Notes on Note-taking you will never need (maybe)

Or Things I learned from taking notes for a 4,5-year campaign and then spending two weeks reviewing those notes because by Vechna the plot was getting complicated and the campaign is not over yet

"For this recipe, you will need:" Paper, pencil, and eraser. If you are feeling extra fancy, you can certainly add in coloured pencils or highlighters.

Quick overview

• Session Notes (aka the notebook)
  • Problems with Related Solutions
  • Things, you discover can be done when you have an index!
  • Session Conclusion
  • Bonus: John Loch Index
• Campaign Notes (the short! overview-ish thing)
  • Things I did from the start that bit me in the butt
  • Things I wish I had done from the start that I do now

Session Notes

Problems with Related Solutions

Problem 1: Need to remember things

Solution: Writes notes and bring them to sessions.

Example:

Notes

We have arrived in Aestas.

Page 1

Problem 2: The campaign has been running for a while = more notes = starting to get difficult to find notes on specific things

Solution: Mark people, places, and concepts/lore/other, so that they are easy to spot when riffling through the notes (personally I underline people, put a square around [places] and a squiggle under everything else, but coloured pencils or highlighters are also excellent).

Example:

Notes

The (underlined) baron of [Aestas] mentioned a (undersquiggled) theft.

Page 2

Problem 3: The notes are written chronologically, so now notes on one thing are spread across multiple, non-adjacent pages

Solution: The oldest trick in the book! Literally! (Because the trick is in almost all books and requires letters, get it!! ... I'll let myself out). Page numbers and indexing (index is written in the back of the note book from back to front, that is, the reverse of the actual notes. This way you don't have to set off a certain number of pages when you don't know how many you will need).

Tip: Make two or more columns per page.

Example:

Index

	Pages		Pages
Aestas	2,1	Baron	2
Theft	2

Last pages

Problem 4: The index is growing into multiple pages = harder to find specific words

Solution: Group indices by letter and allow about half a page for each (costs space, but saves frustration, and the index now has a set length without losing too much flexibility), remember about double the space for frequently used letters, and maybe campaign rare letters.

Example (imagine half a page per letter):

Index

		Pages		Pages
A	Aestas	2,1
B	Baron	2
S	Silver box	3
	(extra space for S)
T	Theft	2

Last pages

Problem 5: We get quests and clues to to follow, but they are spread across the entire note book

Solution: Start a list of clues or quest log just before the index and add to it from back to front. It could become any length so if anything else is between it and your actual notes, that thing would block the quest log from expanding, and I don't have a fix for that :P

Tip: Note the page number of where the quest started and leave space for a check mark for when it is done/followed to som sort of end.

Example:

Quest log

Page
2	Someone stole something from the Baron.	x
4	The Thief has sold the silver box to someone.

Pages before the index

Things, you discover can be done when you an index!

PC's or other things in the index have common titles or traits

Tip: Make an extra index page for keys. List abbreviations or symbols here and use them in the index, like for the baron, Ignatius Cordius, can be written under I as Ignatius Cordius B, or mark subjects that are related to our character's mysteries background with a ♦ or a flower or something else.

Example:

Keys

Key		Key
B	Baron	♦	Past

Page after Quest log, before index

---

Index

		Pages		Pages
A	Aestas	2,1
B	Baron	2
I	Ignatius Cordius B	5,2
S	Silver box	4,3
	(extra space for S)
T	Theft	2	Thief ♦	5,4

Last pages

The campaign has some families with noticing, but each family member is on a different page

Tip: Group families by family name, not first name, for instance note Cordius under C and mark the 'c' in the family name, then write Ignatius Cordius as C. Ignatius B ('C.' referencing the 'c' in Cordius).

Example:

Index

		Pages		Pages
A	Aestas	2,1
C	Cordius	2	C. Ignatius B	5,2
	C. Constantia B	6
S	Silver box	4,3
	(extra space for S)
T	Theft	2	Thief ♦	5,4

Last pages

Characters are often associated with a place

Tip: Also make abbreviations for places, for example Baron Ignatius Cordius of Aestas would be written C. Ignatius B [Ae] (square around the place makes it easier to spot in the index). Can recommend using a John Loch Index for places, not necessary but very useful.

Example:

Places

		Pages
[Ae]	Aestas	2,1
[Mo]	Moera	7

Before or after Keys

---

Index

		Pages		Pages
A	Aestas.	2,1
C	<int>C</int>ordius	2	C. Ignatius B [Ae]	4,2
	C. Constantia B [Mo]	7,5
S	Silver box	3
	(extra space for S)
T	Theft	2	Thief ♦ [Mo]	7,5,4

Last pages

Session Conclusion

The idea is to that you can now glimpse the plot by flipping through the index: Baron Ignatius Cordius of Aestas had something stolen (both the character and the theft are mentioned on the same page). That "something" was likely the silver box mentioned shortly after along with the thief, but our characters knows the thief from their past, the baron hid what had been stolen (he only said "something", see Quest Log), and the thief is mentioned more often in the notes (pages 4, 5, and 7), so maybe they are going to last longer/be more important plot-wise, so maybe our character would rather help the thief than the aristocracy.

