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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nevvur" data-source="post: 7241010" data-attributes="member: 6783882">It started with someone saying their pet peeve was players who don't take notes, and turned into someone saying players should take notes because x, y, z, and the debate ensued. I'll politely decline your invitation to dig through 17 pages of conversation to recap it, though. To be clear, I appreciate many of the sentiments expressed in the rest of your post I quoted, even if I don't agree with all of it. I was just honing in on that particular bit because for myself and at least one other - Oofta, as you identified - it can result in more harm than good. Let me emphasize the word "can" here. It's not a given for me and I doubt it is for him either. Still, I'm pretty sure at least one or two other people echoed these sentiments, but if I am mistaken, pardon my exaggeration. More on this below.Perhaps I should have qualified what I meant by making the game worse. Disruption of immersion, losing the flow of conversation and missing additional details. The speed of conversation means stopping to take notes can waste more time than it saves. Again, it can do this, not does do this. Is it a serious infraction when it happens? Hardly. No one here claimed it's a pet peeve when players do take notes. But for DMs like myself who have arrived at a perspective or practical solution that absolves players of the need to take notes, I would rather they kept their attention focused on the moment rather than worrying they might forget the name of some NPC, location, etc. If something truly noteworthy does come up, I can just straight up tell them they might want to remember it. It's easier for everyone at my table that way.Sure, as the DM I carry a greater burden when it comes to keeping all the details straight, and no, taking notes is not a difficult job for a player. Yet if players not taking notes and me needing to remind them about details really gets under my skin, I'm going to modify my own behavior before I try to modify others. As I wrote a few pages ago, written and oral session recaps have fixed the problem of player forgetfulness at my table. It just so happens I enjoy doing them so I don't even consider it an additional burden. For DMs who don't have the time or desire to do them... sorry? Wish I had a solution for you, but hey, that's table variation for you.The bottom line for me is that note taking is a preference, and preferences are not open to debate. We'll get the same mileage from arguing whether chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla. It's fine to prefer that your players take notes (or that they don't). It's not fine when someone uses their preference to cast judgment on other DMs' tables, especially when it was never an issue with those other DMs in the first place.</blockquote>

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