DLP261 Bullet Journaling [PDF]

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BULLET JOURNALING FOR GAMEMASTERS

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The bearer of this document has the express written permission of the publisher to make copies for personal use. Copyright 2019 Berin Kinsman. All Rights Reserved. Bullet Journaling for Gamemasters and respective trade dress are © and ™ 2019 Berin Kinsman. This is a work of fiction. Any similarity with people or events, past or present, is purely coincidental and unintentional except for any people and events presented in historical context. This is version 1.0 of this document.

Contents Bullet Journaling for Gamemasters......................................................1 How to Use This Book............................................................................................................ 2 Disclaimer........................................................................................................................................ 3 What is Bullet Journaling?........................................................................4 An Overview of Bullet Journaling..................................................................................4 Selecting a Notebook............................................................................................................ 6 Other Supplies.............................................................................................................................. 7 Basic Setup.....................................................................................................8 Rapid Logging.............................................................................................................................. 8 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 8 The Spread..................................................................................................................................... 9 Future Log....................................................................................................................................... 9 Monthly Log................................................................................................................................. 10 Daily Log........................................................................................................................................ 10 Collections..................................................................................................................................... 11 Threading and Migration.................................................................................................... 11 Session Logs.................................................................................................13 Real World Future Log......................................................................................................... 13 Monthly Log................................................................................................................................. 13 Session Log.................................................................................................................................. 13 Campaign Logs............................................................................................14 Campaign Future Log........................................................................................................... 14 Adventure Log........................................................................................................................... 14 Session Log.................................................................................................................................. 15 Session Collections...................................................................................16 Contact Information............................................................................................................... 16 Inspirational Quotes............................................................................................................... 16 Rules Notes.................................................................................................................................. 17 Adventure Prep Notes......................................................................................................... 18 Campaign Collections..............................................................................19 Character Notes........................................................................................................................ 19 Setting Notes.............................................................................................................................. 19 Adventure Ideas....................................................................................................................... 19 Encounter Ideas........................................................................................................................ 19 Maps.................................................................................................................................................. 19

Bullet Journaling for Gamemasters Bullet journaling has become something of a phenomena over the past few years. The ability to combine the calendar functions of a day planner, the utility of to-do lists, and the personal documentation of a diary into a single, easy-to-use notebook is appealing and practical. It’s a simple, efficient, and flexible means of organizing a lot of information. I’ve used one for a few years now both personally and professionally. I have created special bullet journals specifically from managing major projects, planning a novel, and yes, running a tabletop roleplaying campaign. Gamemasters have a lot to keep track of. On one hand there’s the logistics of the game group, which all things considered is probably the easiest part. On the other there’s everything within your campaign. You need to track rulings and house rules, player and non-player characters, and individual storylines, campaign arcs, and metaplots. Whether using a published setting or creating your own, there’s an abundance of worldbuilding information to keep straight. Then there are maps, ideas that strike you out of the blue, and events like new product releases and upcoming conventions. The problems I’ve encountered with “campaign log”-type products are chiefly the same I’ve had with most day planners and personal organization systems: one size does not fit all. Sometimes I need more room to track one specific category of thing. The prepackaged pages include heading that I don’t need, and lack topics and categories that I do. To fix this I end up modifying what they’ve provided to the point that it’s an unholy mess, next to impossible to find anything, and ultimately easier to just make up my own system as I go along. Which is, when you come down to it, what a bullet journal is. You make up what you need as you need it. The creator, Ryder Carroll 1, describes it as a method rather than a format, because that’s exactly what it is. Bullet journaling is a way of doing things, which means you can customize it to do precisely what you want. This makes it a perfect tool for gamemasters, no matter what system, setting, or genre you’re running. The intention of this book is to provide you with tips and suggestions for using a bullet journal in conjunction with organizing and running a tabletop roleplaying campaign. Like roleplaying itself, what you get out of it 1

Carroll, R. (2018) The Bullet Journal Method. New York, NY; Portfolio. 1

is largely a function of how much you put into it. Make it your own. Take what works, ignore the rest, and use the basic principles to create whatever you need to make your game great.

How to Use This Book Read through this entire book once from start to finish. The information is presented in a way that concepts build upon one another in a reasonably logical fashion. Afterward you can go back and refer to individual sections as needed, to get more clarity around specific ideas and refresh your memory on how specific things work. The book is broken down into the following sections:

What is Bullet Journaling This section provides an overview of bullet journaling. An overview of how it started, and what it’s typically used for, is provided. It details what you’ll need to get started, including a notebook and other optional supplies.

