Hello! I'm a very new RPGer/GM. Edge of the Empire was my first RPG ever, and I only started playing a few months ago. It's such a great system, and I've been enjoying it immensely. Since I'm usually the one to introduce this game to friends and family, it usually falls back on me to be the GM.

My question is this... What kind of notes do you take as a GM? Do you record all dice rolls, sporadic events and other such things? Do you have a GM notebook with a system you like to follow? Maybe you can do it all in your head? Whatever wisdom you can leave would be most helpful as I try to figure out more how to GM. Thanks!

That's an excellent question, Joress, and I think every GM will give you a different answer.

I do a poor job of taking notes during a session, and furthermore, I don't jot them down just after the session while they're still fresh. Such of the price of Beer League play. Luckily, everyone enjoys the stories a lot so we all store the narrative.

This article on Gnome Stew is a great resource for what things are good to note and keep on hand.

What scant notes I keep, I organize in folders by session date in Scrivener. This includes the crawl and all the information I'll need to run the session.

[edit] I should mention that I prep like a part-time job and have a prebuilt cast of characters and set pieces. Prep is another topic entirely!

I save all kinds of notes on my computer. I have files for locations (and what services are available there), story ideas, PC notes(inclulding obligations and how to incorporate them into the story), anything interesting I need to remember about what happened in a certain session, NPC notes, and of course I have the adventure they are currently running and usually another file reminding me what is going on behind the scenes. I also have a notebook handy for anything I think of when I don't have my computer handy. This usually ends up being small encounter ideas or story hooks that I thought of while I was trying to sleep (this game has NOT helped my insomnia). I don't have a very fluid system, but it works for me. There is a method to my madness. The more I GM, the more my resource files grow! I am also pretty new to the GMing thing so I'm interested to hear if anybody else has something they do to help themselves be more organized

I make pretty detailed notes as part of my prep for a session.

Here is an example of notes for the big boss climax of last night's session:

https://explorers-on-the-edge.obsidianportal.com/wikis/throne-room-of-jaren-laa

I usually know the PCs are going to do 2 or 3 specific encounters, perhaps in a specific order, perhaps not. I make notes for each of them where I'll list the main challenges they'll face and what the difficulties might be. I'll often do charts of what they get for successes or failure, and what advantages, threats, triumphs and despairs could mean.

Sometimes I'll write up dialogue or bits of speech for the character, sometimes I will just improvise all their dialogue. I've switched away from writing out long "box text" to describe environments, but I do a bullet point list.

I also try to incorporate senses into the descriptions, so I'll make notes of what the PCs might hear, smell, see or feel.

For example:

Ancient Throne Room

- massive chamber, high ceilings

- ornate columns

- raised throne dais in the center

- room is filled with the scent of incense

- smoke fills the air, diffusing red light from torches on the walls

And if each player would experience something specific during that encounter, I'll make a note.

I write all these notes in Obsidian Portal. I'll attach Stat Block images of the NPCs they'll encounter, and make notes about combat strategies.

"If the leader dies, the minions will need to make a Discipline check or they'll all flee", that kind of thing.

I run games at my house and I use Hue colored lights and Spotify over the Apple TV to control the lighting and sound. I'll make notes about which Hue setting to use and which playlist to play during each encounter.

Sometimes I make fewer notes but I pre-session prep is a huge part of my enjoyment of the game, so I feel good when I'm very prepared.

That's an excellent question, Joress, and I think every GM will give you a different answer.

I do a poor job of taking notes during a session, and furthermore, I don't jot them down just after the session while they're still fresh. Such of the price of Beer League play. Luckily, everyone enjoys the stories a lot so we all store the narrative.

This article on Gnome Stew is a great resource for what things are good to note and keep on hand.

What scant notes I keep, I organize in folders by session date in Scrivener. This includes the crawl and all the information I'll need to run the session.

[edit] I should mention that I prep like a part-time job and have a prebuilt cast of characters and set pieces. Prep is another topic entirely!

