note left by Phillip.
They fought a bunch of wolves on their way to Whateverton.
** Session 2, 2024-02-08
Spike pick pocketed a clown and got a cursed ring.

I use the session log to also store future notes. Things like ideas for what NPCs will say and so on.

 

[overgeeked]

I would highly recommend Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. It's fantastic for ADHD referees.

I use Scrivener to organize all my notes. I already had the program so it was not an additional cost. I create a folder and several text files to keep track of things. It's all in one place for ease of reference. I don't have to go looking for anything. It's all right there. A specific folder on your computer with the relevant text and image files would work much the same.

I organize my notes into nine sections. Factions. NPCs. Plot Hooks. PC Goals. Fantastic Locations. Lore. Magic Items & Treasure. Notes on the PCs. Those We’ve Lost. These are all in one doc or individual docs depending on the size of the campaign. Various other bits and pieces are tracked, like who's the current owner of a magic item and who's the former owner. As much of it as possible is directed at generating plot hooks or in response to PC goals. Is it happening in the next session or the one after that? Then it doesn't matter. Worry about it later.

Plot hooks are the situations I've generated and dropped into the world. PC Goals are the self-motivation bits the players or their characters have come up with. Two sides of the same coin, only difference being who created them.

These are a mix of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, Guy's notes (How to be a Great GM), and various other things I've found that work for me over the years.

I also make extensive use of random generators. I have thousands of random names in various files, dozens of Excel spreadsheets set up to generate 100 NPCs with a click. Copy and paste the output, format it a bit, and drop it into a doc file. I have those handy so I can drop any old NPC I could possibly need into the game.

Find a stack of battle maps and set them aside. Make sure there's a good variety of locations. Use whichever one is next on the pile when you need it. Don't waste time looking for the perfect map. Use whatever's next on the pile. If that means what you thought was going to be a tomb encounter is really a library encounter, great. That adds spice and keeps things fresh. Riff on some library-themed monsters and go. That will be way more memorable than the 7,521st dungeon delve where you face 2d6 of these 1d4 monsters: 1. goblins. 2. orcs. 3. skeletons. 4. zombies. Also work up or buy good, generic random monster tables. Pick up something like Forge of Foes and use the chart in the back as your baseline monster stat block. Or check out Blog of Holding's 5E MM on a Business card.

One trick I'd suggest is not trying to control the story, instead let the players and PCs dictate where things go. Learn to improvise and work with what they want to do. It lightens the load considerably. If the PCs already have goals when you start, all you have to do is dangle those in front of the PCs and put relevant obstacles in their way. Having PCs intrinsically motivated is so much easier than trying to prep a pre-written module and constantly forcing the PCs back on track.

The more you can offload to randomness, the better. It will also keep you entertained far longer than having to prep everything ahead of time. You get to be surprised along with the players. That's great and it keeps things fresh.

 

[Celebrim]

Haphazardly created notes about everything, with most entries only like 80% finished.

Really work out the answer to the question, "What has happened up till now?" in very great detail. The rest you need only to outline. So long as you can answer the questions about what has happened confidently and without fear of contradiction or missing a clue that is implied by those actions, then you can be pretty vague about everything else and work out the details in play.

Your inappropriate hyperfocus is your friend. Harness it. It's like a superpower when properly harnessed and focused on the right tasks.

Build with the intention of improvising. Make lists. Make lots of lists. Lists of names are particularly important. Make random generators. Use random generators. The more you do it the more you'll be able to work out ahead of time what lists you'll need and what locations you'll need to prep.

Remember that random generators are there to serve you. You don't serve them. They can create ideas and combinations that inspire you, but don't let them decide what is fun or interesting. You pick.

 

[jdrakeh]

Pre-digital days, I used to keep a box of index cards for every campaign that I was running, with NPCs, adventure locations, and plot points sorted alphabetically. Now I do the same thing with Microsoft OneNote.

 

[payn]

Discord is a good way to manage the groups attendance, interest, and campaign specifics like lore, loot, etc... An adventure path and/or published module does not run itself, but does provide a lot of the work if you organize it well and prepare for the upcoming sessions.

