this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Ask Game Masters

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A place where Game Masters, Dungeon Masters, Storytellers, Narrators, Referees (and etc) can gather and ask questions. Uncertain of where to take the story? Want to spice up your big baddie? Encounters? That player? Ask away!

And if you have questions about becoming a Game Master you are most welcome with those as well!

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I have been running a DnD campaign which is only getting longer and more complex as time goes on. Keeping track of every bit of lore, every NPC that is relevant to the party and major events that have happened is getting increasingly difficult. I am currently mostly trying to just keep everything in mind while taking notes here and there, but I am finding linear text documents to be hard to maintain and look through.

The thing that has made me especially interested in better tools is that I have been planning to do a homebrew campaign once this one has wrapped up and I would like to start planning it out.

What tools do you use to document info on worldbuilding, story and lore?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I've tried to adopt note taking tools mid campaign and let me warn you, it's nearly impossible to move all your content over. I had dozens of documents and the like on Google drive, several pages of rough notes on my desk and one player who's journal was so good I normalljust asked her.

That said, Sly Flourish's Notion document ticked all my boxes in a recent oneshot I did, my only issue being my lack of familiarity meaning I had to spend a moment finding the right space.

As opposed to bespoke campaign management like worldanvil, notion can be built from the ground up. Mike of Sly Flourish has already done the work but as we build familiarity with the tool, it will be easy to monkey with and end up with a perfect tool.

It'll take you a ridiculous amount of time to move all the content over, and let me just put an idea out there that you can decide if it's right for you.

If it's getting too complex for you to track, check in with your players to see if they can keep track themselves. If they can't, that's a prime point for your antagonist to thin the herd. In my regular game where I'm currently a player, the DM orchestrated the mass demise of two bloated and powerful factions, resulting in some amazing plot and much less for everyone to keep track of.