How I Prep for My D&D Sessions
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2024
- I’m pulling back the curtain and showing you what my own D&D notes look like!
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This video contains minor spoilers for “Curse of Strahd”
An example of my D&D Notes: www.patreon.com/posts/1004524...
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:29 - Why Nobody Knows How Anybody Else Preps Their Games
03:57 - The Internet Made DM Notes More Accessible
06:54 - Naming Your Session
12:36 - Reviewing Your Characters (and Their NPC Companions)
14:37 - Identifying Important NPCs
17:19 - Starting Time, and Tracking Time
17:52 - A Word From Our Sponsors
19:24 - My Plan for the Session, Hour By Hour
23:30 - Random Encounters and the Death Chart
24:20 - Final Thoughts
25:43 - Outro
Game Master notes:
Matt Mercer:
Campaign 2 Session 17 - The Harvest’s Close Festival (contains spoilers for “Harvest Close”)
criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/...
Campaign 2 Session 50 - Underground (contains spoilers for “The Endless Burrows”)
criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/...
Matt Colville:
Prepping An Adventure | Running the Game
• Prepping An Adventure ...
Prep Can Be Literally Easy and Actually Fun
• Prep Can Be Literally ...
As Above, So Below:
Notes: files.mcdmproductions.com/You...
Game Session: • As Above, So Below, Ca...
Post-Game Q&A: • As Above, So Below Q&A
The Mul:
Notes: files.mcdmproductions.com/You...
Game Session: • The Mul, Campaign Diar...
Post-Game Q&A: • The Mul, Campaign Diar...
The Revenant Vow Meets the Shield of Gravesford:
Notes: mcdm.gg/TH-cam/AboveBelow03.pdf
Game Session: • The Revenant Vow Meets...
Post-Game Q&A: • The Revenant Vow Meets...
Chris Perkins’ blog, The Dungeon Master Experience:
web.archive.org/web/201410120...
Sly Flourish channel:
/ @slyflourish
The Virtues of Pre-Published Modules vs. Homebrew Campaigns
• The Virtues of Pre-Pub...
Additional Dark Gifts for “Curse of Strahd”
www.dmsguild.com/product/1865...
George Street Shuffle Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Apero Hour Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Lobby Time Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Sidewalk Shade - slower Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Fast Talkin Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Backed Vibes Clean Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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What do you do during your game prep that you didn’t see me do in this video?
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I’m big on creating music playlists, on the topics of naming sessions provide name that was the name of some metal core band mainly an inside joke for me but it was fun to post the playlist after the campaign was done.
All of my DM notes for my next session:
Mad Max with Gnolls
One of the best pieces of dm advice would be that planning starts at the end of the session. Ask your players what they want to do next session and build around that.
This is VITAL. Don't try to fully prep everything they could do. Ask what they're going to do, and prep that. The players want you to be prepared to give them great stuff.
The channel “How to be a Great GM” has a playlist called “How the Save or Dice Campaign was Created”. He was the DM for a campaign where the other players were TH-camrs like Taking20 and XP to Level 3, and he made several videos going over creating the campaign world from scratch and then planning the sessions. So you can see all the work that went into each session, then watch the session, and then the next episode is him going over what worked, what didn’t, why he improvised some things the way he did, and then planning out what the next session will be. It is an amazing resource to see what areas to focus on and what to just leave to chance. Plus it’s a great example of how the players can deviate wildly from your plan and still have a great time and never even know it.
I appreciate the advice! As a new DM I always feel like I'm so unprepared and just running around like a chicken with my head chopped off! Love your vids Mike!!
"Under the light of Princess Yue"!!! Chef's kiss!
I prep using a paper notebook and a pencil. I personally find that the act of physically writing helps lock in the ideas in my brain, so when I'm at the table running the game, I can improv scenes without flipping through my notes
If I expect a combat, I will re-write stat blocks in my own way so I can see everything on a 2 page spread.
Improtant NPCs (escpecially if they are being introduces) I write down who they are, a 1 line description, why they are important to the session - or What do they Know/Want?
I like your session titles idea.
Thanks for the vid
Same, paper notebooks for me. I'm actually running three campaigns, and they are all in the same notebooks, with color-coded page corners, so it's my own brand of chaos...
