Dungeon Master's Notes

A prime question among Dungeon Masters: What should go into my notes? There is no one definitive answer for the question, but there are general rules of thumb that can be followed to help a game run smoothly while still allowing for improvisation and adaptation as the game commences.

For inexperienced DMs, detailed notes are essential. If you haven't run a lot of games, having more to draw from is crucial to a successful session. But even an experienced DM benefits from detailed notes! They save time by placing necessary information directly at your fingertips. They allow you to do the creative heavy lifting ahead of time and prepare your ideas. They keep the game on track, minimizing confusion. They help the game master achieve a higher level of detail and creativity than can be made purely on the spur of the moment. And excellent notes will also allow for flexibility and improvisation. 

What follows is a description of the very basic foundations of a notebook for a session. These simple preparations will give you enough to work off so that you don't get stumped during a game, and so you will have a lot of inventive ideas to include as your game goes on. It only takes up two or three pages of notes and a couple of maps, but follow these guidelines and you can take your adventures to the next level!

Essential Dungeon Master Notes

• Invent at least a couple of encounters that are almost certain to take place. These are your set pieces, the most significant and important encounters in your adventure. Often these are 'boss battles' or significant milestones for the party to cross. These should usually be the most detailed of your encounter notes and events you have carefully considered. 

Example: The goal of a quest is to reach the Macguffin Amulet. This means that eventually the crew will arrive in the room the amulet is contained in. The amulet is worn around the neck of a mummy overlord. Flames will erupt from pits all around the room when his sarcophagus is approached, and he can summon a pair of giant scarabs. You know that the players must pass this challenge to finish the quest, so it is guaranteed to come into use. You can even draw out a map and be sure that it will come into play.

• Devise a few encounters that MIGHT take place. These optional encounters give the players that much-needed sense of choice, allowing them to select their path from a number of options. These encounters don't have to be as elaborate as your certain encounters, but should still be unique and fun.  And if the players don't run across them at all, you can recycle them at some later point with none the wiser. An old DM addage is that if the party skips over a green castle they will later find themselves running across a red castle with the same layout.

Example: The players might attempt to gain entry to the governor's mansion through the front door, or they might brave the service entrance. The service entrance is guarded by a trained gorilla and a pair of heavy plated electrified doors. The players might skip this encounter entirely, but it is prepared anyway. If they don't encounter this area, you can save the concept for a future dungeon.

• Have at least a high concept for each of these encounters. This is a description of the basic concept, the creative core that the action will be built around.
  
  Example: As the ship sinks, giant rats rush in a frenzy, biting and sweeping the deck, adventurers and all. (Or just 'Sinking Ship Rat Fight') If you have this information at the very least, you can reference the statistics and rules for the encounters from your sourcebooks, or create them on the fly.

• Include a list of monsters, traps, and obstacles that might appear in your adventure. Use this a toolbox for dungeon building. With this list you will be able to efficiently craft improvised encounters.

Example: For this delve into the martian sewers, you would write out a list of potential threats that you might find in that environment. Creatures would include mutants, cleaning robots, space slimes, and a team of cyborg mercenaries who have a hideout there. Then you also include a list of obstacles and rooms like powerful sewage valves, underground caverns, churning fan blades, Martian fungi, or gaping pits into the planet's core. You can use these elements to create neat encounters that you might not have prepared for otherwise.

• Use variety in your threats. Use terrain and obstacles to make encounters interesting. Avoid situations like a monster in an empty room. Use natural and man-made hazards and terrain to keep things fresh. Don't use the same enemy types too frequently. You can maintain a theme while also avoiding monotony.
  
  Example: A goblin camp will be filled with goblin warriors, but also pit traps, bugbears, wolves, and perhaps surrounded by boggy quicksand and roving ogres. Get creative with situations and it will keep your players' interested.

• Write out ideas for events and occurrences that you might use.  Include some innocuous events for flavor (But remember that even innocuous events can become significant if the players get involved.) Use the dungeon world fronts, or just write out a list of plot hooks your players may investigate. Remember to find ways to tie things into your players own character backgrounds.


Example: In the video game The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, the players first arrival in the Imperial capital coincides with a public execution of a revolutionary. This establishes the harsh nature of the Empire as well as setting the tone of the civil war that will soon break out all over the kingdom.

• Make at least two maps for visual interest and exploration. They need not be especially complicated. These give the players something to interact with as well as a reference for the positions of the characters and environment and a sense of immersion in the game world.


Example: In preparing this mission to explore a haunted mansion, you could find and print out a blueprint for an old estate of the right size on the internet. Additionally, you can draw a layout of the village surrounding the manor with markers on a sheet of poster board so that the players can explore it at their leisure.


• Finally, include whatever miscellanious resources to which you frequently refer. This usually includes a list of names for NPCs, loot to reward your players, or notes about the campaign setting. Tailor these to your own style, but if it is something that will come up a lot, it is best to have it on hand in your notebook.

Example: As your party enters Paris to search for Doctor Diabolic's evil lair, you can consult your list of French surnames to identify any of the random NPCs they might encounter. You also might have a brief description of the sights and sounds of the city on hand from a travel guide. Once your players fight the villain's bounty hunters, you also have the stats for their ray guns ready for when they are looted.