[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":332},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-how-to-take-notes-while-dming":3},{"_path":4,"_dir":5,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"title":8,"description":9,"slug":10,"date":11,"author":12,"tags":13,"target_keyword":19,"body":20,"_type":326,"_id":327,"_source":328,"_file":329,"_stem":330,"_extension":331},"/blog/2026-08-23-how-to-take-notes-while-dming","blog",false,"","How to Take Notes While You're DMing (Without Missing the Game)","Five approaches to DM note-taking, honestly compared, including the ones that cost you the game. Plus the three things worth writing down mid-session and everything you can safely leave until later.","how-to-take-notes-while-dming","2026-08-23","MythWeaver Team",[14,15,16,17,18],"dungeon master","note taking","session prep","D&D","TTRPG","how to take notes while dming",{"type":21,"children":22,"toc":311},"root",[23,31,36,43,48,53,58,64,75,85,95,100,106,113,123,128,134,150,155,160,166,181,186,191,197,212,217,222,228,233,238,253,258,264,276,290,295,301,306],{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":26,"children":27},"element","p",{},[28],{"type":29,"value":30},"text","The advice you usually get is \"take better notes.\" That is not advice, it is a restatement of the problem.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":32,"children":33},{},[34],{"type":29,"value":35},"The actual problem is that running a game and recording a game compete for the same attention, and you only have one of those. Every approach below is a different answer to that conflict, and every one of them costs something. Here is what each costs.",{"type":24,"tag":37,"props":38,"children":40},"h2",{"id":39},"why-this-is-hard-specifically",[41],{"type":29,"value":42},"Why this is hard, specifically",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":44,"children":45},{},[46],{"type":29,"value":47},"While you are DMing you are holding: what the NPC in front of you wants, what the room looks like, whose turn it is, how much HP the ogre has, which player has not spoken in twenty minutes, and where you were hoping the evening would end up.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":49,"children":50},{},[51],{"type":29,"value":52},"Writing a sentence pushes all of that out for about eight seconds. That is why mid-session notes come out as fragments nobody can read later. It is not carelessness. You were doing something else.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":54,"children":55},{},[56],{"type":29,"value":57},"So the goal is not \"take more notes.\" It is to write down the minimum that cannot be reconstructed afterwards, and let everything else go.",{"type":24,"tag":37,"props":59,"children":61},{"id":60},"the-three-things-worth-writing-mid-session",[62],{"type":29,"value":63},"The three things worth writing mid-session",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":65,"children":66},{},[67,73],{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":69,"children":70},"strong",{},[71],{"type":29,"value":72},"Names you invented.",{"type":29,"value":74}," The tavern keeper you named on the spot is gone forever the moment the session ends. Two words, right now. This is the highest-value note in the game and it takes a second.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":76,"children":77},{},[78,83],{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":79,"children":80},{},[81],{"type":29,"value":82},"Numbers your players will hold you to.",{"type":29,"value":84}," The price the merchant quoted, how many days the journey takes, what the reward was. Get these wrong later and you lose credibility you will not fully get back.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":86,"children":87},{},[88,93],{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":89,"children":90},{},[91],{"type":29,"value":92},"Promises.",{"type":29,"value":94}," Anything an NPC agreed to, and anything a player declared they would do. These are the threads that make a campaign feel continuous, and they are exactly what you forget.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":96,"children":97},{},[98],{"type":29,"value":99},"That is the list. Everything else can be reconstructed from those three, from the rules, or from asking your table.",{"type":24,"tag":37,"props":101,"children":103},{"id":102},"five-approaches-honestly",[104],{"type":29,"value":105},"Five approaches, honestly",{"type":24,"tag":107,"props":108,"children":110},"h3",{"id":109},"_1-writing-prose-as-you-go",[111],{"type":29,"value":112},"1. Writing prose as you go",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":114,"children":115},{},[116,121],{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":117,"children":118},{},[119],{"type":29,"value":120},"Costs:",{"type":29,"value":122}," the game. You will miss things, players will notice, and the notes will still be incomplete.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":124,"children":125},{},[126],{"type":29,"value":127},"Worth it only if you are running something very slow and talky. In combat it is not viable.",{"type":24,"tag":107,"props":129,"children":131},{"id":130},"_2-a-single-index-card-of-keywords",[132],{"type":29,"value":133},"2. A single index card of keywords",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":135,"children":136},{},[137,141,143,148],{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":138,"children":139},{},[140],{"type":29,"value":120},{"type":29,"value":142}," almost nothing. ",{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":144,"children":145},{},[146],{"type":29,"value":147},"Gets you:",{"type":29,"value":149}," almost enough.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":151,"children":152},{},[153],{"type":29,"value":154},"This is the best cheap answer and the one most experienced DMs land on. One card, names and numbers only, no sentences. Then you expand it within a day, while you can still remember what \"Orin, 40gp, Thursday\" meant.