@@dziooooo oh my. that's a bit too much chaos for me. I would at elast need a seperate notebook per campaign. Still colour coded, obviously. :D
I also want to give a shout out to something Arcane Library does in her modules: she includes a central dramatic question for each scene, after which point you can start to move on to the next thing. I find this super helpful for focusing on what the current goal is. Do the PCs make it past the monster? Can they learn where the mcguffin is? Can they make it through the forest safely?
Whenever I want to watch the most recent video you post I just type “Mike” into the TH-cam search bar and by now TH-cam knows what I mean
Prep is not just for GMs. Players can prep too. Have active character plans that don't assume plot relevant events will drop in their path. Think of how you might bring out your backstory or support other players in using theirs. Think of how you can build on relationships with other player characters, NPCs, and the setting. Remind yourself of forgotten plot threads you could revitalise or lore you have deeper questions on. Collaborate with other players, including the GM. Think of ways you as a player can feed into the tone of the game.
I make various task lists that are usually player-centric outside of my game prep. One is a MUST DO by next session, like making sure magic items or treasure are selected/created. Then there is REALLY NICE TO DO like making physical props, extra map features, writing letters or other embellishments for the game. The OK IF TIME is specialty map stuff for further out, NPC/encounter details to help with improv, arc mapping and details, etc. I love doing all of these but it has helped prioritize my time when I don’t have space for it all.
My session notes are usually two pieces. The notes for the campaign overall's ideas and directions. Major players, town names, spare NPC names, etc. And then a single image that has all the monster stats I might use in the next few sessions (made easier by 4e's monster design). I then have a spare image for all the magic items I might want to distribute that I'll keep on hand but usually won't open til the end of a session. Any time I get in over my head or might need to reference something outside of these documents, I throw one of the encounters I have at the party and figure it out between sessions.
I really like Sly Flourish’s secrets mechanic. I try to do 10 exposition secrets that I can reward my players with when they make a role that I’m not expecting. These are free floating clues that can be plugged in wherever I need them.
Example, my players caught an assassin that was sent to murder one of the players in his sleep and steal a maguffin. My battle master disarmed him, the barbarian grappled him, and our rogue got a 29 on his intimidation role. I didn’t have anything prepped that this guy knew so I went into my secrets and let them know that the BBEG had an artifact that could charm people who came into a certain radius if they fail a wisdom saving throw. The assassin let them know that the villain rode through the streets in a carriage in order to charm as many people as possible and the date of the next time he was going out.
That led to them planning with the local thieves guild to attack the carriage.
Totally agree! It has also been a great reminder for me that the reward for exploration is often information. Players come in curious - it's my job to meet them.
I always feel like I’ve struggled with prep and I often feel disappointed or underwhelmed after my own sessions. This was some good advice.
I don't improvise very well unless I already have a solid idea of what the characters and scenes are about. My prep is reviewing my npc's and notable monsters the party may encounter to get familiar with their goals and important character traits, finding maps and visual aids to set the scene, and then finding the soundtrack that would compliment the scene. I have multiple lists of random encounter tables appropriate to the terrain (and of non-interactive descriptions I can use as "fillers" when nothing happens otherwise), of magical items I want to put in a scene, of books that exist in the world, and of pc-specific story hooks I may want to introduce or keep track of - I review and update those lists as inspiration hits me, or when I find something cool I may want to use. I also have a calendar with marked holidays and events.
I’m an in-person GM but I use my laptop behind my Screen to hold my notes, play music, pull up my World Anvil, etc. Usually my prep consists of making a word document that starts with a recap of last session, and then I set the scene of where the party is currently. I have a list of all the story bits that the party might hit while they’re in a certain area (what locations are nearby, NPCs and how to roleplay them, what quests they might have).
Since we play in person, I also have combat encounter pages that have links to monster stats on DNDBeyond, strategy patterns for each monster (sourced from TMKWTAD by Keith Ammann), and an initiative table with numbers 30-1 that I plug player initiatives into at the start of combat.
It’s a system I’ve been using for awhile but I’ve never thought to name my sessions. I ran the idea by my players and they really liked it so I’ll definitely be trying that soon!
