Notable Nobles
Quite aside from issues of legibility, my campaign notes need some work. It always starts out well enough. On the back of my character sheet I’ll list my fellow PCs, their respective players, and a note about their races and classes. Then I’ll pencil in a dividing line:
NPCs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Dude the 1st
- Dude the 2nd
- Dude the etc.
That shouldn’t be a hard thing to keep up, but it gets ugly in a hurry. I’ll learn new information about my respective dudes, and so I’ll jot down the new details in tiny print between the lines. Then I’ll realize that it makes more sense to list NPCs according to location, so I’ll belatedly tack on the name of the starting town, nesting the NPCs under that. But dammit! I’ve already written in a few next-town-over dudes. Maybe I’ll just put in an asterisk to show the difference. Perfect! Wait a minute though… What do you mean I’ve been mispronouncing that one dude’s name the whole time? Somebody pass me an eraser! There’s at least a 10% chance it won’t rip through the sheet.
Several sessions of this mess go by until (hallelujah and praise Bahamut!) it’s finally time to level up. Except now I find myself in need of a new character sheet. Holy shit is that an ordeal! Do I keep the old sheet as a dedicated notes page? What if I mix that up with the current version of my character? Should I just transpose all my old notes? Every single time I level up? Ugh… Fine!
By the time level 5 rolls around my character binder is growing fat. My simple system has grown into a monster. The print has grown tiny, the eraser marks numerous. My PC pals have all acquired companions that need to be tracked (the inconsiderate jerks!) and the pain in my ass compounds.
Do any of you guys have a better system? As Fighter so ably demonstrates, simply trying to remember everything isn’t exactly an easy feat either. If I ever want to keep my Lords What’s-his-buckets separated from my Ladies The-annoying-ones, I clearly need some help.
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Do any of us have a better system?
Why, yes, I even have two; a theoretical one and a practical one,
The first one, i.e. The Theory, being to type notes into a laptop, tablet or other form of Sufficiently Advanced Magic Indistinguishable From Technology. This allows easily moving data about and, depending on format, even allows writing scripts that automatically reformat a large part of it for you (or filter it, or display it nicely, or unlock the ancient secrets of immortality). Yeah, I’m a dark mage / software engineer, how’d you know?
The second one, i.e. The Practice, being to simply rely on other players. Why should I write anything down when others are already doing so? I came here to have fun, not to write stuff.
Me Last Night: “Hey Honey?”
Laurel: “Yeah?”
Me: “I just re-read today’s blog post. I’m pretty sure everyone is just going to say, ‘Use a computer ya dingus.'”
Laurel: “Well maybe you should. Ya dingus.”
Spreadsheets make good character sheets, and with a bit of work can make leveling a breeze. And I don’t have to fork out a large amount of money for a license to someone else’s database to run my spreadsheet. (>.> Not aimed at Herolabs, but kinda.*)
Text documents make great GM notes, since you can reorganize stuff nearly immediately. Folders sort by campaign and Filenames by location.
Also a self confessed practioner of the dark arts of Codeomancy.
Herolabs is a great program, don’t get me wrong. It’s especially useful for new players who have trouble keeping straight the 15 types of bonuses and the stacking rules for Pathfinder. But I tend to create so much custom loot and benefits in my games that my Herolab using Players actually complain.
I just have a campaign notebook that I write all of my session notes in. If I need to remember someone’s name I just need to have a vague idea of when I met them, and then I can flick back through the pages. It’s not perfect, but it is easy!
I think it depends on the character as well – if I have a studious character then I’ll take better notes. If my character is good with people I’ll put more personal details and less setting details. And the hobgoblin PC in our Rise of the Runelords game doesn’t take any notes, because everyone knows that writing steals the words out of your head.
Interesting that it depends on the character. I’ve got a obnoxious-little-kid-alchemist in one of my game that uses a coloring book for his formula book.
“Pass me my ingredients. No you idiot! Not Goldenrod! Are you trying to blow us all up? Give me Banana Mania.”
*begins scribbling*
Is it an actual kid? Or as I was going to make, a Halfling with Childlike and a really good disguise check.
30 year old gnome. You do the math.
