How do you keep your GM notes?

[Marc_C]

Mostly square grid paper and binders. My players use a public googledoc during play to take notes. I stopped using the computers for notes to get away from the screen.

Currently have 4 binders. D&D 5e, Fantasy AGE, Modern AGE and Corilios. I have a 5th binder for all my solitary adventures. My The Expanse AGE campaign is in a folder, not enough notes to warrant a binder yet.

 

[hawkeyefan]

For me it depends on the game and the format.

I tend to use handwritten notes in a notebook that I keep handy. I’ll then sometimes take those notes and type them into a word doc to make them more legible and organized. I try not to have more than 2 such pages so that I can easily reference them during play.

If I’m playing a game that requires enemy statblocks like D&D, then I usually copy them from electronic formats, minimize the entries, and paste as many as possible onto one page. If I don’t have an electronic version then I’ll just type up a minimal statblock and use that.

For less prep-heavy games, I usually just “refresh” and organize notes I’ve taken in play, and use those in the next session. I also use other resources when available. I have a google doc version of the Crews and Playbooks for Blades in the Dark. There’s a tab for the Crew and then one for each PC, and also one for Faction Statuses and Clocks that are in play. The beautiful thing about this is that the players update it as we play, and we can all view and edit live as needed.

Another example is when we’re playing remotely via Discord, I have a GM only channel that I can type notes into as needed. So I’ll do that during play, and then update and organize in between sessions.

For the face to face campaign of Spire that I just started, I mostly use handwritten notes. It’s a very player led game, so after the first session, I don’t expect to need a whole lot in the way of adventure prep. What I’ll need is NPC and Faction lists and descriptions and that kind of thing. I made a one page mind-map of the relevant factions and their relationships. I’ll mark notes on that during play, and then update it after play. All the possible NPC stats you need for Spire fit on about three printed pages, so I have them handy.

I just ordered a Campaign Planner Notebook from The Rook & The Raven, which I customized to be very suited to running Spire; it has lots of entries for factions and NPCs and the like. I’m looking forward to getting that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Everything I do is digital these day; permanent material is prepared in WordPerfect and usually stored both as such files and output as PDFs (so when using them I don't accidentally change something by accident). More transitory material and general notes I store in Scrivener files for the individual campaign.

 

[Jay Murphy1]

I record all my game sessions so this is my ultimate notebook of what actually occurred. By the time I've edited the audio into a listenable format I've got the whole session pretty much memorized so I spend less time on prep and more time daydreaming what the villains are plotting/doing. I use small hardcover notebooks to draw up relationship maps and bullet point NPC powers and stats. I rough up sketches of anticipated site locations and create any random tables I want before hand, but they also go into durable small notebooks, unlined if I can get them. The rulebook is at the table to handle actual in game questions on any procedure.

 

[aco175]

I' m not good at notes and keep most things in my head or take only a handful of pen and pencil notes at the table to keep for later. I might make some story arcs for each PC and then see which the party takes. There is not a lot of that in my games though as most of the players don't have big backstory and tend to go with the published story or something I make. I would like to see more of it though.

 

[thullgrim]

One Note and then print outs at the table I've written all over.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

In BitD, which I run over Discord voice sessions, I have a Google Doc with all of the NPCs and factions. I have a couple of other notes on my phone and computer but this one is the most important.

I used to write everything on paper, but online cloud docs are so useful to me.

And since I learned about character keeper sheets (on Google Sheets), I'm looking into those for future games.

 

[Fenris-77]

Mostly I use little spiral bound notebooks for GM notes. Well, actually player notes too. I have a tendency to get lost in too much detail, especially as a player, so writing it down helps. Same goes for GMing and especially for recording the player side of what's going on.

 

[pogre]

I use google docs for everything. I print stuff off and run it out of a binder at the table. I prefer not to have my computer on the table in face-to-face games.

 

[payn]

A collection of PDFs and MS office files. Though, since pandemic getting into discord more and its ability for chat channels and file sharing.