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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Seonaid" data-source="post: 1476468" data-attributes="member: 11195">I really like ichabod's suggestions, and don't know how much I can offer, but here's my thoughts.It's been brought up many, many times that "table talk" is disruptive, etc. I've found that the sessions I've liked the least were the ones where the GM had to curb it. If the GM goes with the flow and lets the players have their talk, it's much more fun, and usually the players themselves bring it back when they're ready. Gaming, to me, is stress-relieving, and sometimes that is mostly non-gaming-related chit-chat. Some of the most fun sessions I've had were almost entirely table talk, and some of the most fun sessions I've had were almost entirely devoid of table talk. IME, it's best to let it run its course, especially since you said yourself that your players like to game. If it becomes too much of a problem, try to get together other times during the week, or before/after the gaming session to gossip or whatever it is you need to to.To address some of your other questions, and to echo ichabod, some of the best GM's I've had asked the players for their input on the storyline and the world and everything else, and then actually put the answers into practice. If you can respectfully ask your players' opinions and then respectfully listen to them, both before and during the campaign, you'll have a better experience than if you run roughshod over them, or only do things when (at the very moment) they ask you.My first response to your notetaking question was to say, "Make a very important plot piece connected to some detail they should remember, but possibly neglected to write down," but that's not very feasible. For some groups that would work well, but for some groups the players would just say, "Screw you," and do whatever they want. If you have the former, do that. If you have the latter, perhaps you could ask them to take notes, and stress how important it is to you/the characters/the plot. Or you could have an NPC "take notes," and remind them of things, but only of the things that NPC would really remember. That is, don't give them an encyclopedia's worth, just give them the abridged dictionary's worth, biased to the NPC's experiences and motives. Maybe if they have an information source that isn't complete they will be more interested in retaining information themselves.Alternately, make your plot less detail-oriented. In all the campaigns I've been in where we had no notes and no one with an excellent memory, the PC's stumbled around and got back on track because both the players and the GM were flexible. Just because a character remembers something incorrectly doesn't mean the whole plot is derailed.Hope that helps, and isn't too incoherent. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Good luck with your campaign.</blockquote>

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