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":156,"children":157},{},[158],{"type":29,"value":159},"The failure mode is real though: leave it a week and the card is hieroglyphics.",{"type":24,"tag":107,"props":161,"children":163},{"id":162},"_3-give-the-job-to-a-player",[164],{"type":29,"value":165},"3. Give the job to a player",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":167,"children":168},{},[169,173,175,179],{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":170,"children":171},{},[172],{"type":29,"value":120},{"type":29,"value":174}," a bit of that player's immersion. ",{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":176,"children":177},{},[178],{"type":29,"value":147},{"type":29,"value":180}," a genuinely useful record, and often a funnier one than you would write.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":182,"children":183},{},[184],{"type":29,"value":185},"Rotate it or fix it on whoever likes doing it. Pay them in inspiration. The recaps will be biased toward whatever that player found interesting, which is a feature: it tells you what landed.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":187,"children":188},{},[189],{"type":29,"value":190},"The failure mode is absence. If your note-taker misses a week, that week is gone.",{"type":24,"tag":107,"props":192,"children":194},{"id":193},"_4-record-the-session-write-it-up-after",[195],{"type":29,"value":196},"4. Record the session, write it up after",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":198,"children":199},{},[200,204,206,210],{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":201,"children":202},{},[203],{"type":29,"value":120},{"type":29,"value":205}," you have to ask your table, and you have to actually do the writing later. ",{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":207,"children":208},{},[209],{"type":29,"value":147},{"type":29,"value":211}," everything, in principle.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":213,"children":214},{},[215],{"type":29,"value":216},"A phone in the middle of the table gets you a recording. What it does not get you is a recap. Four hours of audio you never listen to is not a record of your campaign, it is a file. Plenty of DMs have a folder of these.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":218,"children":219},{},[220],{"type":29,"value":221},"So this only works if there is a step that turns audio into something readable, and for most people that step is the one that never happens.",{"type":24,"tag":107,"props":223,"children":225},{"id":224},"_5-record-it-and-have-it-written-up-for-you",[226],{"type":29,"value":227},"5. Record it and have it written up for you",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":229,"children":230},{},[231],{"type":29,"value":232},"This is the one we build, so read this section knowing that.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":234,"children":235},{},[236],{"type":29,"value":237},"You upload the recording, and what comes back is a recap in the shape you would have written it, a separate one for each player about what their character did, and the names of everyone your party met, logged so you can promote the ones worth keeping into real entries.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":239,"children":240},{},[241,245,247,251],{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":242,"children":243},{},[244],{"type":29,"value":120},{"type":29,"value":246}," you still have to ask your table, and you have to read and approve what comes back before your players see it. ",{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":248,"children":249},{},[250],{"type":29,"value":147},{"type":29,"value":252}," the index-card outcome without the index card, and the names you would have forgotten.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":254,"children":255},{},[256],{"type":29,"value":257},"It is not magic and it is worth being clear about the limits. It works on a finished session, not live. Transcription is English only right now. And a very quiet recording will get who-said-what wrong, which you then fix by hand.",{"type":24,"tag":37,"props":259,"children":261},{"id":260},"what-we-would-actually-recommend",[262],{"type":29,"value":263},"What we would actually recommend",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":265,"children":266},{},[267,269,274],{"type":29,"value":268},"If you are not recording today, start with ",{"type":24,"tag":68,"props":270,"children":271},{},[272],{"type":29,"value":273},"the index card",{"type":29,"value":275},". It is free, it takes no setup, and it solves most of the problem. Names and numbers only, expanded within a day.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":277,"children":278},{},[279,281,288],{"type":29,"value":280},"If you already have recordings sitting in a folder, you are in the best position of anyone reading this, because the hard part is done and nobody is using it. ",{"type":24,"tag":282,"props":283,"children":285},"a",{"href":284},"/sessions",[286],{"type":29,"value":287},"Upload the last one and see what comes back",{"type":29,"value":289}," before you decide whether to change anything about how you run.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":291,"children":292},{},[293],{"type":29,"value":294},"And if your table would rather not be recorded, that is a complete answer and worth respecting. Give the job to a player instead.",{"type":24,"tag":37,"props":296,"children":298},{"id":297},"the-thing-nobody-says",[299],{"type":29,"value":300},"The thing nobody says",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":302,"children":303},{},[304],{"type":29,"value":305},"Perfect notes are not the goal. A campaign you can still navigate in month eight is the goal, and those are different targets.",{"type":24,"tag":25,"props":307,"children":308},{},[309],{"type":29,"value":310},"The DM with scrappy half-notes every single week is in much better shape than the DM with beautiful notes that stopped in March. Whatever approach you pick, pick the one you will still be doing in twelve weeks.",{"title":7,"searchDepth":312,"depth":312,"links":313},2,[314,315,316,324,325],{"id":39,"depth":312,"text":42},{"id":60,"depth":312,"text":63},{"id":102,"depth":312,"text":105,"children":317},[318,320,321,322,323],{"id":109,"depth":319,"text":112},3,{"id":130,"depth":319,"text":133},{"id":162,"depth":319,"text":165},{"id":193,"depth":319,"text":196},{"id":224,"depth":319,"text":227},{"id":260,"depth":312,"text":263},{"id":297,"depth":312,"text":300},"markdown","content:blog:2026-08-23-how-to-take-notes-while-dming.md","content","blog/2026-08-23-how-to-take-notes-while-dming.md","blog/2026-08-23-how-to-take-notes-while-dming","md",1787892389845]