2:20 That happened in one campaign, but the opposite way. It wasn't that we didn't do something our DM expected, but that our DM didn't expect us to do. I was playing a kobold wizard and tried to use an explosive rune to create a distraction (Now that I think about it, our Dm said the "Are you sure?" when I told him what I planned to do, but at that time, I didn't know what that means when a DM says it) to get into a place that was out of limits for us at that moment. I threw the rune over a wall that was keeping zombies from entering the city, with a nat 1, so the rune ended up over the wall, and completely demolished it. He had already planned for the zombies to break into the city after a few sessions, but after that combat, he told us "I would've never anticipated this. This was supposed to happen like three to four sessions later". It's one of the few times we were told how things were prepared, since it had already happened, and it was interesting to see how something as small as a roll or a poorly thought out plan can cause a session to derail from the plans you have.
(I'm writing this while at work, so I'll provide a longer example later.) My prep is a few things:
1. I prep possible major plot-relevant moments. Since the start of my campaign is very much in a city, I have to design a city with as many things inside of it as I can. I have a map of the city center that everyone can see and so they can know what's in what area. If a player wants to go find something or do something that I didn’t plan for, then I can come up with something based upon what I've already designed for the map. It's been an ongoing process. It also allows me to spend some time coming up with side-quests and designing locations and encounters that takes them outside of the city when they would like to. As for more daily stuff, I mostly let the players decide what they want to do between plot-beats, gives them a chance to rp, and gives my brain a break.
2. Once a major plot point or story beat is written, I then find some maps that could be used there or have one of my players design a map ahead of time. That way they don’t know what's coming or what it's for until the right moment.
3. If the plot point is major and I have been planning for a while, then I create a playlist for me and my players (mainly me because my players tend to mute the bot rather than turn it down to hear people talk).
4. Everything that I plan for (with the exception of the playlist) is handwritten in my notebook. I already have enough tabs open on my computer as I'm playing on discord and r20, I will forget to have google doc for notes. It's much easier and faster for me to hand write something and prepare for the session as everything is in that notebook. Although there have been a few times where someone wants to roll a History check and I have to find that piece of information in my other notebook or on my phone. It takes me a few minutes because I'm not a linear thinker.
I do see some problems with this method and I'm still ironing out the kinks, which I will get into once I'm back at my desk and better able to think. But that is all that I have for the moment.
Thanks for sharing your notes!
(1) I title a (1 to 3+ sessions) story arc -- usually based on the star system the team is in -- and I spend some time on a "cover," which includes the title and an image I found on Pinterest that encapsulates what's going on in the story. Essentially, it looks like a novel jacket. (2) I begin each session with a detailed breakdown of the names and places and things done. This is as much for me as them, so I can easily reference it rather than page through earlier notes to find a name. (3) I write things in scenes, based on location or NPCs involved. If the team is visiting a syndicate headquarters, a lot of what I put in will have location details, how security works, and low level henchmen they will probably meet. If I don't know where/when they might meet an NPC, most of the info is about the NPC; their habits at home and outside, so that it makes sense when there would be a meeting. (4) I try to include a scene for each character based on their current short- or medium-term goals (which are not directly based on the main story-line) and put them in if it seems appropriate, such as when one of the players doesn't seem connected to what's going on with the main story or might not have an opportunity to shine during the session. (5) I do embedded information so that, if the PCs skip locations or conversation topics, it's easy know what not to bother looking over during game. I also bold names and places, use color for vital information, and sometimes colorize sections of info meant for a particular character. (6) Lastly, I almost always end on a dramatic cliffhanger. It gets an emotional response from the players when things conclude at a point of impending disaster. It's also an easy way to start the next session, with the resolution of the conflict (imagined or not). I don't plan these out. The last half-hour of our 4-hour session is me looking for a good place to drop the DUN DUN DUN! ending to the session.
