Your campaign is going well, and you're picking up after a little break between sessions. Everyone sits down to play, but something is off. The players can't remember exactly where you left off, nor can they recall the fine details that made last session so special. Now the prospect of picking up where you left off is something of a problem. The classic solution to this problem is the best solution: we need to take notes. But what kind of notes you take is an vital question, and this guide will help you to create session notes that allow you and your players to start right where you left off without issue.
The first choice you need to make is how you're going to record your notes. A physical notebook or a digital document both work very well, but if you have another method in mind, use it so long as it doesn't interfere with the purpose of the note-taking in the first place. I used to use a paper notebook for my notes when I played in-person games because I find a notebook is less distracting than a computer with its portals to anything and everything (all of the time). But since the beginning of the pandemic and the rise of online gaming, I've been using my computer. Specifically, I have a google doc for any campaign I run, and I used it to both plan and record notes for my campaigns.
The next step is a simple one as well--you want to determine the extent to which you will record events. Obviously you want to include major events like the completing of a quest or the death of a major NPC, and you wouldn't include an out-of-character argument about the best way to handle a situation, but the in-between areas are the question we'll have to answer. Generally, I use a single question to decide what to record: Might this event have later consequences? It's really that simple.
When I say "consequences," what I mean is that knowing about the specific events that unfolded previously would guide the flow of events in the future. I'll use an example from my mystery campaign: the following is the notes I took for the most recent session of that campaign:
After rising at Ais’ in the morning, you made plans and headed for Cogswagon’s. Cogwagon demonstrated the Biometric Scanner, and Izzunech took over Ais. Montana covered for Ais, pretending she just needed coffee, which worked on Cogswagon. She explained witnessing a chaos storm and asked you to buy her a diamond to complete the Weather Controller. Montana resisted, suggesting that she conquer her fear of the outside world and buy it herself, causing a standoff which ended in Beor carrying Montana to the door. Montana played a sultry song, causing a man to kiss a stranger, who slapped him, and Beor punched him out. You went to the leatherworker at the marketplace and designed your guitar case and hammer holster. You went to Cuff Jewelers, where you bought an appropriate diamond (energy transmitting) for Cogswagon, were shown a beautiful Ehlonna statue, and Beor commissioned a new holy symbol, a Fharlanghn guitar pick for Montana, and horn adornments for Ais. A chaos storm struck, and Beor lost all memory of his past for 9 minutes, during which Montana and Ais tried to teach Beor who he was and their situation (also Montana lied that they were best friends and that both of their names were Beor). Slowly, Beor’s memories came back, his whole life flashing before him at once. You headed to the abandoned shack and found a locked door, which Beor smashed open. You found the way to the secret basement, where Beor turned into a dog and confirmed that Tajana had slept on the bedroll there. You picked through the scroll cases and noticed the building was on fire; you lifted the floor and magically unlocked the door to emerge to a worried crowd. Among the crowd was Nyril, who said that most of the business’s employees quit when Dirk St. Patrick told them of your deeds. Montana used hair from Tajana’s bedroll to scry, seeing her riding in an elevator, then agreeing to “stop them” before leaving town. Ais turned the three of you invisible.
These are my notes as I typed them with no changes. There are a number of things worth commenting on here. One of the first things you'll notice is that I have written this account in the past tense and addressed it specifically to the players. This means that I can simply read this account without having to make any changes. In previous sessions, I had my post-game write-ups in mind and then had to improvise the correct conjugations and other linguistic changes as I read aloud, which is challenging for a person with dyslexia. So I shifted it and wrote my notes with the review of last session as my primary concern.
You'll also notice that I'm very brief with my notes. Let's look at the first sentence: "After rising in Ais' in the morning, you made plans and headed for Cogswagon's." This relatively brief sentence establishes quiet a lot. We know the time (morning), the place (Ais' house), the who (the party), and the what (making plans and heading for Cogswagon's place). Your notes don't have to be so economical in terms of words, but keep in mind that you'll be reading your notes to the players next session--to keep them engaged, you want the review of notes to balance detail and brevity. Because this particular session was especially full of events and fine details (like specific custom items commissioned by the players), I ended up with about 150% the amount of notes I normally do. But despite the lengthiness of the notes, they do accomplish what I need. That leads us to a distinction:
There are your notes to keep you reminded of what is happenings, and then there are the notes that you will share with your players. In the case of the notes I have pasted above, I would probably clean up the account a bit. It works well for my notes so that I know specific information, but I don't need to remind the party of the more specific and non-vital details. Namely, I would shorten up the list of things purchased at the jeweler's--a simple "You went to the jewelers and purchased a diamond for Cogswagon and custom items for the rest of you" would work just fine. Changes like this affect the ultimate version of the notes I read to my players; a copy-pasted version of your own notes cleaned up will be the easiest way to do this. Ultimately, I recommend shooting for a set of notes that takes about one minute to read; any less, and you're probably skipping important details, and any more, and you're probably getting too granular (although of course there are exceptionally eventful or uneventful sessions, so adjust per your best judgment).
My favorite part of the process comes when the next session begins. Normally, my players are chatting and goofing around, sharing plans for the session at times. As we settle in for the business of actually playing, I dig into what I call the "Last time on . . ." I'll start it off with a dramatic voice: "Last time on the mystery campaign . . ." and lead into the notes I prepared from the last session. This accomplishes a number of positive goals. First and foremost, it aligns everyone's thinking--now we're leaving social banter behind and delving into the heart of the game. It also catches everyone up--the game may be picking up right where you left off, but in real life, it's been a week or more, and everyone needs a moment to catch up. And this refreshing of the memory is not just for the story events; I cannot tell you how many times I've shared the players' plans from the previous session and been met with cries of "Oh yeah! I was gonna do that." The notes review gets everyone on the same page.
But the notes also allow you as GM to assert some control over the scenario. Let's say that your players have been skillfully evading dealing with some element of your story. Maybe they're caught up in some other project or knowingly avoiding something they know is trouble. You can gently add some pressure to the party by adding the scenario to your notes via some trivial event. By way of example, in the mystery campaign, the players indicated some interest in speaking with a business owner--Birt Wizzoom--a few sessions ago. Wizzoom, I decided, has some interesting information about the mercenary that the party is tracking, and I want the party to go and talk to him. So when I provided my most recent recap of the previous session, I ended by saying, "And last time we met, you indicated that you were interested in speaking with Cogswagon, investigating the abandoned shack, and interrogating Birt Wizzoom." I'm pretty far from demanding that my players go speak with the man, but I'm also applying some gentle pressure to move things in that direction. It's just a small trick that can guide players under the right conditions.
Keeping notes on campaign events is pretty crucial--you can only do your best planning when you know the details that came before, and if you want to share your campaign like I do here on this site, you will require some note-taking. And once you do start keeping notes, not only will your writing improve, but as I've shown here, there's also considerable benefits even from sharing a boiled down version of those notes with your players. So try a "last time on . . ." and see if it sparks more enjoyable gaming. At worst, it will bore your players for one minute, and at best, it can tie everything together in a cohesive way. Sounds worth trying to me.
That's all for now. Coming soon: a profile on music in my homebrew setting, an argument for convenient storytelling, and how to write a murder mystery one-shot. Until next time, happy gaming!
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