How strict are you about your players taking notes?

How strict are you about your players taking notes?

>Recap Kid
>Girl
Is nothing safe from genderswapping?

Is that a girl or a boy?

I take detailed notes on everything. Never had it be a problem. What GM is against note taking?

I am a player, and I think I take okay notes. I write down most things that actually matter, but nobody makes me do it. I can't get everything down when I'm excited and participating in the session, but I can take better notes when I care less about being engaged. It's especially helpful for shit like magic item stats and NPC names. I also take pictures of dungeons on my phone, assuming the DM hasn't already erased the map by the time I remember to do it.

In one of the games I'm in, the DM isn't letting us use computers. That means no real notes because I am not willing to carry around that much paper. Also I love using control+F to automatically search through my notes; It's very helpful and can make it look like I actually remember shit because of how fast I can find things.


When I don't take notes, my character ends up looking like some kind of spaz because OOC I can't perfectly recall the names of everyone he talked to in a session that was three real-time weeks ago.
>"Uhh hey, we should talk to that forge-guy"
>"Who?"
>"You know, that forge dude who wanted the demon dust. What was his name?"
>"K... k-something, I think?"
>"Whatever, we go to him and give him the demon dust"

Recap Kid has always been a girl

I don't encourage it but I like to think I try to train my players to remember things better by asking them to give me a recap of everything that happened last session. I never tell them what happened, mostly because I don't want to give away anything they might have missed or anything that might not have come up yet, but it's interesting hearing their interpretations of the story so far.

There are people that don't let players take notes...?

I thought the implication was that some GMs force players to take notes while other GMs are ambivalent.

There are three kinds of notes that are not only acceptable but enhance gameplay. These are:

1) Notes regarding how gameplay works. These are great for new players to take while learning a system.
2) Personal notes regarding the setting from the perspective of the player's character.
3) Short DM-hosted journal entries regarding visited locations and noteworthy characters, best put in a 3-ring binder or on an online source depending on media.

A very pretty girl

One of my players had a trend for each of their characters they kept a journal, though we just thought it was just a fluff thing. Then one time their character died and as the party was going through their character list to see what items they could salvage/loot from their corpse they did a throw-away question of, 'was there anything important/interesting in the journal?'

Then the player pulled out a small journal that was filled with the character's entries about each /day/ they'd been part of the party, including bits that we hadn't played due to timeskipping places. The density of perspective, notes about things that were important/once important/and characterization were kind of staggering. It was by far the most valuable item the party looted from them - it allowed them to complete a half dozen sidequests we'd largely forgotten about and had the musings that were largely correct about the direction of the campaign plot and the arch-villain.

We've only gotten to see two more of their journals since then - they're only shared if the character dies or they're obtained in a logical manner that was clearly not a result of metagaming just to get the journal because they wanted to read it ooc. They're legit some of my favourite things to ever get to pour over as a GM, because the player/character perspective of my settings as they explore them and what they think is absolutely fascinating to get a different perspective that doesn't know everything but acts like this is their natural normal world and reacts accordingly.

If you're reading this B, you're cool and you're my favourite player. I wish the others would roleplay half as hard as you do.

As a GM, I'm not particularly strict on my players. They can take the notes they want, and I encourage them to do so but not force them. They have an average memory so they remember what is important, and if someone forgets a thing the rest usually remembers it.

On a related note, I homebrewd a rule that made the players have a personal kill count in their sheet. At first I made the rule because I thought it was cool for them to have, and then I found it a use. Later, when I realized I hadn't understood a rule that already covered that use, I told them to keep at it if they wanted to, and most did. Now they really enjoy writing their kill count and that has made them take more notes, I think. So that's an advice I have if you want your players to take more notes.

She's really cute

ur really cute, user ;)

I prefer my players to keep notes, if they have a Perfect memory or anything I require them to keep notes. I've got enough stuff to keep track of without having to remember what you were there for 45 sessions ago. I also have my PC's recap at each new session.