I should also add that when the team is going to a new star system, I work out big picture stuff. I include a system map -- showing where planets and moons are in relation to each other (4th planet named XYZ, Moons XYZ1, XYZ2, etc.-- as well as the starbase and space navy presence and anything else of note, like a world with restricted access, etc. I also have a breakdown of each world and their arcologies (cities), including what a world's environmentals are like (high radiation, low-oxygen atmo, toxicity, etc.) I include the names/loyalties of the politicians, admirals, syndicate bosses, and megacorp leaders. I also include any indigenous sapient species and extremely dangerous flora or fauna on a specific world. This usually takes me a week's worth of prep, so I will run a simple, single-session adventure that takes place in space or a world along their rout to give me that needed time. This is one of the hardest parts of running a non-soft sci-fi setting from scratch. There is more expectation by players for interacting with an explainable and fully realized setting. So, governments, alien empires, politics, available trade goods, starship capabilities, house factions, megacorp methods and specialties, and on and on have been and continue to be developed over the last 59 sessions. It's contrary to my personality to hand-wave stuff or run a soft-sci-fi setting, so this is my plight. ...I'm running a super hero setting next, which will be a lighter load. Only 41 sessions to go! XD
Regarding my own needs for GM growth, I need to be more invested into the NPCs that the team will invariably pick up along the way. I can go months without mentioning what's going on with the PC's henchman's lives. And the thing is, it's almost always met with amusement and interest by the players when I do put something in. When the blacklab rescued-android started experimenting with her sexuality by taking the Russian short-order cook (hired as the ship's meal preparer) as a lover, and that he dresses for it in a giant panda suit, the whole table were rolling in their seats. "Of course he does!" And last session, when the Metamage's docu holographer was abducted for questioning by an agent of the Kommissariat, and they learned how much he resisted their torture, and how much he loved his boss, they were all touched. His boss PC has made his next short-term goal to help find him companionship. But that's all I've done in a year's worth of sessions. So there is a lot more that I can do in that regard. Maybe have a few lines each sessions detailing what the NPCs are getting up to. I'm still working that out. :)
Oh, I love hearing how other folks prep for their games!!
For my own games, I borrowed from Sly Flourish’s 8 Steps, but I only use the Secrets and Clues regularly - i love the flexibility it gives me for the actual session events.
I’ve always read a recap at the top of my sessions because it seems to help everyone keep track of what’s going on, including myself. But I’ve recently taken a few techniques from Matthew Taylor of Tabletopnotch. I name the session after we’ve played so it can reference what occurred in-game and read it at the start of the recap (Previously on Chapter 2: A Time to Spill), and I end my recap with 3 questions: 2 legitimate questions reiterating some aspect of the ongoing mystery, and a third that’s a joke or gentle roast of my players.
When I DMed games in highschool all i needed was a note with a list of important NPC names and locations
It's really neat to get insight on other people's prep and notes. I know I had a piece of paper in front of me that had the player characters, their AC's, spell save DC's and some passives, etc. Kind of just moving that, from where Mike had the character names, somewhere else. I like the per hour goal idea. My session notes usually consisted of a session recap 1. writing it to remind myself what happened last time and 2. remind the players of what happened and use that to throw to them a "with that information, what do you do?", and then relevant characters, items and such for the session that I forsee needing. But I use OneNote for a lot of things, including DnD, and it's super nice to be able to organize things like quest or location information so I can also go back and forth between the session notes and the page relevant to what the party is doing or where they are. I will also say that from what I've used of World Anvil, it's great for putting that kind of information that's available to players (not just myself) in a place that's organized and easily accessible.
My party loves that I give the session a title now and they always wait in anticipation for me to drop it. I also love the way you do notes it has been helping my sessions flow so much more smoothly. I do put some work into combat encounters only because my players are very good at 5e combat and can easily crush a deadly encounter if I don’t think it through.
Seeing your notes has been a great reminder to have some level of detail, but not to go overboard, which I tend to feel like I need. Thanks Mike!
I ran a 3 session Drakkenheim adventure last year and my notes were basically:
- reminder to interleave combat, exploration and social encounters
- list of npcs with one line description
- list of major situations (encounter gelatinous cube in sewers, need to find vantage point over city, find mutated remains of previous group)
Apart from that I put the monster stat blocks in a separate document and made a one page summary of what the pcs would know about the city.
😅😅😅 I'm one of those DMs that ends up w something looking like a published adventure (not really). The way i like to prep is that every dew months I'll really flesh out the world and characters around my PCs, figuring out how they're involved in whatever both the current conflict and the big campaign wide conflict. I use Notion to map out any specific encounters and hash out how certain NPCs would react, etc. Having that framework makes it easy for me to roll w whatever my PCs decide to do, especially if (as my brother is wont to do) they decide to go in a direction I didnt even think of. It comes in real handy when you have to pull an encounter out of your ass bc you PCs decided to pursue the random thing ypu added for flavor and not the actual thing related to the story 😅 (love Sly Flourish's 8 steps, theyre so great for when I have writer's block and just need to get started.)