Basic Setup The core concepts of bullet journaling are covered in this section. It gives a broad overview of the methods and terminology used. Once you understand these ideas, you can adapt them to suit your needs.

Session Logs In this section we talk about using the bullet journal to organize and manage real-world needs. It shows how to modify basic bullet journaling techniques. This includes game group logistics and contacts.

Campaign Logs Here is where we discuss in-game events and how to track them. This is about the fictional campaign world and the player characters. Campaign logs will help you remember what happened during game sessions.

Collections Your “campaign bible” takes the form of special lists called collections. It’s also where you can keep notes organized by topic. These will help you to better organize information so you can find it later.

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Disclaimer I’m a person who has been using bullet journal to manage my life for several years. My expertise comes from using the bullet journal method for everything from organizing my life to planning a novel to professional project management. I have no affiliation with Ryder Carroll, Lighcage LLC, Penguin/Random House, HarperCollins, or any other entity that creates and publishes “official” bullet journal materials, and no association is meant to be implied or should be inferred. All I want to do here is share what’s worked for me, in the hopes that it can also work for you.

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What is Bullet Journaling? Bullet journaling is a system created by digital product designer and inventor Ryder Carroll. While he was in college he began looking for a method of organizing all the information he was being bombarded with on a daily basis. Unable to find a system that worked for him, he created one. In 2013 he began sharing it online, and it’s grown to become a sensation with everyone from business professionals to novelists and screenwriters. The way people use bullet journals varies from a strict organizational tool to a full-blown creative outlet. It can be whatever you need it to be.

An Overview of Bullet Journaling At it’s core a bullet journal is a handwritten notebook. There are three major parts, which we’ll cover in more detail as we go along: the Index, which combines an actual index with a table of contents; Logs, which are essentially journal entries; and Collections, which are basically lists and notes. Main concepts include Rapid Logging, which is a quick-and-dirty means of taking notes; Threading, which helps you to follow a thought or topic when related entries are scattered throughout the notebook; and Migration, which helps to remind you about tasks that haven’t been completed yet but you don’t want to forget about. So, why should you use a bullet journal as a game mastering tool? There are a few reasons.

Planning and Organizing A bullet journal is perfect for planning both real-world and in-game events and projects. What do you need, and what do you have to do, to get ready for this week’s game? Are there steps that you need to take to prepare for an upcoming convention? When you start looking at everything you need to do for the long-running campaign, from recruiting players to managing story arcs to scheduling game sessions, having a single tool to do it with can mean less confusion and a lot fewer books to carry around. There’s another benefit of having things documented all together, though, and you’ll have to excuse me if it seems a bit petulant. In the past I have been in the frustrating and all-too-common position of having spent time and money planning a campaign, only to have players blow me off. They show up late. They cancel at the last minute for frivolous reasons. While they say they want to play, and they’re good players once they’re 4

fully present, there’s no real commitment on their part. I’ve been told that it’s no big deal, I love writing up campaigns and doing game prep and would do it anyway. Which, honestly, is such a disrespectful attitude. Having a campaign bullet journal gives me something to show them, so they can see the work that I’ve put into the game. It doesn’t address all possible issues, but it’s helped me to manage some of the problematic players who don’t understand why I’m upset when all they have to do is show up.

Tracking and Capturing All of your notes, research, and reference material is documented in one place. As things come up, there’s a space to write notes and keep track of them so you don’t forget. Yes, in one book you can keep track of when a player is going on vacation, possible story ideas based on their character background, and how many experience points their player character currently has, without it being a jumbled mess. A bullet journal lets you capture information that you need, and find it again later when you need it. For me, there are places to write down house rules my players and I have agreed upon. I can jot down the book and page number of important and esoteric rules, bits of setting fluff, and other things likely to come up during play so I don’t have to stop the game and flip through multiple books to look them up. As noted below, it not only lets me locate information quickly, but the act of writing it down by itself will help me to remember so, hopefully, there will be less that needs to be looked up.

Writing Aids Retention Researchers at Princeton University and the University of California Los Angeles2 have concluded that you are more likely to remember things that you write by hand than the notes you type into a laptop. The reason is that we tend to type what we hear verbatim, but when we write we have to think and interpret the information.

