Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheAlkaizer" data-source="post: 8403056" data-attributes="member: 7024893">When I DM, I have a small notepad to take notes, scribble and for all my output.For my input (my prep), I have my laptop in front of me. I use a software called Notion. I already use it for work, and it's great at organizing notes in databases and formatted pages. It really complements my type of worldbuilding where I prepare a ton of stuff ahead, and then just refine it ahead of a session. When I think of something in the shower, or in the transit, I just add it to the relevant page. When I know it's likely that my player might explore that area, I go through the notes and refine them.As for Notion, if people are curious, I can go in more details later or if there's requests. But here's a summary. The examples are from my Starfinder campaign.I have a small dashboard in which there's multiple pages. In the following picture you can see: a list of databases under world building, pages with a copy of my player's characters background and personal notes under Players characters, a section for quick tracking in between sessions (not tracking anything in my Starfinder campaign, but I track stuff like the date in Forbidden Lands of the days of rations left in my D&D campaigns), and some system appropriate (Starfinder in this case) summaries for lore and rules under Lore and Rules. I also have pre-generated passwords for computers and other stuff.[ATTACH=full]144118[/ATTACH]If we dive in one of the databases (NPCs in this case), you'll see a literal database of NPCs. I have some quick informations to sort and navigate through them. Interestingly, you can see the second column (Location) that actually links towards the Locations database. So this is not just manually inputted data, it's a dynamic link to objects from that database. So I can navigate pretty quickly between databases.[ATTACH=full]144119[/ATTACH]If you click on one of these database entries, you can open up its page (every entry is a page). Here's a random entry. This is a pretty unimportant NPC. So I only have a few notes about their appearance, or important things to remember. This is all done with a template; each database has a template I've created. So if I create a new NPC in the NPC database and I open it, it'll already have these headers and some empty space to fill.[ATTACH=full]144120[/ATTACH]Now, I'm sure some will think this is over preparation. Some may also think this might be tedious to navigate and use during play.So what I do is prepare a summary page of what I'll need before a session. So, in that first image there's a page at the top left that says Sessions, in there, there's a list of one page per session. Generally you'll find one for the upcoming session too.[ATTACH=full]144121[/ATTACH]Now, if we dive in one of these, you'll see the notes I actually use for my session. It's basically some freeform notes and a ton of links towards pages scattered through the databases. I can simply open them, close them and I'm always in this session page. So, the first thing in my session page is some links.[ATTACH=full]144122[/ATTACH]And further in the page, you'll find some sections with headers for different locations or possible events. Here's an example. I have a quick note as to what music I wanted to put on in Spotify (hierarchy of playlists). I have some notes (in french) that describe the environment, this is my description blurb. And then some raw notes about the characters.[ATTACH=full]144123[/ATTACH]The formatting changes a lot from page to page. This is all for quick access.So, in the background, there's a ton of prep, databases, notes, etc. I simply refine it when it's pertinent and I organize it in a session page ahead of the next session.And sometimes life hits and this happens... (from a different campaign)[ATTACH=full]144125[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

Verification