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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Samothdm" data-source="post: 5453862" data-attributes="member: 5473">Writing session recaps is probably my least favorite thing to do as a GM.  So, I feel your pain. 1. How many people think campaign journals are important resources?I think their importance varies depending on how elaborate your campaign is and how many plot threads you or the players are liable to forget if they're not documented.  My campaign has been running for over 10 years, and I find sometimes it's fun and helpful to go back and re-read the old session journals from the beginning because it reminds me of plot threads that were interesting but never went anywhere.  2. How many people think that a GM should be maintaining one?At the very least, you just need your own notes so you don't contradict something that you told your players.  I'd start with this - do a poll of your players and find out if they find them helpful/useful.  If not, then just stick to your own notes and forget writing the recaps.  3. How many people have one of their player's logging the sessions?I did the exact same thing you did - offering either an Action Point or some other very minor in-game benefit for people who would write the session recaps for me.  One guy did it for about a year and a half but then said he was too busy, so it fell back to me.  Then I went to a format where I wrote out a longer, more detailed recap (like the kind you seem to be talking about), and then when that was done, I wrote an "executive summary", roughly a paragraph in length, that stripped out all of the details like "who killed whom with what weapon", but just gave an overview of the "big" things that happened.  Now I've basically just adopted the one-paragraph format because that's all the players say they have time to read anyway.Another format I've seen was a DM who used an Excel spreadsheet and had different columns for "Date", "Event", "NPCs", "Questions Left Unanswered"... that kind of thing.  And then for each session, he broke down the entire session into little "soundbites" that he fit into his grid.  So, if we had a half-hour long discussion with the Duke of So-and-So, that was just a line item: "The Company met with Duke So-and-So to discuss rescuing his daughter from the Big Bad Guy."  And then the Duke and the Bad Guy would each get an entry under the "NPCs" column, and then the players' questions such as "Did the Duke really kill his own daughter and is sending us off on a wild goose chase just to get us out of the duchy while he consolidates power?" would be listed under "Unanswered Questions."  It lacked "flavor" but it basically helped us keep track of when we met people and what we talked to them about, and roughly in what order we did things.  Again, it all comes down to - do you and your players think they're useful.  You shouldn't feel obligated to have one if you or none of your players use it.</blockquote>

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