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Mueller, PA and Oppenheimer, DM (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science 5

Psychology professors as the University of Washington 3 further determined that we retain the information longer when we write it down. There is a sight advantage for laptop note takers, but it disappears after about 24 hours. The study showed that they did worse on tests than people who wrote out their longhand. Finally, a researcher at Indiana University 4 found that when children wrote out letters three areas of their brains lit up on an MRI. Those areas form neural pathways associated with learning. When they traced the letters, those areas did not light up. Writing aids in memory and retention. When you’re in the middle of a game and you’re trying to remember whose turn it is, how that one rule works, the names of the characters, that specific plot point, and whether or not the villain actually did the thing two sessions ago or you just intended for him to do it, anything that helps your memory is a bonus.

Selecting a Notebook Any sort of notebook will do. It’s simply a matter of preference. Use a binder, a spiral-bound notebook, or a hardbound journal. I have used everything from a college ruled composition book to the popular Leuchtturm1917 dotted journal5. While I’ve come to prefer a dotted journal, as opposed to a lined or blank one, the only feature that’s consistently mattered to me is durability. This is a notebook that gets bashed around a lot. It gets thrown into my backpack and carried around. Coffee gets spilled on it. General wear and tear from frequent use occurs. It can’t fall apart on me at the worst possible moment. The other important consideration for me is paper weight. Some journals have very thin paper, so what you write will “ghost” onto the other side of the page. If you’re using certain kinds of pens or markers, ghosting can lead to unreadable notes and wasted pages. Find a notebook with thicker paper that doesn’t bleed. 3 4 5

Bui, DC, Myerson, J, and Hale, S. (2016) Note-taking with computers: Exploring alternative strategies for improved recall. Journal of Educational Psychology James, KH and Engelhardt, L (2012). The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends in Neuroscience and Education Leuchtturm1917 (2014). dotted journal. Geethacht, DE; Leuchtturm Gruppe 6

It’s nice when a notebook comes with an index page already set up in the front (we’ll cover that in a bit), but it’s not hard to set aside the first few pages and write the word “index” at the top yourself. Having pre-numbered pages is nice, but you can also number them as you go. A pocket in the back isn’t something I’ve ever needed consistently, but I’ve taken a cut-down piece of a manila folder and some tape and created my own. In my opinion it’s more important to have a binding that won’t fall apart and paper thick enough that what I write doesn’t bleed through.

Other Supplies You need a pen or pencil to write with. Full stop. Anything else is optional and a matter of personal preference. I have a mechanical pencil and a good eraser for temporary notes, laying out pages I’m not entirely sure about, and doodling. Black gel pens are my weapon of choice for 97% of what I write in my bullet journals. I have a small ruler that I use from drawing straight lines, mostly to create underlined heading and page dividers. For certain things I will use colored pens to color-code things, so they’re easier to find at-a-glance. I also keep correction tape handy, the kind you can roll over a mistake and write over immediately without having to wait for it to dry. That covers what you need. There are many things that you might want. If you look online you’ll find people who turn their bullet journals into full-blown arts and crafts projects. You’ll see the words “washi tape” thrown around a lot, a decorative paper tape that can be used to create borders and divide pages. I have several rolls of the stuff, but I’ve rarely used it. There’s also a lot of calligraphy in the pages die-hard bullet journal fanatics post online, and that’s fine if you’re into it, but it’s not necessary. The point is to efficiently organize information.

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Basic Setup If you go online right now you will find dozens of YouTube videos, blog posts, and even podcasts about bullet journaling. All of them will provide you with the same basic overview of the bullet journal method, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time here. The basic concepts are simple to grasp. It’s a matter in adapting them to your needs, in this case tabletop roleplaying campaign management, where subtlety, nuance, and specific details begin to pile up. We still need the foundation, though, so let’s quickly go over the basics.

Rapid Logging This is note taking in bullet points. Stick to the essential information that you need to know. If one of your players isn’t going to be able to make a game session because she’s on vacation, for example, rapid logging says to write “Jenny vaca 5-8 August” instead of “Jenny is going to Florida on vacation from the 5th through the 8th of August, so she will not be able to attend that week’s game session”. Be concise. Yes, that’s all there is to it. Ryder Carroll has a whole system of symbols that he uses for the bullet points. This is supposed to allow you to see what type of information it is at a glance. An open circle means it’s an event, for example, while an asterisk means it’s important. If that works for you, great. I feel that I review my notes often enough, and rapid log with enough clarity, that I don’t use them. Most bullet journal devotees that I know end up creating their own symbol systems anyway, based on what they need and what makes sense to them.

