Referee Journal

Write It Down!
The referee, or GM, of a role-playing game has many responsibilities. Among the more difficult for me is remembering the details of previous sessions. I prefer to improvise a lot of content at the table. I find this frees up my time (and avoids wasting time on things that never get used) and also allows my players more freedom to get off the rails and take the session where they feel led. 

Pre-game referee preparation is important - maps, encounter tables and creature stats all require preparation in order for the table session to go smoothly. I spend a lot of time thinking about the next session and about where the campaign may go, but my written notes are often outlines, bullet points, maps, brief stat blocks and home-brew random tables. This is the result of having distilled my thoughts into the most meaningful symbols. Having this material condensed and organized is a great help once I sit down at the game table.

What happens at the table is as important, or more important, than what happens during referee preparation, however. (Remember, we play to find out!) Therefore notes need to be taken during the game so that things are remembered and there is consistency in the campaign from session to session. Consistency adds greatly to the verisimilitude when the referee mentions something from several sessions ago and players recall having met that named NPC in that small village while doing something that maybe seemed trivial at the time - and it all starts coming together for them. Without written notes, I have trouble recalling what name I gave the NPC, or even the small village, and maybe what the player characters where doing there in the first place. So I try to remember to write it down, either during the session (preferable!) or the next day before my memory degrades. 

Like many of us who started play during the late 1970s or 1980s, I used a three ring referee binder. I have depended on index cards, on sticky notes and even electronic devices. In the last decade or so I have grown to prefer using a sketch book - a small bound book of blank pages - or a journal. The books are readily available, look nice, and are durable and easy to transport. The one pictured above (acquired from Lulu Publishing) contains a mix of lined pages, hex pages, graphed pages, and blank pages.