I'm of the opinion that less is more when it comes to session prep. I don't know that I'm necessarily *good enough* at improv to really pull it off, more that I *need* to limit myself to make sure I don't devote all my prep time to detailing out something about five minutes' worth of a three-hour session and leave me hanging for the rest of the night. Both sides of one 3"x5" index card is usually my limit. Important NPCs, events that are going to happen in session, maybe quickly jotting down a group of monsters or some prerolled loot, and then hoping I can make up enough of the stuff in between to survive the night.
I've read somewhere that you should prep what you don't feel comfortable improvising. I think that's a great rule of thumb! I also let my players improvise some things, like one time I had to come up with an entourage of people, I gave a few numbers and peoples I wanted to see, they named them and gave them one characteristic to be known by, so they would recognise them if they saw them. I also let my players draw battlemaps, with some guidelines what I want there. For some players this kind of involvement might break imersion, but we do play other systems where this is more common, so they have fun doing it.
It's interesting to see how different people do it! I too use Google docs 😅
I always write and give a recap - this helps me focus and gets my players into the right mind space. I do name my sessions but I haven't considered sharing those names upfront! What a fun idea. I'll have to try it.
I have notes on NPCs - who they are, what they're doing, what they want, what they'll do if left alone vs what they might do if the party approaches them correctly. Usually I just do this in bullets. I do the same thing with locations if the party is in a town or a more "open" space - some general description, things they can find or discover, which NPCs are where. In more "closed" spaces like a dungeon, I have notes room by room and I number the rooms on my map (player versions are not numbered). All notes include DCs (persuasion thresholds to get NPC aid, investigation and perception thresholds to find hidden things, saves for traps and stuff in dungeons). If there's magic item shopping available (rare in my games but there are a few places this can happen), I have a list of specific available goods and the asking price.
I make encounter tables for travel or city exploration, so these go in the notes and I strike through any encounter the party finishes so I can reuse the ones they didn't get to later, if appropriate.
For combat encounters, I have links to stat blocks (if online) or book names and page numbers (if I'm using a book I own physically)
I usually have a running timeline of "what are major things happening in the world if the players DON'T intervene" which includes things like what the villain is currently doing and what's going on politically. The closer I get to the end of a campaign, the more I find I use this.
I have notes on the passage of time if the party is in a place where time is a weird soup (like the Feywild).
I also write my own "box text" for key locations and story beats. I write professionally so if I just take a little extra time to do this in advance, it's usually much more immersive than when I make it up on the fly.
My main advice for prepping D&D better is to try out other games too.
Ironsworn will show you what you can do with an evocative random table. Mothership will convince you to stop predicting player actions and just prepare the situation for them to resolve however they want. Brindlewood Bay has a genius way of running interesting investigations. Blades in the Dark makes you think about consequences and degrees of success.
So, want to figure out the way of prepping that's best for you? Play other games too!
Personal as a DM of oh gods it's been 13 years now. I prep slim. I'm a big improve focused dm. I'll make notes on characters and location and keep em slim giving players many hooks they can fallow. It's a harder way to dm. Relaying alot on your ability to build high quality content in seconds. It's fun for me. Tho now that I'm 13 years in I've got back to planning slightly more.
Appreciate your guides as someone considering playing DND but feeling very behind my friends who have played for years!
For this topic, I found the "How to DM" and "How to GM" videos from Johnny Chiodini on the Dicebreaker channel very interesting, where they explained their style to a player of their Oxventure DnD group so Luke could take over for an episode and Johnny could play. There are three parts, both before and after the episode and they delve into the session notes.
As an aspiring DM, this is critical information, Thanks Mike!
I really really REALLY can't wait for the foundryVTT video. I have so huge issues with this tool, that I always dip my toe in it, and it feels like I would cut it and dip it in the Ganges.
I come from fantasygrounds, but because it requires a working windows PC (which some player did not have), I tried foundry and then went to owlbear. I want to see how people use it.
This was interesting, to be sure. I'd be curious to see how it changes (if it changes) for a homebrew session.
For myself, I don't run moduals/published adventures most of the time, so my step one is always to sit down with a blank document and stream of conciousness brainstorm out what I want to cover next - both in terms of my story and (more importantly) in terms of what the players have given me for their characters' stories, and from there extract an inciting incident/plot hook to present to my players. After that, the details and order may be different (I come up with a title *after* I've made my guesses as to what my players are likely to do) but otherwise it's much the same. I probably spend more time working out background and mechanics, since I don't have that pre-packaged for me, but that's the only other real difference.