I'm convinced that my note taking is worse than yours, themensch! Thanks for that link, too. That was gold!

I hadn't considered using an app like Scrivener, so that was another nice suggestion. And prep time is another huge topic I could ask a million questions about, but I'll save that for another thread. It is interesting how all the responses so far have mentioned prep time to some degree.

I save all kinds of notes on my computer. I have files for locations (and what services are available there), story ideas, PC notes(inclulding obligations and how to incorporate them into the story), anything interesting I need to remember about what happened in a certain session, NPC notes, and of course I have the adventure they are currently running and usually another file reminding me what is going on behind the scenes. I also have a notebook handy for anything I think of when I don't have my computer handy. This usually ends up being small encounter ideas or story hooks that I thought of while I was trying to sleep (this game has NOT helped my insomnia). I don't have a very fluid system, but it works for me. There is a method to my madness. The more I GM, the more my resource files grow! I am also pretty new to the GMing thing so I'm interested to hear if anybody else has something they do to help themselves be more organized

I've been listening a lot to the Order 66 podcast, and your description reminds me of an episode where they talked about creating your own GM holocron, which totally sounds like what you are doing, The Weaver. That's probably something else I should start doing to help me in the future. Maybe I can finally find a good use for Evernote or something like that!

Hope you get some sleep now!

I make pretty detailed notes as part of my prep for a session.

Here is an example of notes for the big boss climax of last night's session:

https://explorers-on-the-edge.obsidianportal.com/wikis/throne-room-of-jaren-laa

I usually know the PCs are going to do 2 or 3 specific encounters, perhaps in a specific order, perhaps not. I make notes for each of them where I'll list the main challenges they'll face and what the difficulties might be. I'll often do charts of what they get for successes or failure, and what advantages, threats, triumphs and despairs could mean.

Sometimes I'll write up dialogue or bits of speech for the character, sometimes I will just improvise all their dialogue. I've switched away from writing out long "box text" to describe environments, but I do a bullet point list.

I also try to incorporate senses into the descriptions, so I'll make notes of what the PCs might hear, smell, see or feel.

For example:

Ancient Throne Room

- massive chamber, high ceilings

- ornate columns

- raised throne dais in the center

- room is filled with the scent of incense

- smoke fills the air, diffusing red light from torches on the walls

And if each player would experience something specific during that encounter, I'll make a note.

I write all these notes in Obsidian Portal. I'll attach Stat Block images of the NPCs they'll encounter, and make notes about combat strategies.

"If the leader dies, the minions will need to make a Discipline check or they'll all flee", that kind of thing.

I run games at my house and I use Hue colored lights and Spotify over the Apple TV to control the lighting and sound. I'll make notes about which Hue setting to use and which playlist to play during each encounter.

Sometimes I make fewer notes but I pre-session prep is a huge part of my enjoyment of the game, so I feel good when I'm very prepared.

Wow! I must say, that's pretty impressive, progressions... getting into lights and music?! Very cool! I like the bullet points idea when describing locations, too.

Thanks for sharing your session notes. I've heard a little bit about Obsidian Portal... Is that like a Roll20 type website? It's cool how you can keep all your game notes in there with stat blocks. On a slightly different, but similar note... do you run a long campaign that is all flushed out, or do you take it week by week as you see where the PCs take the adventure?

Thanks again for the comments! Any other thoughts from anyone about how you take notes during the game, or prep your notes prior? My initial question was referring to tracking in game changes, modifiers and dice rolls, but the note preparation that happens before the game is another thing I'd be interested in learning about.

Thanks, Joress! My players seemed to get a kick out of the lights and music changing based on the scene. I try to limit it to 2 or 3 lighting changes during a session so it doesn't feel like it's too much.

For me, Obsidian Portal is basically my GM Holocron. At its core, Obsidian Portal is a Wiki-type knowledge base designed for RPGs. You can record:

• characters
• adventure logs
• and any other type of information , from planets to organizations to events

Every page has a "GM Only" section, and you can write "Player Secrets" on any page, that are specific to you and another player or group of players.

