Do you take notes during RPGs?
Occasionally. Mostly because I'm bad with names.
>>46909365
I try to, but shit usually goes too fast.
>>46909365
Yup. I've made a habit of keeping a single word doc for a given campaign, and recording things that I think are worth mentioning. It's been really useful. Having just the one document makes it easy to search.
>fuck, what was that NPC's name again? Shara?
>[control+F "girl"]
>oh right, Sarah
>Oh right, I want to use that sword
>uhh, anyone know what the DM said its stats were two months ago?
>[control+F 'magic sword']
>right, +1 to hit, thunderwave once per day, etc etc
One guy I used to play with would actually record the whole session worth of audio. If you were hell-bent on making an accurate campaign journal, that could be helpful.
>>46909365
I kinda have to. i'm the ST.
>>46909365
It helps keep track of names at the very least.
If it's an investigative game I try to, or if I'm playing a detective sort of guy I like to partly as a way of acting in character. It helps you refine how you ask questions.
No, but I should.
I can't count all the time I'm like "who was this guy?" or "wait, when did that happen?", or "fuck, what was that person's name again"?
>>46909365
Yes. I'll make a google doc full of NPCs we meet, places, plot hooks, etc. and share it with the group.
>>46909365
Yes, as a DM and as a player. It's hard to keep track of things sometimes, so it's good to have a quick reference.
That's half the fun as far as keeping the world coherent and remembering details between sessions.
Also leads to a nice disjointed artifact to go back and look at once the campaign's over with.
Like a criminal travelogue. Fun for text session transcripts once properly edited as well.
>>46909365
Yes, we mostly run investigation heavy games (Call of Cthulhu and the like) so most of us take notes to keep track of things like clues, evidence, testimony, dramatis personae..
>>46909365
Onenote is fucking amazing for RPG notes.
>>46909365
Now that I've found a good group that doesn't just munch through a dozen bags of cheetos while dungeon-crawling, I do take notes. I'll sometimes explore ideas on my notepad too rather than think out loud.
>>46909365
I do if my character is intelligent, in which case I usually get the in-game equivalent of a pen and paper to take notes IC. Otherwise I'll rely on my memory. If I'm feeling really dickish when playing D&D 5e, I'll take the Keen Mind feat and refuse to take notes, just so the DM has to be extra careful to remember everything and anything he says or does.
No, never cared enough about any npc's or what was going on otherwise.
>>46911811
Have you tried videogames?
>>46909365
>Be DM
>Get tired of players forgetting half of the plot
>Next campaign
>"Alright guys, new houserule going forward. I ALWAYS bring extra note pads and paper, along with pencils. From now on, if YOU forget, your CHARACTER forgets. No more intelligence saving throws, no more hints."
>Suddenly, note taking suddenly triples during session
Best decision I've made, next to the rule of "if you don't show up with a character made, you play a premade or get out."
>>46911837
My gm's have literally just never had an npc who mattered for more than the conversation we were in with them.
>>46909548
I love recording sessions, especially if it's a comical or spoopy campaign.
>>46911951
Have you tried being the GM instead?
>>46912078
Nah, I'd be bad.
Yes, especially because the DM doesn't
>>46909365
Constantly. A lot of that has to do with my memory problems though.
And part of it has to do with my tendency to doodle. I draw maps and stuff.
>>46912123It's a lot easier than you'd thingText only online can be super comfy if you get a good group.
Yes. I'm basically one of those court reporters. I record EVERYTHING. Often word for word. Important things get highlighted or underlined.
>>46909365
Usually only if my character would make a note of it, or if it's absolutely crucial. Otherwise, I got a pretty good memory for details that rarely lets me down.
>>46912572
You're a stenographer?
> small gaming table
> need quick reference notes for secret info
> realize notes don't have to be in English
>>46909365
Yes.
>>46912175
text only is garbo and you should feel bad for having wrong fun.
>>46913866
Too bad I'll wrong fun as hard as I can and you can't stop me.
>>46913875
I don't even know how text only would play. I imagine a lot of waiting for other people to type their shit. DMing text only would be even worse.
>>46909365
Not during, but after.
I keep detailed notes on campaign events in my ongoing Savage Worlds campaign for people to read between sessions. Partly because it's one of the best campaigns I've ever run, so I want to keep a good record of it.
>>46913925
It is slower but the session can run for ages. And if you keep OOC and IC separate it works really well and inter-party RP shines hard.
>>46909365
>>46909434
What he said; mostly it's the names of places and characters; with a little blurb of to remind me who that was.
The whole group has to. We're monster hunters rooting out vampires, shapeshifters and other parasites from a post-collpase New York. The GM is dedicated and has over 70 fleshed out, constantly acting characters in a string of refugee camps and private/government holdouts. It's one huge game of Detective/Werewolf/Secret Hitler as we try to stop monsters being put into positions of power while stopping them from killing.
Currently filled out 94 pages of notes for the 5 months we've been running the campaign.
My wife effectively keeps a fucking journal of the campaigns I run as we go along.
If anybody ever forgets something or misses a session she'll run them through a play-by-play of everything important said, person talked to, thing found, or place discovered.
It's like having a chronicler for every party.