Index In a bullet journal the Index and Table of Contents are combined. If your notebook of choice doesn’t already have an index, set aside the first two to four pages to create one. Normally the numbered pages begin after the index. When you add something to the journal, write down what it is and what page it starts on. For example, if your Future Log starts on page 1 and your Monthly Log for April start on page 3, you’d write:

1 Future Log 3 April Monthly Log 8

The Spread A spread is two facing pages with related information. Working in spreads means that you can open the notebook and have information on the same topic all together, so you have to flip pages less often. This will make more sense as we go along. The pages in a spread don’t have to be in the same format. You can have lists on one side and paragraphs full of hand-written notes on the other. The only rule, if it could be called that, is that all of the information is on the same topic.

Future Log Because you’re making up the bullet journal as you go along, you need a way to keep track of future events. If it’s April and you need to remember that someone’s birthday is in November, you don’t need to create full monthly logs for all of the months in between in advance. That’s what the special spread called the Future Log is for. There are a few ways to create a Future Log. Some people prefer to use columns, other use rows. It doesn’t matter, so do what works for you. All you need to do is set aside a couple of pages, usually right after the Index. Create three columns, or three rows, on each page so the spread covers six months. You can have more, or fewer, of these sections per page depending on how much information you think you’ll have to capture. In the first section (row or column) write the name of the next month. If you’re starting your bullet journal in April, write May. Then write the names of the other months, in order. Congratulations, you have a future log. What goes in here? Players’ birthdays. Convention dates. Release dates for new games and game supplements. Any future events that you don’t want to forget about. When those months roll around, you’ll migrate that information to the appropriate Monthly Log. You don’t need to put in a great deal of detail, and shouldn’t worry about whether the information is in chronological order. It will end up looking something like this:

21

game session

10

new adventure comes out

17

Sarah’s birthday

3-4

MadeUpCon 9

Monthly Log At the start of each month, usually a few days before, you’ll set up a new Monthly Log. As the name implies, you’ll have one of these for each month. Start with an empty spread. At the top of the left-hand page write the name of the month and the year. Down the left-hand side write the date and day of the week, one per line, like this:

1W 2T 3F

MadeUpCon

4S

MadeUpCon

5M You can abbreviate days however you prefer, or spell them out. If you want to write Tu or Tue for Tuesday and Th or Thur for Thursday, have at it. As long as it makes sense to you, that’s all that matters. Migrate events from the Future Log over here. If there’s a con on the 21st, write that on the line for 21. Here’s a tip: When a new recurring event comes up during the month and you note it in your Monthly Log, go back and add it to your Future Log as well. For example, when you get a new player and learn that his birthday is next week, put it in the Future Log for this month as well. Why? Because when I set up new notebooks, I look at the Future Log from the last one and transfer over things like birthdays, holidays, what months conventions take place, and so on. On the facing page you can add things like goals for the month, expanded information (like hotel information for the con), and other notes. As you come up with unassigned tasks, i.e. stuff you need to do before the end of the month but not necessarily today, that goes here as well until you either get around to it or schedule it.

Daily Log This is where the rubber hits the road, and the flexibility of the bullet journal system begins to kick in. Start at the top of the left-hand page of the next empty spread. Check the Monthly Log to see if there’s anything listed there for today, and migrate it over. Write today’s date and the event. From 10

there you can add notes, make to-do lists, and document anything else that’s relevant to today. Do you need to fill several pages with notes today? Then go ahead and take up several pages. Are there just a couple of things you need to jot down? Use a few lines, and tomorrow when you need to add notes, write the date on the next line and keep going. No wasted space! I spent years of my life fighting with page-a-day planners. Some days I could have filled ten pages without blinking, and they creator in their wisdom gave me one. Other days I had nothing, and that one empty page was just a huge waste. I’d use those empty pages for notes taken on other days, which would be confusing and sometime put information out of order. It was frustrating. This is why, in a bullet journal, you don’t create Monthly Logs and other such spreads in advance. Every day, just pick up where you left off and add to it every day as needed.