Ok yeah, kid-o :p
The ideal solution would seem to be to type notes into a computer instead of writing them down by hand- you have all the room you need, you can rearrange stuff at will, and so long as you turn off MS Word’s bullshit auto formatting nothing will ever get out of place, like mixing up that neat magic-wand shop with the mad-alchemists potion shop which YES I AM CERTAIN was in WEST LOOTBURG and NOT the other way around, Garry!
….Anyway, where were we? Right- the only issue is that some GMs don’t like electronic devices at their gaming table, primarily because they are distracting. Which to be fair, they CAN be, but I think that’s more on the individual. I also liked being able to look up rules directly, and the computer was a lot easier than carrying around and flipping through a stack of books, but I’ve heard some groups might consider that a form of cheating.
Plus, dice-rolling apps! Never waste time looking for an errant d4 ever again!
In the modern era, I definitely think electronic-logging is the way to go. If some thinks it’s going to be a problem, look for a workaround- maybe face the screen towards the table or hook it up to a TV or something so that other people can see you’re really only doing what you said you’re going to do. If everyone has a laptop, tablet, or smart-phone, a Google-doc can allow collaborative note-taking, so everyone can add whatever they feel is interesting and appropriate to track, and it’s not all on one person.
“But Doctor… I am Pagliacci.”
In other words, it is I who dislike electronic devices at the table. 🙁
Still I think that a Google-doc is a good idea. That way a GM can add stuff in directly, as can the other PCs. You can ever assign everyone a font color so you can keep track of whose notes are whose.
Was there a particular incident(s) that lead you to disliking electronics at the gaming table, or just a general distaste for it?
Dude showed up with headphones in and played video games. Got annoyed when I told him it was his turn in the initiative.
My notes are pretty messy as a player, I just write stuff down in a .txt file as it happens and then copy it over to the party notes google doc after the session.
Relatively recently, my GM has taken to adding every NPC we meet to a wiki on Obsidian Portal, so it’s easier to check spelling and search for specific names if I need to recall something from the notes.
When playing irl, I think having a seperate notebook for notes is a must, going through old character sheets and whatnot to find something specific is a nightmare.
Do you guys do the full version or the free version of Obsidian Portal?
My GM recently got a full membership, but we were using the free one for months and it was pretty useful, I’d say. In another campaign, we’re still using the free version and we aren’t really lacking any features.
We’re also using discord for chatting and announcements, so all we really needed was a wiki to dump all the info and characters.
If you’re not into using/managing wikis, you should at least be dumping it in a shared google doc, I think. The whole cooperative note-taking idea is something I really enjoy, personally. Especially when you do it in-character!
Yeah, I’ve never done it before, but I think ima bring it up at my next session. Cheers!
Psh, Bahamut’s got nothing on Moradin. Bahamut’s own people barely worship him.
We all level up in our own way.
As others have noted (and my preferred method) computer logging solves a lot of these problems. However, if for some reason that’s not an option, I’d suggest index cards instead. Lot’s and lots of index cards. Have a few “minor NPC” index cards, and if they started needing details give them their own card. Then you can rearrange and organize the cards as needed, and they’re separate from your sheet so you don’t have to worry about that hassle when you level up or the trials of the eraser.
You clever fellow you… I already use index cards for inventory management. We’ve got a hole punch and book rings and everything. Why the crap didn’t I think of that?
I actually take note on my phone. Less cumbersome at the table than a full laptop and all the same functionality.
For those of you with an IPhone or similar IDevice, I wholeheartedly suggest Lion Den’s Fight Club. I use their 3.5/PF version the most, but They have a GM app that has been the only reason my games as DM have gone as well as they have. All the core rules and items are pre-loaded, and you can add you own content easily (including a handy xml upload feature). They have recently gone through a significant update, making everything from adding a New note to leveling up your PC easy and intuitive (so if you’ve tried it before, try it again).
Wait a minute…. You mean it’s good for more than acting as my familiar’s character sheet?
I have a notebook (paper) for loot and other information, kept apart from the char sheet. Loot that doesn‘t get flogged off at the next opportunity gets transferred to the Xcel char sheet on levelup. Same for NPC who didn‘t die till levelup.
So you do periodically transfer from a physical to a digital medium? That’s the extra step that would make my life much easier, but that I’m too lazy to do.
