Game Master Notes Solved! How To Take Better Notes as a GM

Published 2021-04-26
We all have that one note book. The note book with every bit of detail about our RPG sessions, the one that we have to incessantly page through to find the name of the NPC that you introduced 5 sessions ago and where that small but critical detail of your world lies, in amongst every other thought you had about your adventures. It can get chaotic! But what if there is a way to take better notes and make your life easier? In this video, I talk about note taking, what notes you should be taking and the steps to take, to make that process so much easier.

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All Comments (21)
  • @HowtobeaGreatGM
    Thanks for watching! Let us know in the comments below your thoughts on this approach to taking notes as a GM in your roleplaying games!
  • “Do your notes look like this?”

    How did this man manage to get his hands on my math homework
  • @MakCurrel
    I have had a huge success making audio recordings of my game sessions. So I can use the time playing and take notes later.
  • @chillialexander
    Definitely a good idea to have a separate note book for jotting hit points/damage from fights as it is only temporary and clutters up any other notes.
  • @aaro1268
    Protip with notes, you can write your neat notes from the front of the notebook. All your jot notes and scratch paper can be taken from the back of the notebook.
  • @Denkono
    The opening is so true of DMs flustered by focusing on prose without simultaneous note taking (me included)
  • @S0namus
    I think I like your approach towards world building in a way, but I still really like spending my free time thinking up weird and wonderful stuff for my world - not necessarily to make it feel more realistic, but rather because I enjoy doing it.
  • @RyuuKageDesu
    I commonly reorganize my notes, for games and classes. I never know the best organization when I start, and it gives me a chance to go back over the information after so much time.
  • @LandonTheDM
    I'm terrible at remembering to take notes, I rely on the fact that I uncannily can remember random details months/years later. I should try this method to improve my note taking.
    Currently when I do remember to take notes I take them on the session preparation I've done on World anvil or whatever. Usually after the fact while I'm doing a session recap
  • A small thing that might make your notes easier to read is to use different colour pens. For example; Green pen is for NPC related stuff, Red pen is for PC notes, random filler is in Black and all other useful notes are in Blue.

    If you want you can have a 2nd note book where you copy the useful stuff (everything not written in black) after the session and maybe re-write some stuff to make it clearer or make sure that you'll still understand it 20 sessions later.
  • @mawkishdave
    I have one of the players take notes and I give them inspiration for that. I have other jobs like map maker, treasurer, and quartermaster. This lets them get more into the game and I give them some reward. This also lets me see what they are getting from the game so I know what I need to explain better.
  • For NPCs I also try to come up with one distinguishing physical feature. Gideon Defoe's Pirates books are a great model for this. It's the pirate with a scarf, the Bugbear in a wedding dress, or the shopkeeper who is a mimic. One very obvious physical feature is about all the players will remember on first encounter. So accent and attitude to remind you, physical attribute to remind them.
  • @drmrhorse1359
    Your video popped up quite literally as I began an attempt at organizing my notes!
  • @dienekes4364
    I like to use Google Docs for players' notes and then OneNote for my GM notes. The Google Doc can be updated by everyone, which eliminates some of the effort by me (at least during the game) and OneNote really helps me keep things organized. I've been an IT professional for about 40 years, so my typing speed is quite reasonable and I'm a project manager, which has allowed me to learn how to organize very quickly. We also pretty much only play online now-a-days, so I'm already on the computer. I do keep a sticky-note pad next to me, in case I want to grab a pen and jot something down to deal with after the game, or if it's something temporary, like how many times the PCs have passed a doorway or something, but for anything that I want to keep track of longer than just 1 encounter, it's much easier for me to do it digitally.
  • @IcepersonYT
    "Do your notes look like this?"

    "That would imply I take notes."
  • @G.A.N.
    Damn it all sounds so great, but let's be honest sometimes we are just too lazy, so there will be for sure that one day when we only write name in notes and suffer consequences later.
  • @davidwatches
    The main thing I would add to this is a campaign calendar. Even if a DM doesn't have an actual calendar for their campaign world, keeping track of what happened when (quick but concise notes, as you mentioned), the current season, and how much time has passed since the start of the campaign or from one event to the next can be important and something that should be easy to reference.
  • @Lordcorben
    The intro reminded me of myself... painfully