I tend to have a broad outline for the direction of the campaign, and I try to wait to do specific planning for each session until the 2 weeks before the session happens. But I take LOTS of notes as I go along. Then before the session I narrow down the notes and get specific about what might happen.

Before using Obsidian Portal, I used to take all these notes in text files and print them out and come to the session with a binder. Now I use an iPad to read Obsidian Portal and my iPhone to control the lights and music. I track wounds and initiative on a small whiteboard with a marker.

Thanks to previous frustrating experiences i'm a believer of the "minimum preparation only" way of life. The only thing i do is to write one or two index cards with bullet points that i'd like to expand upon during the session. The rest i create on the fly.

When i need some unexpected monster i just re-skin something of the appropriate threat level (like the Lylek from the Long Arm of the Hutt adventure).

The other "note" i do is that after every session i write the events that occurred in a "previously on star wars..." fashion. Then i read it to my players in the beginning of the next session.

Apart from that the only other "note" i do is, if i'm running a pre-written campaign (like Beyond the Rim), i must read the hole book before starting the campaign an keep re-reading some pieces to maintain things fresh in my mind.

I have an outline prepared for each episode that I run using my iPad to reference the Word file. I also print a page for every session that lists all of the character's Obligation. There's lots of room on the printout for NPC damage and such. When a major event or plot deviation occurs I will make a note of it on the print out sheet. After the episode, when I have a chance to reflect on what the deviation will do as it relates to the main story lines, I will go into my Word file and incorporate the new developments.

Thanks to previous frustrating experiences i'm a believer of the "minimum preparation only" way of life. The only thing i do is to write one or two index cards with bullet points that i'd like to expand upon during the session. The rest i create on the fly.

Definitely with you there - I ran a sandboxed game. My prep wasn't as much around a single plot line as it was building my GM Holocron and putting together Fronts. It seemed like my players would go a direction I hadn't anticipated 5 minutes into every session, so I just had to be prepared for... well, anything.

Definitely with you there - I ran a sandboxed game. My prep wasn't as much around a single plot line as it was building my GM Holocron and putting together Fronts. It seemed like my players would go a direction I hadn't anticipated 5 minutes into every session, so I just had to be prepared for... well, anything.

I run a sandbox (no plan survives an encounter with the enemy [the players]) but I don't build an elaborate manual or gazetteer, just generate what I need on the fly.

A list of all the player characters that you have killed.

I agree with what N4n0 said: Keeping notes of what happened in the previous session is very good, as sometimes (often) a game has to get rescheduled on a later date. No doubt all of you can remember what happend in todays game a week from now, but after a month... And nothing is worse then a GM going "Ok does anybody know what we did last session?" Especialy if the only answers he gets are "Nope, No, Euh... No. Can't remember."

I write up notes on paper, then go back and do an adventure log on a Blog I have. That way my players can keep track and any friends/family that want to know why pen and paper RPGs are fun can see what sort of stories happen.

I think our last session I only wrote down like 3 lines of notes, and after all the players went home/to sleep I wrote up the session log. I think it is less distracting if it is nice and quite and calm late at night for that.

I mentioned in my other post, but one thing I have found a big boon in writing notes is using bullet points and phrases rather than full sentences for important stuff.

In the middle of a session, I can look down at my notes and see what I need to do. One way:

"The rusty, dimly-lit computer room has a central console, a utility closet, and a variety of boxes filled with mechanical junk. In the utility closet are hiding two Stormtroopers and a protocol droid whom they're preventing from speaking."

Versus:

Computer room:

• rusty
• dimly-lit

Contains:

• central console
• utility closet

Central console:

• Hard Mechanics check to slice
• security cameras
• turn alarms on/off

Utility closet:

• 2 Stormtroopers
• Protocol droid (they're holding him)

I'll write up text about what I intend and take detailed notes, but for the notes I actually consult during the game, bullet points are a lifesaver.