Ignatius also has a cousin (Baroness Constantia Cordius) from the same city as the thief, but that is probably just a coincidence.

Bonus: John Loch Index

For when you need a semi-limited number of abbreviations (usually within a specific topic like places) but don't know exactly how many.

Make space on about two pages and make a line per vowel per letter like this:

	Pages		Pages		Pages		Pages		Pages
Aa		Ae		Ai		Ao		Au
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
Ba		Be		Bi		Bo		Bu

An abbreviation in a John Loch index consists of the first letter of the thing followed by the first meaningful vowel, so if the neighbouring country is called Balsa, then the abbreviation would be Ba.

Example with places:

Places

	Pages		Pages		...
Aa		Ae	2,1	Ai	...
...	...	...	...	...	...
Ba	8	Be	...	Bo	...
...	...	...	...	...	...
Mo	5	Mu	...	My	...

Before or after Keys

You could also note if a city is in a country:

Places

	Pages		Pages		...
Aa		Ae	2,1	Ai	...
...	...	...	...	...	...
Ba	8	Be	...	Bo	...
...	...	...	...	...	...
Mo	[Ba] 8,5	Mu	...	My	...

Before or after Keys

Now you have a really concise table of abbreviations that you can use everywhere you don't want or need to write the full thing.

Sylvie of "Journal De Sylvie" on YouTube explains this in 8:00 minutes with examples (or 6:00 at 1,5x speed) much better than I can.

Note: If you don't use the abbreviations very often, they can be hard to remember because they are not written out on the page.

Campaign Notes

"Problem": The campaign is continuing over several months, or (if you are lucky) years, and the plot is complicated because your DM is awesome, so... "problem".

Things I did from the start that bit me in the butt

1. Wrote things down whenever I thought of them in all sorts of places so the notes were everywhere
2. Counted on being able to remember my hypotheses months after I thought of them without writing them down.
3. Wrote "what if" questions that DM would be very unlikely to answer because spoilers.
4. Wrote theories which were possible, but only because there were no arguments against nor more importantly for them.
5. Wrote noted without necessarily having a plan for them in game (if you are not using RPG notes for RPG, then what are they for?).

Example note written on a phone, because I didn't have my notebook and found some months later:

What if the baron hired the thief himself in order to be able to blame someone else for stealing the silver box?

Problems with aforementioned note:

1. The note disappeared quickly, because it was not kept near anything campaign-related.
2. Old notes without context are much less helpful. Maybe we had met another baron by this time, so which baron?
3. If the answer to the question is "yes", then it would be a bit of a spoiler for the DM to just divulge out of game.
4. We have not heard of anyone yet, whom the baron might actually want to falsely blame for the theft, so it requires a few assumptions to even be plausible (Occam's razor: The solution, that requires the fewest extra assumptions, is often the best one).
5. The question doesn't directly give our character anything to do in game.

Things I wish I had done from the start that I do now

• Have an app that lets you take notes in a single place on your phone, not in a physical notebook because you will need to change it and keep it short and updated, e.g.:
  • DropBox Paper
  • Google Docs
  • Office Word
  • A markdown file and a text editor on both phone and computer, if you are into programming
• Group my campaign notes:
  1. Questions for DM: If there is something I forgot or was confused by.
  2. In-game things to do: Reword other questions to something my character can do in game to figure out the answer, and put those things in a to do list (check off when done).
  3. Hypotheses/theories: Write a hypothesis in fact form, not "what if" form (oddly this helped me find more questions and things for my character to do). And make sure to keep the hypotheses "current" with where you are in the campaign. Saving old stuff gets bloated really quickly.
  4. A couple extra categories that are more character-specific like "How my character could get out of their patron contract", which may or may not be generally useful :P
• Erase things from the campaign notes until the text doesn't take up more space than a printer page or two. Sessions notes have plenty of info, no need for the campaign notes to turn into a novella (unless you really want to O.O).

Example of what I would do with the same note, "What if the baron hired the thief himself in order to be able to blame someone else for stealing the silver box?", now:

Theories

The baron is hiding something about the silver box.

Questions for DM

Was it on purpose that the baron didn't mention what had been stolen, or was that a coincidence?

If DM just forgot to mention it:

Theories

The baron is hiding something about the silver box.

If DM says that you could get more info about that in game (a.k.a. maybe "Spoilers!"):

In-game things to do

• Ask our character's old friend, the thief, if they found out what was in the silver box and who they sold it to.
• Follow the Hand of Vechna and steal it back!

Theories

The baron is hiding something about the silver box.

C. Ignatius hid that he had really sold the Hand of Vechna to Balsa with the help of his cousin.

Famous Last Words

Firstly, if you read this far I am honoured.

Secondly and most importantly, we are only playing a game after all, so if you miss anything in your new and (hopefully) improved notes, then the worst thing that can happen is a TPK. BYYEEE!!!