In my masks campaign id start every session off with a title and cover page description. Super fun
"...under the light of Princess Yue."
Too soon! TOO SOON!!!
Great video as always
Love your vids SGM. They are great.
i love all your videos mike
This is so helpful, thanks for the consistently great content!
Thanks for another great video Mike. GM prep notes are always interesting!
For me, it also depends on the system I'm running and what it feels like the game is wanting and how it wants to split the GM and Player responsibilities.
I'm prepping now! Video keeps me from procrastinating, keep up the good work, Mike.
This video came at exactly the right time 😂
I like Mike
I can’t get away from that damn Dance with the Devil song.
Oh I was referencing the Joker’s line from Batman ‘89
Nice! I was mostly just commenting for the algo. That song's been haunting me since middle school and its all I think of when I hear the phrase. Love the vids! Big fan of the Vox Machina series :) @@SupergeekMike
Thank you@@LoveReacts !
At the end of every session, ask the players what they want to do next. Other than that have an adventure location and NPCs ready and be ready to move your pieces around and if the party wants to do something seriously out of left field say yes, next time you can as i need to prepare. There is no shame in saying it and the players will get a better experience.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
Very enlightening to see your process, especially as a non-GM
The difference in our prep couldnt be further from eachother if they tried xD But then again. im a dungeon delver so my prep is more exploratory instead of narrative
I'm going to steal so many things from here that in this right moment my name is coming up in the most wanted list.
Your player characters are all so young!
Great video! I just need to stop prepping the morning of 😅
Same!
i also use session titles hahaha but mostly in the sign up link i send to them
What about descriptions for locations, events? And maps, traps, timeline. Are you reading them from the book?
It varies whether I doing a 1) published adventure, or 2) homebrew or 3) homebrew with a player’s input.
1. Read the first chapter. Scan rest of the book. Or just read the adventure league module. Create title sheets for each chapter or module.
Ex. A Lesson In Love
DDAL07-11
DCI number
DM name.
LEVEL 13 TIER 3
Party Composition Party Strength 3-4 characters, APL less than Very weak
3-4 characters, APL equivalent Weak, 3-4 characters, APL greater than Average
5 characters, APL less than Weak, 5 characters, APL equivalent Average
5 characters, APL greater than Strong, 6-7 characters, APL less than Average
6-7 characters, APL equivalent Strong, 6-7 characters, APL greater than Very strong
Story Awards Ire of the Merchant Princes. Aremag provided a degree of protection to the city of Port Nyanzaru that can never be replaced, and the merchant princes will never forget this. You may no longer use the Buying from the Princes downtime activity. In addition, lifestyle costs and the gp costs of any spellcasting services received from the temples within the city are doubled while adventuring within Chult.
Magic Items Potion of Speed, Potion of Fire Giant Strength, Love’s Bite (nine lives stealer long sword)
The Second page will have something like this.
Bandit Captain AC 15 HP 65 CR 2 MM 344
I created TITLE Sheets in 2016 after I got tired of repeating myself at the end of session what the adventure was and the rewards.
I fold the sheet below the APL level formula and toss it on the table. So some people can log the adventure. At the end I unfold the sheet and let people take a snapshot of the sheet.
2. Varies but would have a thumbnail sketch of what was in each room and occasionally check boxes.
Ex. Room has a fountain and half the orcs are asleep. Orcs 00000 00000 0
3.Varied too much for me to create a standard.
DM Notes.
I have a sign in sheet which has the Pc Name, other information like AC Class, and at the end Notes for the player to include something I should always remember. Ex. Weapon of Warning, pet name, etc.
The Start time I include in my after session write up. I agree tracking time lines help because while your group may be playing in December, in game it could be Fourth of July. I quickly review the day and time information from my last session by checking the facebook page.
Question of Vid (stole this from another you tuber) I using D&D Beyond a lot. But still keep an hardcopy at hand. Especially on the modules.
The Dead speak! xDDDDD
Hi Mike
Prep... Notes?
You're telling me you're not supposed to just read the proper section of the book, figure you know what's going on, and then flounder during the session?
Hmm
Prepping kind of sucks. It's best just to improvise.
Okay but low key I think the actual official dnd adventures are terribly laid out! I find I actually have to do more work and prep trying to read and parse what is in those books more than if I just made my own homebrew adventure