Collections There’s a whole section later on in this book devoted to Collections, so I’ll be brief here. A Collection is a spread dedicated to a single topic. It might be a list of books that you want to read. You might put all of the information about a convention, from flight times to hotel reservations to the location of the con itself, into one spread. It could be a list of monsters you want to use, or what third-party game sourcebooks you allow your players to use. A collection could also be all of your notes for a published adventure, conveniently together in one place.

Threading and Migration We talked a little bit about Migration above. Things move from the Future Log to the Monthly Log to the Daily Log, and sometimes back to the Future Log so when you’ve filled this bullet journal you can migrate relevant information into the new Future Log. It’s the process of reviewing information periodically and moving it to where it will be seen and not forgotten. It can involve some rewriting, but not so much to make maintenance burdensome or the process redundant. Threading is how the bullet journal method deals with nonconsecutive pages. If you’ve filled up a spread, usually a Monthly Log or a Collection, and need more space, you can start a new spread on the next available set of pages. In the lower-right corner of the right-hand page of the original spread, you can write “continued on page 26” or whatever page the new spread starts on. Then on the top of page 26 you can write what 11

the spread it, and add “continued from page 17” or whatever page you left off at. This way you can keep going and find things, even though there are other spread and logs and collection in between. Some people go back and add the new spread to the Index as well. This can be useful if you want to know what page you left off on, rather than starting at the beginning of that threat and paging through until you get there. I add the new pages to the Index after the description. It might look something like this:

16

Books I Want to Read 26

18

DL Classics 30, 42

Under Rapid Logging above I said that I don’t use symbols. Threading is the exception. I just use arrows rather than writing things out, 26> instead of “continued on” and

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Session Logs The Session Log is meant to keep track of logistics and information related to your game group and game sessions. It is about the real world, real people, and real time. These entries in your bullet journal don’t have anything to do with the fictional reality of your game world. It’s the stuff that people don’t think they need to track, because everyone is friends and being organized is somehow antithetical to having fun.

Real World Future Log We discussed Future Logs earlier. I’m going to recommend that you keep two of them. The first is exactly as described earlier, keeping track of upcoming events like sessions, conventions, holidays, and so on. That’s the one that connects directly to the Session Logs. The second, which we will get to in the next section, will keep track of upcoming events in your campaign.

Monthly Log This is a normal Monthly Log, as explained earlier. Add the events from the Future Log here, along with anything that comes up like cancellations and reschedules. On my monthly notes I tend to write down the reasons for cancellations, absences, and other issues that affect the game. This isn’t so the players can be shamed or anything, it’s to see if maybe the game needs to be moved to a different day, time, or location. When you see that everyone is 30 minutes late almost every time, maybe that means you should schedule the game for a bit later. If things come up a lot on Saturday afternoon, maybe you shouldn’t try to play on Saturday afternoon. Knowledge is power, and that’s not a bad thing.

Session Log The Session Log is like a Daily Log for game day. It’s some information about the game session. I break it into three sections: what happened, what went well, and what didn’t go well. Again, this isn’t about what happened in the game world, but with the game. Things that I’ve taken note of include the types of encounters the players enjoy, rules that everyone seem to struggle with, and even the types of snacks people enthusiastically gobble up and those they don’t eat. This information allows me to change things so the overall experience of the game is as good as I can possibly make it. 13

Campaign Logs The Campaign Log deals exclusively with the game setting and the player characters. I use the calendar system from the game world, if there is one. If we’re running in the Forgotten Realms and the campaign starts in the summer, I’ll create an entry for the month of Kythorn, The Time of Flowers. For a Call of Cthulhu campaign set in April 1932, I’ll date my spreads based on that timeline.

Campaign Future Log In many campaigns, especially those with metaplots, there are things that are going to happen regardless of what the player characters do. If the villain is planning an evil ritual on the night of the full moon, you can note in the log the day and date of that moon. A log is good way to connect the events of published campaign material and game fiction with your own original adventures. It doesn’t all have to do with the plans and schemes of your adversaries, either. Seasons, and weather, will change. Birds will migrate, and nomadic monsters will roam. Cities, towns, and villages will celebrate various religious, cultural, and national holidays. Keeping track of these things is worldbuilding, and small details can add a lot to your campaign. For historical adventures, you can check the internet for things that happened on that day. Using April 1932 from the example above, there are a lot of events related to the rise of Hitler and the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. Even if those things have nothing to do with my current adventure or the campaign as a whole, they could be things the player characters read about in the newspaper or hear on the radio to add some color and context to the game.

