In over twenty years of gaming, I’ve been back and forth on the concept of taking session notes. sometimes they seem just the thing. We had an old Forgotten Realms campaign where one of the players took the notes as his bard, which ended up hilarious since the bard was something of a narcissist and wrote very biased accounts of the session’s activities. Other games, it just wasn’t going to happen. I’m here on the waxing part of this issue once again, and I like session notes, but. They take. Too Fricken. Much. Time. Seriously. Maybe I blog frequently enough that you doubt this, but I’m a pretty busy guy. While I appreciate having the notes –it makes it super easy to get new players up to speed with what’s happening and serves to refresh my crappy memory– the way I’ve been taking session notes is killing me.
Plus, I’m not sure anyone’s reading them! As much as I’d like to think that my words are always full of import and worth scanning every glorious character, I’m also a bit of realist (mostly I’m a dreamer). I think that someone walks into the wall of text, and makes that snap decision of, ok, how much time do I have for this? If it’s too long, the decision is going to be to pass on it.
Now I know that sessions on notes are something of an art form. There are play session notes that are works of art unto themselves, session notes that can run you through the entire range of human emotion and then back again, just because. But my session notes are not meant to be a Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius. I want notes that I can write relatively quickly, that tell the story of my current campaign engagingly, but in brief.
I’ve got some ideas on how to approach this. Here’s my format going forward:
Last Time: Where were the players last time? A quick, one or two sentence summary of what occured last time so you can hop in quick.
This Time: A more detailed summary of the characters actions. A larger overview of where they were, what they were doing. Was this a city adventure? Are they almost through the dungeon? Was it all dialogue as they charmed the pants/dress off of some noble prince/princess?
The Twist: Any surprising plot element twists go here. The PCs found out that the BBEG is a PC’s father (“It’s not true, nooooooooo!”), or that they’ve been after the wrong bad-guy all along.
Some Background: Any bits of the world that might need explaining or are of interest go here.
The Best Part: If funnest/coolest part of the session. Memorable quips and general coolness can find a home here.
That’s the format. Let me know how you feel about it going forward –I’m ultimately experimenting with this after all — but I’m hoping to get engaging session notes in between 500 and 1000 words.
Similar Posts:
- Blacktree Chronicles #9, Words of Fire, Words of My Father cont.
- BlackTree Chronicles, Session #5: Returns, Departures, Arrival
- The Bad Times Make you Good
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
By day he is a technologist.
Follow gamefiend on 
Session notes should be short or you’ll burn out.
When I’m lucky, my players take it upon themselves to do the notes and post it to the group blog. I’ve heard of GMs offering players bribes to do it, which might work depending on the kind of game you run.
Since I have all my notes of what I planned to do each session, I can write up session notes quickly.
I’ve had success in writing up brief session notes on the handouts I distribute at the beginning of each session. These handouts include “What’s Gone Before,” common background information about the area of the world the players are in (rulers, geography, basic history, etc.), and exciting rumors (most of which are untrue, but I may spin into truth if the players investigate).
As a side note: my players have one city that they use as their primary base of operation. I use the rumors there to give them a feeling for how “regular people” are reacting to the overall plot. The city was invaded by an army of dwarves a few sessions ago; the next sessions’ rumors were full of dire warnings and conspiracy theories about it.
My PCs and I post notes and loot summaries on a message board that is just for campaign information. It centralizes the info and grants access to all involved, keeping us all on the same page by seeing the same notes.
I’m a fairly new dm and launched a 6 player 4th edition where half of us are newbs. The wall of text is definitely an obstacle that no self respecting newb would be willing to climb.
The remedy I believe is a combination of format and style. Flip through a magazine you may be passively interested in. Now which articles catches your attention and why?
Don’t be biased about this opinion, look at it from multiple angles.
Anyways, space is always good too. Lots of room for your eyes to jump back and forth and focus. And when you realize that you might be rambling you probably are…
Hey guys! So, we’ll test out my new format in the next few posts.
@Alex agreed. I think my new format will fix this.
@Jamused you lucky bastard. I need to work out proper bribery to make that happen.
@Czar also useful. We ran into this issue last session where no one was quite sure what they were supposed to be having. Centralized bookkeeping is a must.
@Brent I like that idea a lot. Giving the characters that info will help prep them and give them a feel that the world is continuing to go on around them. I’ll certainly incorporate something like that into my sessions.