Session Summaries

With the newer of my two campaigns I've started keeping session summaries. I write these summaries after the session - usually a day or two later but I should do it faster - while the  session is still fresh in my mind. I don't go over everything from the session, but do write down the important things that happened in the session, along with the names of any NPCs that were introduced or referenced in an important way.

I have found that doing this, helps a lot with keeping track of what is going on in the game. Without having to delve through a bunch of different documents for different session prep notes, and associated note pages to see what actually happened or was executed upon, I just have to read a few paragraphs and I'm back up to speed on the past several sessions and what direction things were going.

This is especially helpful for me. I've joked before that my memory is like a room full of filing cabinets. If the cabinet is closed, I remember very little. Then with some prompting though I can usually find the right cabinet. At which point, once I have that i remember more and more about the subject. This is particularly helpful with games where it is more recovering the thread of thought going into the session and where I wanted to go.

As my games move to being online, and I have a discord channel with chat channels dedicated to the games, I'm debating extending this further to posting my summaries to the chat. This way everyone can see what I have for the 'official' recap, and add their own. The competition with this, is I've long used a session recap from the player perspective to get everyone back into the game.

Still, it is something to consider.