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How are you pros handling session to session information?

D

DrGerm

New member
I am very (very, very, very) slowly using RW for more and more stuff.

When I prepare for each session, I take a sheet of paper and start listing things like:
  • old business from the last session and new business for moving forward tonight
  • background from last session (where the party left off)
  • current game location
  • current game date/time
  • current weather
  • what are the likely things the party may do first off
  • and then some other basic notes to transition from this one sheet to my bigger campaign book of notes (which is slowly becoming RW).

What I'm wondering is, do any of you guys do something for each session within realm works? Sure, I can just choose anything at all and start typing information, but I'm wondering if there is a field already set up for a purpose like this? Of course the one benefit of doing this within RW is to use the links right within my notes!

Thanks!
 
Some of that is easy to do with reveal history.

The stuff for the night's session I set up by creating a view of the things I expect the party to encounter.

date/time I handle in a separate spreadsheet.

Weather is something I handle pretty much on as the plot requires basis.

Session journals is one of the things RW doesn't do terribly well at the moment.
 
I use the Game Session notes section to keep notes on what has happened in the last session (it seemed the most logical place to put them). The button in the ribbon provides instant access to the game session item to update the notes (no change of tab required).
 
I am using User Notes view and create notes as needed. In general I keep one big notepad file where i track everything from XP to notable NPCs and other GM only information. Together with the Storyboard I can easy remember where the players were after long breaks.

I also give small bonus XP/Fate Point/other bonus to the player who writes session log for the previous session. There is always a munchkin who wants extra advantage against me :)
 
I used to be very diligent with my session management. In the past, I used to:

Check off the reveal button for all appropriate topics, articles, and snippets.
Add date snippets to select articles/topics so that they would appear in the timeline.
Summarize the session in Game Sessions.
And create a User note in a Note Group I call "Session-Bridge Notes", which would have a copy of the last session summary, any events and downtime activity between sessions, and notes for beginning the current session.

I also have a separate spreadsheet where I note the session, briefly summarize the major events and have the dates in five different calendars.

Life has gotten busy, though, and now I often just use Session-Bridge Notes and my spreadsheet.

The session-bridge notes are all I really need since my players do not have Realm Works. But I want to use my home-brew campaign world for future campaigns and have the earlier campaigns baked into its history. So my excessive session-management is really mostly world building. That's why, even when I go a while without updating topics and articles with date snippets, I eventually do go back and do so and also update the game session.

If custom calendars are ever actually released, I'll be able to do away with my spreadsheet.

For me, the one thing that I cannot do without is my session bridge notes. I have this open from the start of the game and can quickly jot notes there during and after the game. So, if I get too busy to do anything else, I have the basics of what I need there and can go back and create game session notes, add date snippets, etc. after the fact from my notes.

Really, the User Notes serve the same purpose as the current notes you take on paper, as you described them. The benefit of using the User Notes, besides having them in the same system with all your other game content, and backed-up online, is that they will auto-link with other content. This also helps prompt me, in world-building mode, to update topics and articles that are linked to my session-bridge notes.

In addition to custom calendars, I with Game Session notes were integrated with user notes. For me, Game Session notes become an "also do", something I do after the fact. I would like that when I click on the button to start a game session I would open a user note under a special "Game Session" group. That way my game session notes have all the benefits and convenience of user notes. Game session notes as currently implemented are wonky and easily ignored. The only reason I bother with them at all is that I'm a bit of an OCD completionist. When I consider the process of creating game-session notes rationally, I don't see that they add any value at all over user notes, other than the time stamping and I usually have to edit or create the time stamps after the fact, because I'm always forgetting to start and stop a game session, whereas I never forget to have my session-bridge User Note open.
 
I just make sure I have any images set up or player handouts done and have just used revel snippet.
I'm mixed on using RW for maps to show during a game as it can often take longer to careffull reveal the areas on amp instead of just sketching them if it something simple.
As I'm the only person with Realm Works out of my friends I don' use it much for notes for a particular session.
 
I use the Game Session System for notes and to keep track of the current date.

But I also always have a scrap paper to jot down XP and other notes. It is still quicker sometimes.
 
@Jay_NOLA Map reveal is one of the biggest benefits for RW for me. Never intended to use it, but after I hooked up my laptop to my 55" plasma TV, I never went back. Do I use it *every* session? No. But most.

For some maps, drawing the reveal area can take some time, I try to do it while asking the players to describe what their characters are doing as they explore the room, walk down the hallway, etc.

It would be an absolute dream if you could pre-create reveals and have a button to show the next X feet of viewable space. But that would be a massive coding endeavor I would think.

For now, it more than meets my needs the way it works.
 
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