Even with a computer. taking notes can get still get confusing if you’re not an organized person by nature. My campaign notes are a mess that pretty much only I can sort through; that’s fine, though, because I’m the only one who tries. Some excerpts (names redacted to protect the innocent/guilty):
[NPC#1] – Halfling on Google island (not on Google island)
[NPC#2] – Human adventurer claiming adventurers don’t have to listen to governments.
[PC #1] – Chaos Hero
[PC #2] – Law Hero
Rovagug
Also dead
Cat ate it
Rounds: OOOOOO
33 (I think these two are related)
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/021/464/14608107_1180665285312703_1558693314_n.jpg
In the campaign planning mode, I’ve often assembled names on a combination of Scrivener and stacks of legal pads (debate team habits bled into roleplaying habits). As much as digital storage can help, it’s not something I use much of once I’m actually at the table, running the game. That’s where the papers come out.
As a player, the most central PCs and NPCs get a place on the back of my character sheet, since they don’t change much. Everyone else is relegated to parts of a legal pad. Sometimes I’ve enjoyed writing notes “in character,” but that’s only with games that focus heavily on RP (and have other players keeping notes).
One story I need to share is that of a Demon: the Fallen game I was in. We all shared a Google spreadsheet, not only to let the Storyteller easily keep track of what we knew, but because it gets really complicated when you’re remembering… Celestial Name, Celestial Titles/jobs, Titles/jobs during the War, Legion allegiance during War, Faction allegiance now, current host, past hosts and other random notes that don’t fit in another category. We kept track of this for 81 Demon NPCs (non-Demons didn’t get a place on the chart) by the time the game went into indefinite hiatus.
I feel like note-taking rigor scales with the demands on it. More knowledge needed, better notes kept.
Yeesh. That’s some Tolstoy level naming right there. Everybody has a dozen nicknames and moral lessons are kicking me in the teeth.
When I am doing organization stuff (away from table) I use OneNote. It combines the best parts of Word and Powerpoint.
At the table, I jot down stuff on the first scrap of paper I find. Which leads to notes like “Fighter has a hand” and “Chad’s Metal Shirt” and “Who are goats?”.
Saturday morning. Lying in bed. Watching an infomercial for OneNote. What the hell happened to my fun fantasy escapist hobby?
For my own game I keep notes in just notepad docs on my computer because I’m too lazy to bother with anything else.
For games I play… I basically make the GM serve as my external memory device.
Are GMs USB compatible?
My preferred method is to make everyone’s name an Erfworld-esque pun.
Never got into Erfworld. Is it worth checking out?
It’s amazing, read through book 1 in an afternoon. If you’re not sold it’s not for you.
Not remembering characters’ names became a hilarious issue at one point because two PCs were trying to flirt with a tiefling girl (neither had ever seen a tiefling before) who also worked in the tavern they owned (hindsight creepy move) but the funny part is both of their players could never remember her name Cier (see-AIR) so it got to a point where they had to roll intelligence checks to remember her and the DM would remind them. Didn’t help that the magus in our party was named Ciel (see-EL)
Well that’s amazing. How did they justify it in-game? Was “Cier” some kind of hopelessly foreign name that they could never quite grok?
In our current and most recent campaign, the GM handed out “information tracking” pages along with the character sheets. One page for quests, one page for people you’ve met, one page for places, etc.
Of course the pages aren’t really well designed for the type of information I want to track, so I have to kind of improvise where I put the relevant info. And we’re basically only partway through 2nd level and I already have the “people” page half filled. (This does not include any of the player characters.) Keeping things both neat and searchable is difficult. I might see about copying the notes to a Word document periodically.
Only one of the players brings a computer (laptop). Most don’t write down any notes. In the previous campaign they certainly depended mostly on me to keep track of that, but it fit the character. In the current campaign, they might find the results somewhat different than they expected.
Aside: Someone earlier in the comments mentioned Obsidian Portal. I tried visiting and found that it’s mostly inaccessible (Cloudflare failure page), and one of the pages that I did manage to open said that my Firefox was “out of date” (I run the latest nightly), and tried to get me to run some obfuscated javascript code. I would certainly avoid it for the time being.
I seriously need to get a shared google doc going. That seems like the easiest way to organize, especially if Obsidian Portal (the purpose-built option) is as buggy as you say.
My phone has a basic text editor. It’s annoying to type quickly, but it has infinite pages and I usually bring it anyway.