I have found I need to find a safe middle between having enough content where I know what I am doing as well as allowing it to be flexible.

I usually have a Word document up and running with a brief outline for the current adventure, some needed stats on enemies and a general description of some NPCs and their motivations. Most of the non-crunch stuff is all ad-libbed from these notes. I think my players are too good at going off any rails I may try to set anyway, so working on the fly tends to work out better.

Mind you, I haven’t run a game in a few years now. This may sound crazy, but for whatever reason it’s an article on GM notes of all things that seems to have whetted my appetite to do run a new game.

But in my last shadowrun campaign I decided that I would do post game story write-ups and post them on an RPG.net Actual Play thread.

I found this more narrative way of writing really helped me remember details and keep importatnt things in mind, as well as having a play record of each game. Putting my write-ups on a forum thread also let me get some feedback from others not involved in the game and really helped in a lot of places.

Things I’ve discovered:

Writing by hand somehow promotes creativity. I don’t know how it works, but when I step away from the PC and sit down with pencil and paper, my productivity (for gaming) increases.

Structures are important. I am about to go to a template for encounters, so I don’t forget the little-but-important details like the weather, the NPCs goals, etc.

Take notes during the session. This is a habit I’m learning slooowly, but it’s already paying off. I’ll often have ideas during a session, and if I can scrawl it down, that’s far better than having to remember it.

When I do write notes I tend to try to write for an entire adventure arc, with some minor notes on other hooks that are opened up or related to the adventure.

Generally, I’ll spend about a couple pages worth of a notebook writing out stuff for the adventure: what the hook is, the important person(s) involved, location names, all that. On occasion, I’ll go further and do more prep, creating encounter charts for an area or statting out boss encounters, which can sometimes take a couple of weeks or less. It’s easier for me to plan a lot of material ahead of time, so that once I reach the next checkpoint, I can continue on ahead. I usually don’t like running out of usable material – nothing is worse to me than my players going “Awwwww!”

I also am recently in the habit of taking other notes that are relevant on a campaign-level – NPCs the players have met, a ‘base’ cost for a lot of items in the world, so that way if they go to a new city or something, I can adjust prices as needed. It is a lot of work, but it’s something to do in my spare time, and once I do need the material, I know exactly where to find it, and in maybe less than an hour I can have almost an entire city ready to go, complete with market and starship components for sale.

Notes not only depend on the GM, but also the game the GM is running. If it’s just a light, pulpy thing, maybe a few sentences suffices. In my case? It’s quite a bit more, but that’s the price you pay for immersion.

That said, when it comes to game time, I prefer to have a hard copy of my notes so I print them out. I take notes in the margins by hand of anything important that I made up in during the game or on the outcome of any specific events.

My notes tend to be pretty heavy, though I suspect that comes out of most of my experience originating from running pre-written adventures. I try to clump my notes such that they can be read through in a linear fashion as I expect scenes to play out.

For session prep, I re read all the notes and info from last few games and simply write up 7-10 bullets points in the rough order (sort of like a run sheet) I think things will happen.

I then activate these points during the game unless the players actions take us in a different direction. I am a high improv DM.

I also have another Wiki page open that i bullet point main things that happen during the current session so i can refer to it later or form part of a future run sheet.

I put links in my pages so i can quickly jump to this session, last session etc.

One thing I need to do (reading the article and other posts) is spend a chunk of time setting up NPC’s in my Wiki.

We play Runequest Two so normally i get monsters out of the books or print off the pdf page I need for that session.

My main challenge is simply prep time and with our first little Gnome on the way…

In 4e, I use the photocopier or hit the print button, since I hand build the critters much less frequently.

As for finding specific NPC’s, again using OneNote, I can create a page for each NPC, and I can link them in my notes, or I can use the search feature.

In the past, when I was using more paper, I had a Campaign Binder, where I would print my NPC’s and keep them in the binder, next to me at the table while I was running.