How good at note-taking are your players?

[CerebralAssassin]

Generally speaking, I am a copious note taker.

Mainly, this is because if I have free time during the week to work on a problem we're dealing with, having the notes handy means I don't have to e-mail the DM to ask a question that my character should remember.

Also, though I find that because our DM sometimes is forced to wing things, my notes can be useful for refreshing his memory.

Nathan

 

[Rel]

Collectively, my group takes great notes. One guy is playing a Royal Explorer and he makes notes on every odd geographical feature, ancient symbol or cultural phenomenon they come across. Another player is very story driven and also paranoid (with pretty good reason) so he takes extensive (if messy) notes about all the NPC's and their motivations and quirks. Yet another player has taken up the task of doing "Battle Reports" for me. This is a purely metagame exercise that helps me to write the Story Hour thread later on.

I give XP for most of this.

 

[Tzarevitch]

I have one player who takes meticulous notes. He even types them up at the end of session for his own personal log. The rest of my players pick up a pencil to erase their hit points and that's about it.

My players are much the same. I have one who keeps track of everything on a laptop. The others haven't taken a note since the game began.

Tzarevitch

 

[robberbaron]

My players don't generally take many notes. The ones they do take are the names of NPCs they think might be important and the disposition of treasure (and they sometimes get this wrong).

I can't blame them because, when I am playing, I don't take more notes than that. Then again, I don't write a Story Hour. Perhaps I should polish up my note taking for the time when I feel comfortable putting my work out in public.

I guess the reason behind my slackness is that the players throw me seriously curved balls so often that I don't do detailed plans. I know what is happening in the world in general and weave the story around what the party wants to do. I only have details about major NPCs, specifically spells. Everything else is done on the fly (but don't tell my players ).

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

To keep it consistant, we've had one player keeping track of most of the treasure (the party treasure, the stuff that goes in the communal pot). However, whenever she's gone, the party wealth drops considerably because no one remembers what they had.

It was particularly annoying last time because the party had to make a lot of purchases to outfit themselves for a journey and no one could come up with the gold on their own.

 

[AeroDm]

My group is filled to brimming with a bunch of bi-polars. At the start of a campaign every detail is recorded in data files on a laptop, excel is set up to record eq per person with weight, location, group funds, finances, etc... very impressive.

If something bad happens the laptop is closed and ignored.

If something good happens the laptop is opened and embraced.

Within a few cycles, they are so far behind that the laptop remains closed forever... sadness.

 

[Angcuru]

I don't know about taking notes, but if you ask me about any given gaming session I've taken part in I can tell you in exact detail what went on, even some of the Dialogue.

 

[Davelozzi]

In my group, no one (besides me, the DM) takes notes about anything except for treasure & equipment. Generally the person carrying them takes those notes, and of the two people that carry most of the party funds, one takes good notes, and one takes very hard to read notes. Fortunately, the second person is my wife, so I can always ask her to translate foe me later.

When we're in dungeons, someone will usually make a map.

We also have a campaign message board on my friend's website, so things will sometimes crop up there, which is another pretty good reference for me.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

My players maticulous notes; however, they do so sloppily and with lots of abbreviation (what we call "Gamer's Shorthand"). Not action-by-action, but rather generalized notes of NPCs, places, historical events/mythology, items found, clues gained, etc.

After an adventure (3-4 months on average), we gather together, compile the information, and write it out in-full in Word.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

One thing I've just started doing to help the players out in my campaign is to post the found treasure and a list of NPC's met in a session online.

For $30 I got a EZboard forum for 6 months and posted this info there. That way, players can easily go back and see what they got, and where. They can also go back and refresh their memories on NPC's.