I've been a player to a gm who takes copious notes and have tons of print-outs, and now I've started to gm myself and it got me wondering, how many GMs keep their campaign notes so they can run that campaign again sometime in the future for a different group (or sharing them online)? Currently I feel that it's a 'one and done' kind of thing, but the more work I put into my setting, the more I feel that isn't the case.
so to all the GMs out there, do you keep your campaigns? Do you share them? Or just forget them.
You keep the good, trim the fat. You'll never get an exact copy of a campaign just because the nature of people, but you can take all the parts that definitely were the best and reuse them in different places.
Mason Hill
I write whatever happen in my game on my diary but mostly for memories, you know, I want to read that 20 years from now
Never come to me the idea of playing the same campaign with a different group.
Lucas Moore
I try and keep notes, usually I forget. I've started making forms to keep track.
I share scenarios. Whole campaigns need more flexibility, it's hard to write them out. But I tend to share scenarios that don't come directly from the campaigns I'm playing just because those have chapters with very specific conditions and they cater to the characters. For something to put on the web I want to keep it much more flexible.
Mason Edwards
I'm always stumbling across notes and shit. I used to try and collect it, but now it goes in the bin unless it was part of something memorable (full colour hex maps I drew when I was 12 for my D&D games, some character sheets with neat-looking portraits, etc). I started typing up play reports for friends awhile ago.
If you've got something that your want to preserve, there's a website that takes donations of roleplaying ephemera: The Play Generated Map & Document Archive plagmada.org/Welcome.html
Jose Jackson
I keep the entire campaign, notes, maps, and other things on a single USB Flashdrive.
At the end of the campaign I surrender the Flashdrive to my players so that they may understand the workings of the campaign they just played.
I have copies of the campaigns in the USB Flashdrives in my Desktop computer so I can replay them with other play groups.
Player actions during the campaign are written in a separate notebook.
Alexander Clark
I keep the notebook paper sized stuff in a binder and all my locations/npcs/items/monsters on notecards in a card box. They're both fun momentos of great games of the past *and* ready to rock and roll again on a moment's notice.
You'd think re-using them would fuzz up the original memories but the opposite is true. The more I run a setting the better it develops and the better the players like it, which just adds more fun memories to the pile
Landon Kelly
My online gaming notes are more like laundry lists in text format.
Mostly figuring out the players last intended action or plan before the session had to end so we can pick up where we left off easier.
For tabletop gaming my notes are complete pictogram rubbish. Indecipherable narrations of character sketches, maps and placenames.
I'm good enough with the handouts and strategic floorplans for players but my side of story preservation needs some discipline.
Then again most of the games I do now on tabletop are one shot pick ups.
Xavier Ross
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Blake Bell
One of our GMs left an A4 piece of paper of his notes after a one shot session at my house. Apart from some scribbled notes for initiative and hitpoints, the only decipherable text was the words: "Kill [That Guy's Name]" It's pretty good advice.