>>46911902
>"if you don't show up with a character made, you play a premade or get out."
>Not forcing all players to make characters in front of you and each other.
>Having all of the players who up with horrible team composition
>Dealing with a full party of characters who have no business ever associating with each other, much less doing business together/being friends/whatever
>Having to coach players who are bad at the mechanics of the game through full rewrites because you didn't nip their shitty choices in the bud before they became the foundation for an entire character
>Also, premades ever
>>46913925
> I imagine a lot of waiting for other people to type their shit.
Either your WPM sucks or you're long-winded.
Most folks can slam out three to five sentences in a minute; depending on context. I can usually do about five or six. Most actions only require one however, two at most, unless you're explaining a long-term action or your character is participating in a full dialogue; meaning most of the time you're only waiting about 5-10 seconds, anyone doing anything just puts in what their character is doing at the time and you get this general narrative of what's going on. Then the DM says, "okay, so while X is Ying and Z is Qing, B went over to E and they found R. Because of this LMNOP!"
To me it's far preferable to people trying to talk over one another, and it cuts way WAY down on distracting banter, so the party gets way more done in the session vs. the hours spent reciting LotR lore or making cultural references in-character.
In fact, one of the best games I was in used chat for the OOC, but all character actions and dialogue were text.
>>46914090
your job as a dm is to be long winded. Assuming 120 words/min as an average, that's still well below the spoken words per minute average. The upper limits are even more skewed in this direction.
it just sounds like you've been in shitty groups
>>46914284
> your job as a dm is to be long winded.
> it just sounds like you've been in shitty groups
Said the pot.
I do. My group does not. Then they can't remember shit and it pisses me off. Even worse when I GM for them since by session four they have no idea what's going on.
>>46911902
Yeah this is great, we run the same thing. If you can't remember something, your character can't remember it either (unless you make a decent wisdom or intelligence check)
I take notes so I can remember names and places. Helps me immerse when I can know every main characters name, and also helps the DM out if he forgets a name.
I'm playing a wizard so I also keep notes of my spells etc.
And I keep track of initiative for the group (helps take pressure off dm) and keep track of things like how far I've climbed (I'm a half-spider vampire wizard...) and my hide or move silently checks for future reference.
>>46916919
>>46911902
And this is why I enjoy playing characters who either aren't smart enough or don't bother to remember anything about the plot.
>>46914090
Is there any comfortable platform to do this? I imagine even messenger would suffice, but it's a lot of distractions and it's messy to keep IC and OOC separate. How do you play it?
>>46909365
I haven't been because I'm actually RPing a character with shitty memory (no joke), but once this campaign wraps up I'm definitely going to start. Just randomly forgetting plot points is annoying OOC, even if it does fit IC.
>>46909365
Nope. My memory is frighteningly good. Not photographic, but I can recall all kinds of Info.
How weird is it to start a podcast as a player without any real involvement from the gm and the other players except in the game? I've been running into a bunch of shitty groups and players and I wanted to start something about my journey as a single player starting out and the difficulty I'm seem to face.
>>46913866
>mic using amateur thespian and his 3 screaming children detected
Text is superior roleplaying format. You don't need to take notes because the chat logs have everything too.
>>46913925
it works pretty well and i've found you get a lot more RP in general out of it, especially when you properly separate OOC and IC
that said when there's a retard who just isn't paying attention or takes too long to type out basic posts it can get frustrating
general advantages are that you can more convincingly play a character who's supposed to be good at talking, take a little more time explaining what you're doing and how (through the medium of roleplaying it out), pay more attention to the finer details, and review logs afterwards
disadvantages are that it can get slow, and sessions WILL be really long.
i've not done anything over voice, but i've done a decent amount of gaming in person and it isn't really worse or better, just different.
>>46917336
IRC works best, doesn't need a client and has ton of RP plugins.
>>46909365
Only if I'm playing a smart character.
The smarter the character, the more the notes.
>>46917417
Worth a shot, I'd think.
>>46917447
>>46915574
NORMIES REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
>>46909365
I did it.
The DM, though, did not. This brought the notes to be "my word against the DM's" even for petty things and also him being annoyed by not having to roll for Int to remember stuff.
>>46911902
What if YOU forget to bring extra pads and papers?
>>46917417
I would listen to that
There aren't a lot of people who talk about their single player experiences
Yeah I usually bring a notebook, pen + pencil to sessions for some note taking. Mostly party info, names + places or bits of lore the GM might throw at us. I try to pay super close attention to the plot of each session because afterwards I keep an in character journal of whats recently transpired. As a half-orc barbarian maybe it's not exactly "in character", but the journal entries are grammatically butchered and chopped up and it's quite fun.
>>46909365
No darling I have someone to do that for me.
>fill a binder with notes for one campaign
>scared to throw it out just in case the campaign starts up again
Any day now...
>>46928704
I know that feeling
>>46913839
The fuck do you write in, then? Shorthand or something?
>>46932165
You... You know other languages exist, right?
>>46932448
No shit, so what does it being a "small gaming table" have to do with it?
Wait... I guess he didn't have space for a screen? I was thinking for some reason that he was writing in a language that was somehow smaller than English. Sorry, I guess that was kinda dumb.