Adventure Log Instead of a Monthly Log, use an Adventure Log spread, one for each separate adventure. Since a single storyline can take place over several separate real-time game sessions, it’s a way to keep things straight over time. It’s a little different than a standard Monthly Log, but not by much. Write the name of the adventure across the top of the left-hand page. Instead of the day and date, down the left-hand column write the session number and the in-game dates.

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For example, for the Forgotten Realms campaign I might note:

The Tower of Freemoon Campaign Sessions 1

23-25 Flamerule (Summertide)

2

2-3 Eleasis (Highsun)

3

4-6 Eleasis (Highsun)

This tells me that within the game session 1 happens over the 23 rd to 25 of the month of Flamerule. th

One the right-hand page I can add notes, and migrate over metaplot information and historical events that might take place during the course of the adventure. This is also where I would put any game prep notes, like monsters I want to reskin, rules I should be familiar with, non-player characters I need to write up, or maps I have to draw.

Session Log A Session Log is like a Daily Log using in-game time. It documents the things that happen on that day, during that session. Following from the Campaign Log above, there would be entries for 23 Flamerule, 24 Flamerule, and so on, detailing what the player characters did. It should include people they met, events that took place, and things they killed. It’s a way to keep your continuity straight. Unresolved issues can also be used for future adventures.

25 Flamerule After spending the night at the Olde Magpie Inn without incident, the party decided to locate and question the beggar they’d seen in the market square the day before...

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Session Collections Session Collections are spreads used to collect real-world information. It’s meant to help you organize and manage your game; it’s not for in-game information like player character backgrounds or worldbuilding notes. Below are some examples and suggestions for Collections that I have used. You don’t have to use all of these, nor are you limited to what’s listed here. It’s your gamemaster bullet journal and should be customized to meet your specific needs.

Contact Information While most people here in the 21 st century store contact information electronically, it might not hurt to have a spread to used as an analog backup. If something happens to your phone or you can’t get to your laptop, having your players’ phone numbers, email addresses, and social media handles written down could alleviate a lot of stress. You might also want to keep the information on the game store, the pizza place you order from, and other important people in here.

Kaylee Bailey

kaybay 555-5292

Simon Sloane

sssloaned 555-0867

Scarlett Frazer

scarfzzz 555-5309

Knead to Know Pizza 555-1212 open til 11 I hate to admit this, but I’m terrible with names. The contact page helps me to remember new players’ names. Along with the Character Notes spread (see Campaign Collections, below) it means I write each player’s first and last name out fully at least twice. This has saved me from embarrassing situations, and helped me to avoid accidentally offending someone because I couldn’t remember their name. This could also be a place to note player preferences: snacks they like, food allergies, their pronouns, X-card content warnings, really anything at all. Creating a spread for each player might be a bit much, but a little basic information on their likes and dislikes can help you to craft a game experience that they’ll really enjoy.

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Inspirational Quotes Some people like Inspirational Quotes, others don’t. I keep a page of quotes from creative people, writers, movie directors, and game designers. There are even a few quotes from players that I’ve run games for. When I’m frustrated or not feeling particularly enthused about preparing a game session, I refer to them. It’s not about finding ideas for the game, but getting fired up and energized and ready to create. Sometimes it reminds me of why I seek to emulate the people whose quotes I logged. Other times it drives home that they were only human and had creative struggles, too. Most of the time it simply helps me to remember why I love gamemastering tabletop roleplaying games.

“But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring Rules Notes When trying out a new game system, I’ve taken to writing the core mechanic at the top of a Rules spread. Then I summarize any other rules that are likely to come up a lot. I create a sidebar with a mini-index, referencing the rule, the book it’s in, and page number. Just writing things down tends to help me remember, so I don’t refer to this page a lot. The true value of a Rules spread is in tracking gamemaster rulings and house rules. When something is ambiguous, or you or the group don’t think something makes sense, write it down. Add the date and the situation. Detail what doesn’t work, and the solution you came up with. This will help you to be consistent in your rulings, and let yo refer back to the new house rules you’ve made up. If necessary, you can create a document to share with your players so they, too, can reference the house rules.