As a player I keep both notes and a journal for the character. GM gives me extra XP for being the Chronicler of our dark deeds. Notes are fairly organized to the best of my ability. Journal is that of a schizophrenic madman with nonsensical entries that only make sense to me (Sometimes). Including a full paragraph of the words 'I fucking hate demons' just repeated over and over.

i have a good memory but after a few years i start to forget details. i only started writing things down when i started playing CoC. we normally play DnD but the DM wanted a change of pace so he put us into a murder misters and i solved the case easy. he made many mistakes and told us too much information (DnD problem). accounting / record keeping is the most broken skill because i got the guy responsible after i found large amounts of money were moved and missing. also helps keep DM bullshit to a minimum.

>aug 3 2015: enemy army of 1000 number of killed each battle 12, 44, 139, 22, 32, 68,

>aug 24 2015: enemy army of 683 number of killed each battle 214, 26,38, 73, 62, 11

>Jul 4 2015: enemy army of 259 number of killed each battle 36, 21, 54, 4, 5, 7, 34

>Jul 14 2015: enemy army of 98 number of killed each battle 21, 12, 57, 7

there was just 1 guy left and the DM wasn't paying any attenchen to details like how many we killed. when i told everyone the next game the DM didnt believe me till i showed him the notes. i had to do a similar thing for our allies that the DM was constantly trying to kill off. we were supposed to be 5 of us to 100 or so of them. it turned out to be more like 200 of us to 100 of them. every attempt the DM tried to say that the enemy army tried to attack from an unexpected direction we waited until the start of the battle to inform the DM that the bridge the enemy wanted to cross had been destroyed and we would water for them to cross the river. they raided the town for food and supplies but we informed him that we had enacted a scorched earth policy the previous session. when we lost ground we poisoned the wells. we killed more of the enemy by not fighting.

I leave it up to the players if they want to take notes. I'm not your teacher, this is game, do what you think is gonna make it more fun for you.

I should probably make better notes for myself though, since I usually like to run things on the fly, and so I often forget things like NPCs and their names.

What is a recap kid?

A kid that does the whole "previously on......", brings the viewer up to speed and spazzes out

On what?

Invader ZIM comic

>For items or abilities or anything that their character is given, I insist they take notes.

This is important information that they need to know for the game to run smoothly. I consider this a bare minimum of commitment. If they can't do this much, then videogames are probably what they should play instead.

>For NPC or location names, I suggest they take notes.

This is stuff I have notes on, so if they forget it's not a problem and only takes a quick moment to remind them, but if they can note or remember these things then it helps with investment and immersion

>For dungeon or investigation details, I leave it up to them.

If they don't want to write down which corridor they discover a trap in before they go somewhere else without disarming it, that's not my problem.

It's actually pretty good

most of jhonen vasquez's stuff is pretty good, not taking into account the hot topic fanbase

Back when I played my Knowledge (Everything) pure Wizard in a 3.5 game I kept a lot of notes. I was really the party's record keeper in every way. It honestly felt really immersive and fun to be the secretive and knowledgeable wizard sitting behind stacks of papers and books at my end of the table. It was very disorganized and hectic but I could keep up with it well enough and since I was more used to the rules of the system than most of the other players my turns were still relatively fast even when I had to dig out my list of prepared spells.

In other campaigns I still take notes but mostly for my own purposes not at the same obsessive level.

You know, I tried to watch an episode of Invader Zim for the first time as an adult, and man. That show is fucking annoying.

as an adult you are definitely not the target audience

No, I get that. It's just interesting to come back to it as an adult and just having an entirely different reaction.

Like the Felix the Cat movie. As a kid, I loved it. As an adult, I thought it was garbage.

I'm not. If they dont take notes of important stuff it's thier problem if they dont remember and there's more stuff I as DM can get away with.

However, if there's notes that the PCs are carrying, they can ofcourse see that whenever they want.

Indeed, because now, as an adult, you are someone different from who you were back then.

It's always weird to think that who you are constantly changes. The you from ten years ago and the you ten years from now share some of the same habits, but may have radically different views.

You're also made from an almost entirely different assortment of mostly Doritos and Kraft Mac&Cheese than you were back then.

I need a tiemmachine to stab that fucker

HEY! I made of mostly meat and bread with SOME veggies thrown in. I actually can't do snack foods like I used to.

>the hot topic fanbase
He's a good business man, merchandise will make you rich