What do your DM/GM Notes Look Like?

[Zerohawk]

Hello everyone!

It has been several months since the last time I ran a game, and so I found myself trying to get the rust off during my prep work and planning for the Pathfinder game that I started. One thing that seemed to trump me left and right and serve as a stall at every level of the creative process is how to prepare my material for play.

Now, I wasn't having any trouble at all with coming up with the material or story or even the stats for the NPCs and maps, but the actual pre-session notes and campaign overview stuff. The format of the notes themselves. I didn't know how much, how detailed, or how to organize them. Type them or hand written? (Hand written first, then typed?)

So I come to you all, what do your notes look like? How do you prepare for the game, what materials to you have ready?

If anyone has any links to some good resources on the subject I would greatly appreciate.

 

[fba827]

what is your expected game style? Will it be a fairly confined path for the PCs and potential areas they could go (i.e. it's a dungeon, so it's a closed area and then the town outside type thing), or is it fairly open and the PCs could go anywhere ?

If it's confined, it's much easier -- you can get more detailed in your notes.

If it's "anywhere" then i'd suggest you have some basic concepts jotted down and maybe a handful of "stock creatures" in mind. But don't get too specific -- you'll find your work gets wasted as the PCs just keep wandering around in every place you didn't plan for...

 

[Zerohawk]

Uhm... somewhere in between?

There are definite specific areas for the PCs to explore during the first adventure (Town, Tower, Keep), but there will also be quite a bit of freedom encouraged, especially beyond the intro adventure when things become a bit less structured and obvious.

 

[timbannock]

Three comments:

1. I make my own DM screen now (at least, the data involved) coz I bought me the Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen...it's even cheaper here. I then found a thread somewhere about building my own that would have been way cheaper and just as durable, but oh well. Point is, I know which charts/house rules/info I need to reference a lot, so that's what goes on the screen.

2. When running my own adventures, I try to boil things down to simple statements. The Background might be wordy, but I really try to get the adventure down to easily referenced bullet points. Now that I'm polishing up my PowerPoint skills, I'm thinking of using flowcharts a little more, too. As for NPCs, monsters, etc., I again try to boil it down to basics as much as possible (which is why I love 4e). I either fit everything I can on a single side of a single sheet, or use index cards whenever possible, because this frees up a lot of room behind the GM Screen. Because I like to have my minis already picked out for a battle ahead of time and keep them hidden behind the screen, I need that extra room. Ultimately, my setup is (from Player side -> DM side) Screen, minis, dice, pen, adventure notes on the right and map/other paper on the left.

3. When I run a prewritten adventure, I often make substantial changes, so I try to keep notes even simpler and either use post-it notes to put the changes directly into the book, or I (laboriously) write up my own summary, to the point where I sometimes don't even need to bring the prewritten adventure. This is something I'm moving a way from a lot now, because my free time has gone down the drain. My plan now is to just stick with the adventure closely and only add in post-it notes and the occasional index card as needed.

Oh, and I type WAY faster than I write now that I've been working at a computer for the better part of 2-1/2 years, so most of my stuff is typed (copy/pasted monster stats w/ whatever changes I make, bullet-point adventures & encounters), and the index cards I use I try to keep VERY brief and written legibly (and somewhat larger than my normal handwriting) so that I can get a lot of info in a quick glance.

Even though I have excellent eyesight, the one thing I hate doing is manipulating papers and squinting at notes or charts when I'm DMing. It totally kills the immersion and pacing for me, because I love hearing myself talk and just want to keep things flowing quickly. Random aside: a lot of this came from 3.5e, where I had my head buried in books 75% of the session. It took me a lot of effort to get away from that, and I should've done it a lot sooner.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I prefer to keep all of my notes in a 3 ring binder. That way I can reorganize them easily when need be.

Usually, I just write down the minimum I need to run the game. For example, I'll jot down just the name and profession/personality of an NPC (Hein Cartwright - Grumpy), which is enough to trigger the fleshed out version of the NPC in my mind.

Recently I've been using Compendium to paste all the monsters I plan to use in a given encounter onto a single page or two, that I then print out (two columns per page). I find it's a lot easier for me to stay on top of the encounter if I don't have to constantly flip back and forth through the MMs, checking whether this or that creature has the particular interrupt power I'm thinking of.

 

[Agamon]

I use MS OneNote. It's like an electronic notepad, you write anywhere on the page, paste images, etc. It's really organized in books and pages. If you play with a laptop at the table, I can't recomend anything better for organizing both a campaign and adventures.

Otherwise, I do the same thing as neuronphaser. KISS principle, keep it down to key points and stats.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

My notes are a series of MS Word documents on my computers HD with an occasional backup to another HD or burned CD.

In play, I print out what I need. In practice, I end up trying to re-use things like monster stat blocks across sessions, but I often end up reprinting things. What can I say? Paper is cheap, renewable, and biodegradable.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Piratecat]

I start a new Word doc for each level. In it, the first page includes a little chart showing what treasure parcels are available at that level; I then fill in each space once I award one, so I know how much more loot the group can get.

Then for each game, I write whatever notes I need (usually in outline form) and copy-n-paste monsters over from the Compendium. If I'm giving out handouts, I'll include them here as well. By the time the group levels (about every five sessions), I have a clear record of what I had planned each week. Then, in theory, I update the campaign wiki.

 

[MichaelK]

I'll watch this space with some interest as I'm trying to get myself more organized.

In the past, I've run my games half on the wing and half from memory. About the only notes I'd ever take would be to draw a map showing the layout with a few one word notes to remind me what I was going to put there. This worked out okay.

However these days I have a ton of prep time available, but my gaming time is limited. So I figure any organization that I can do in my free time might speed up my game on the actual night and hopefully make the game even better.

 

[Ktulu]

I do word documents session-by-session. Each encounter will take up one page, as do skill challenges.

I have a brief outline detailing NPC's or plot points I dont' want to forget.

Any specific handouts (letters, pictures, what-have-you) are also put together and put on my gaming clip-board.

I save each document into my campaign folder on my pc, creating a folder for each session. AFter the session, I put any changes into it for my record keeping (did I use this creature, x item, etc...).

That's pretty much it. I go for simplicity and try to focus most of my time on narrative and such.