Definitely with you there - I ran a sandboxed game. My prep wasn't as much around a single plot line as it was building my GM Holocron and putting together Fronts. It seemed like my players would go a direction I hadn't anticipated 5 minutes into every session, so I just had to be prepared for... well, anything.

I am both the same and opposite form you:

I run a sandbox (no plan survives an encounter with the enemy [the players]) but I don't build an elaborate manual or gazetteer, just generate what I need on the fly.

Oh, everything's on the fly still, I just like to be prepared. Most of my prep is actually geared towards making sure I have what I need when things go wild - stat blocks and some stock NPCs I can just grab from a list, etc.

I mentioned in my other post, but one thing I have found a big boon in writing notes is using bullet points and phrases rather than full sentences for important stuff.

This is an excellent idea, consider it yoinked!

Another thing I like to do is to put boxes around certain text and then colorize the background/fonts like in the books. Helps me remember things I mean to read aloud versus behind the scene stuff.

I mentioned in my other post, but one thing I have found a big boon in writing notes is using bullet points and phrases rather than full sentences for important stuff.

This is an excellent idea, consider it yoinked!

Another thing I like to do is to put boxes around certain text and then colorize the background/fonts like in the books. Helps me remember things I mean to read aloud versus behind the scene stuff.

I've modded up my Obsidian Portal so I can closely follow the style and design of the EOTE books for the same reason.

I mentioned in my other post, but one thing I have found a big boon in writing notes is using bullet points and phrases rather than full sentences for important stuff.

This is an excellent idea, consider it yoinked!

Another thing I like to do is to put boxes around certain text and then colorize the background/fonts like in the books. Helps me remember things I mean to read aloud versus behind the scene stuff.

Yeah, I'm definitely doing this. Great ideas.

Thanks for all the comments! You've given me some great ideas to try out. It's cool to see so many different ways to run the game, and it actually puts me at ease a little bit.

This weekend I was reminded a good reason to blog the session logs. One of the Players in my campaign mentioned at the start of our Session Saturday "Wow, I didn't realize how much we have been through so far, or how much you remember. I was hoping you would forget that little thing from last session, and you caught it."

Sometimes I am amazed about what my Players come up with and what I put them through and yet everyone is having fun. I try to keep the session logs generic enough though that some stuff stays "in group" but others can still see the progress of what happened.

That being said I had to write notes this last time. So much happened I couldn't recall all of it in the right order. When I was writing the blog entries I had to redo half of it because I had things happen in the wrong places.

The point of all that blabber is, GM note taking is good and helps you and your players.

Personally I do a lot of preparation and take practically no notes during the game sessions themselves.

On the prep side, I tend to over-prepare, up to and including writing multiple short sections to read, either dialog or exposition, some of which is mutually exclusive. I make more generalized notes for more open areas, and try to gather stats blocks and potential names for anything and everyone involved in a sequence at most a few clicks away (I run games from my laptop for the most part).

When it comes to playing, though, I am a terrible note taker (to the point that right now, for example, I don't know how many XP I've awarded my players so far). It helps that I have my extensive notes from prep there to help jog my memory of what happened, even if that's for a jumping off point where my players threw me a complete curveball (which they have done repeatedly in the half-dozen sessions we've played so far).

I definitely don't take notes during the sessions, but I tend to remember pretty well what happened, and I write up adventure logs after the fact. Before the next session I write up an opening crawl and send it to the players, then I read the crawl at the start of the session.

Just found this thread, thanks to all for great advice.

If you do take notes I would recommend examining your methods for speed and clarity and determining the things that you have trouble remembered or really want to remember later. Such as having a prepped sheet of names/mannerisms for NPC quick creation with a bit of space to fill in pertinent details, or if taking notes in a notebook using the margins, writing at different angles (90 degrees), or symbols (such as asterisks), to denote and separate note ideas.

It's a paid program, but I do a good portion of my preparation work, especially for narrative, using the Realm Works software. I've found it useful so far.