 

[Faolyn]

I organize my notes into nine sections. Factions. NPCs. Plot Hooks. PC Goals. Fantastic Locations. Lore. Magic Items & Treasure. Notes on the PCs. Those We’ve Lost. These are all in one doc or individual docs depending on the size of the campaign. Various other bits and pieces are tracked, like who's the current owner of a magic item and who's the former owner. As much of it as possible is directed at generating plot hooks or in response to PC goals. Is it happening in the next session or the one after that? Then it doesn't matter. Worry about it later.

How do you not forget this info when you need it. I've barely started my notes and they already feel like a mess. I woke up this morning and suddenly realized I had forgotten to give one PC a bit of info they really need to know (for the future, thankfully) during last week's game.

(Although in my defense, I got distracted because the player in question kind of freaked because it was related to an evil clown animatronic, where I included a picture, and it turns out they're severely colourophobic.)

I can't afford another program at the moment--especially since I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get inkarnate pro--so I've just been using Word.

These are a mix of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, Guy's notes (How to be a Great GM), and various other things I've found that work for me over the years.

I'll definitely start reading his things. Thanks--I keep forgetting about his stuff!

 

[overgeeked]

How do you not forget this info when you need it. I've barely started my notes and they already feel like a mess. I woke up this morning and suddenly realized I had forgotten to give one PC a bit of info they really need to know (for the future, thankfully) during last week's game.

I have all my stuff on my computer. When I'm running a session where I think the PCs will encounter something from my notes, I write it out on a 3x5 card. One thing per card. It takes a second to find what I need sometimes. Having the names emphasized at the top of the card helps speed up finding things. If it's a magic item, I hand the players the card. If it's a clue, I hand the players the card.

But, depending on how complex your campaign, you're just going to forget stuff. Roll with it. Either it's not that important or you can change it or you can correct it next time or you can drop it in next time. Like if you get an NPC's name wrong...it's easier to change the name in your notes than to correct the players. If you forget to drop some info for a PC, drop it in next session.

That's one of the tricks from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. Clues. Don't attach them to specific times or places. Drop them in front of the PCs wherever it makes sense. If you pin a clue to a specific time and/or place, you risk the PCs missing it. Instead drop the clue where the PCs are. As long as you're not forcing the players or PCs to deal with whatever it is, it's fine. If they ignore it, it's on them. If they engage with it, it's on them.

It's a whole lot of "do the best you can" and "don't let perfect be the enemy of good." And improvisation. Lots of improvisation.

Having PCs with goals is also a great help. Because then they remember those things. If it's important to the PC and player, they'll remember that NPCs' name, the name of their hometown, the name of the magic scroll, etc.

(Although in my defense, I got distracted because the player in question kind of freaked because it was related to an evil clown animatronic, where I included a picture, and it turns out they're severely colourophobic.)

Oh. Damn. Yeah, that's bad news. Good luck with that. Hope your player is okay. Might be a great time to talk about lines and veils with the group to avoid that from happening again.

I can't afford another program at the moment--especially since I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get inkarnate pro--so I've just been using Word.

Absolutely. Word and an organized folder on your computer work just as good. I'm just used to Scrivener so it's what I use.

I'll definitely start reading his things. Thanks--I keep forgetting about his stuff!

Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is one of the best resources out there for running games. Especially if you're in the ADHD club. Mike also has a great YouTube channel where he talks about a lot of this stuff, including overviews of the high points of the book. It's cheap and absolutely worth the price tag. But you can get a lot from his videos, too.

 

[Celebrim]

How do you not forget this info when you need it.

Regardless of system I tend to organize my thoughts into Chapters/Adventures that narrow things down to a smaller frame of events. I may have big campaign level notes for factions and fronts and events and calendars (check the calendar, what is happening today), but the PC's are expected to be dealing with one particular front/faction at a time usually are have some focus that is more predictable and limited in scope.

It can be really hard to keep a living world going. I spend more time than I should in session trying to find the notes I need because facts, NPCs or player questions show up not in the location that I expected them to show up in because the PC's aren't following the path I anticipated.

Typically a chapter consists of a bit of setting background giving demographics and history of the location, and then contains a long detailed section on "What has happened?" that describes some actions taken by a faction often in secret that will be the driving force of the adventure, and then contains entries for likely factions the PC's could run afoul of along with major (named) and example/template NPCs for ad hoc encounters, then contains entries for locations the PC's could or are likely to visit where they may meet NPCs and/or find breadcrumbs. NPCs generally get example conversational topics and how they are likely to respond to give a sense of what they know. Encounter locations could be anything from a simple stage for the encounter up to the scale of a dungeon.

Beware handwaves like, "The NPC talks tells a joke" where you didn't write down the joke. Make sure you have enough notes actually written down that you aren't improvising the hard parts (whatever the hard parts are for you).

Of that again "What has happened?" is the most important thing. Knowing exactly what happened in your head in a concrete manner with no handwaves is how I don't forget.

Invariably I have things about 80% detailed and then in between sessions in response to unexpected events I have to create more details that I didn't know I needed. Invariably I have more information than I need because there are locations the PCs don't visit or discover because of missed breadcrumbs, but I have enough 'three clue rule' going on that they find some path through to the end.

Note that I'm a big believer of narrow-broad-narrow where there is a hook, a mini-sandbox to explore, and a trail of breadcrumbs that leads to figurative exit from the scenario with some sort of finale where the PC's accomplish whatever purpose they have by some means (or fail to do so with associated consequences).

 

[MNblockhead]

I was diagnosed with ADHD in middle school and was on Ritalin for a few years. I don't know that ADHD has much of an effect on my game prep other than, like work, I really rely on computers to keep organized. Currently, for my Warhammer Campaign, I use Foundry. The adventures, items, actors, etc are already organized by the system. I keep a game master's note book where I record ideas for how the campaign may progress, which I update based on what the players do. I have a session page for each game session where I write up how the session will start and where I write up my notes on what happened in the session after the session is over.

Random name and other info generation is done in either the Foundry or Discord chat, so I go through that and update my notes.

Foundry makes it pretty easy to drop links to other articles, items, actors etc. into the notes which helps pull thinks up directly from my notes.

I used to have game-prep content spread across Foundry, Google Drive, and Evernote. But when the journal functionality was updated in Foundry to support rich, multi-page journals, with auto outlining based on titles and headers, I just consolidated everything in Foundry for my current campaign. With one main campaign document, cross-linking, and great search and filtering it is pretty easy to keep organized in a way that is easy to reference and use during the game.

EDIT to add what I used in the past:

1. Early 80s until early 1990 - paper and three-ring binders. An old high school friend had actually held on to one of my binders since the late 80s. Was cool to page through the past. Basically stuffed a lot with minimal organization other than tab separators to keep adventure materials, world material, and character sheets separate.
2. 2014 when I got back into TTRPGs with 5e, I used Realm Works, which was a great locally installed campaign management tool that would auto link words to articles and gave a wealth or campaign-organization tools. But Lone Wolf Development ended development for it. I used it for my first 5e campaign, which used a home brew world.
3. 2nd campaign was Curse of Strahd. Just used the book and Evernote.
4. 3rd campaign was Rappan Athuk (by Frog God Games). I started this 5-year campaign using RealmWorks when running it in person. After I had to switch to running it online, after testing a bunch of tools I moved to Foundry, but only put the maps and monsters in there. I used Google Drive to record campaign notes, homebrew rules, etc. Had a lot of stuff in Evernote as well. Tried World Anvil but really only used it for the interactive world map and Lost Lands content, that Frog God Games offered a subscription for. Didn't try to create my own content in it.
5. 4th campaign - Warhammer Fantasy 4e. To consolidate subscriptions and content in general (not just gaming content) I migrated everything from Evernote to Google Drive and killed my Evernote subscription. I bought that Cubicle 7 official WFRP content for Foundry. I start just creating all my campaign notes, GM references, etc. in Foundry from the get go. I have PDFs of rules, adventures, and other content in Google Drive but all the content I actually use and refer to in game is in Foundry.