Core mechanic – roll a d20, add modifiers, beat a target number. (Core book p.37)

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Adventure Prep Notes If you’re running a published adventure, you might create a spread for notes that you take. This might be plot points that you need to remember, rules you need to be familiar with, or changes that you’re making. I make tweaks to better connect published adventures to my game world, so I log that. Non-player characters might get ties to the player characters, names of locations might change, and I might even sap out monsters when something doesn’t fit well with what I’ve already established as canon in my setting. When you’re creating your own adventures, it can be useful to do essentially the same thing. Write down the names of major non-player characters, and maybe a few names that you can use on the fly if you unexpectedly need to make up a character. Make a mini-index of unusual rules that are going to come up, with the book and page number they’re in, so you can find them quickly if needed. Create a beat chart of things that are going to happen, in order, so you don’t miss some critical point.

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Campaign Collections The following are suggestions for “campaign bible”-type collections. It’s meant to help spark your imagination and offer up some possibilities. You don’t have to use all of these Campaign Collections, nor are you limited to what’s listed here. Again, it’s your gamemaster bullet journal and should be customized to meet your specific needs.

Character Notes Every player character in your campaign should have a spread. You can put basic information like the character’s name, the player’s name, and the character type. Knowing their primary abilities can help you to design appropriate encounters for then. Keeping notes on the character’s background can aid in creating adventures tailored specifically for them. I keep track of character advancement and new abilities as well. Not only do I know what the player has added, I can work that into the next adventure so they have a chance to use their shiny new skills, spells, and special abilities.

Balfir Adran (Kaylee) h/e wizard 7 He was born in a royal family in a large capital. He lived free of worries until he was about 11 years old, but at that point things changed drastically. You can keep separate spread for stock non-player characters, with brief descriptions and abbreviate statics. Important recurring characters and major villains might get their own spreads, because the odds that you will need to track more information about their plans, schemes, and actions is high.

Worldbuilding Spreads This type of collection can cover a lot of different things. I have multiple spread for the setting I’m using, one each for things like Pantheons, Kingdoms, Factions, and so on. When I’m creating my own setting, this helps me to flesh out ideas and create handouts for players.

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When using a published game world setting, it allows me to create an index of so I can find information, which is sometimes spread out in snippets and throwaway lines across several books. Below are some ideas for Worldbuilding Collections, and the type of information you might use them to track: History Collections: creation myths, major events, wars, natural disasters, legendary people, cultural movements, political movements, religious movements, lost civilizations, missing artifacts. Pantheon Collections: deities, their domains, relationships between gods, worshiper demographics, church hierarchies, church doctrine, relationship with cultures, relationship with governments. Kingdom Collections: nations, geographical information, population, culture, what they produce, leaders and other important people, relationships with other kingdoms, alliances, enemies, military power. Race Collections: history, culture, population, relationships with other races, relationships to deities, pantheons, and religions, relationships to kingdoms, preferred classes, special abilities, food, clothing, art, music. Class Collections: variations based on race, variations based on kingdom, variations based on alignment, guilds, access to training, access to equipment, relationship to governments, relationship with religions. Faction Collections: ideology, purpose and goals, membership, relationship to governments, relationship with religious institutions, relationships with other factions, connection to historical events.

Adventure Ideas If you have an overarching idea of what your campaign is going to be about, you can begin working out adventures around the things that need to happen to get the player characters from beginning to end. A metaplot that the individual adventures feed into serves to bind them together. You might get ideas as you world out some worldbuilding details, based on conflicts between races, kingdoms, or factions. Ideas might spring up from player decisions and character actions. There may be stories that you want to (cough) liberate from television shows, movies, video games, and novels and re-imagine them for your campaign. Having an Adventure Idea Collection allows you to capture these thoughts and concepts. Then you can flesh them out later as you need 20

them. Write it down, and come back to when it’s time to figure out what comes next. While you may never use them all, you can also Migrate some of them to your next campaign in the future. No good idea will ever go to waste!

Encounter Ideas You might create a collection that has ideas for encounters. It could be as simple as pairing a couple of monsters, a quick description of a location, or a trap design. An Encounter Idea Collection is similar to the Adventure Idea Collection, but on a smaller scale. Rather than (cough) borrowing the whole plot from a movie, TV show, or video game, you pluck out a scene that seems interesting to you. Once you’ve filed off the serial numbers and other identifying marks, and tweaked it to fit the context of your campaign, it will seem like a brand-new, totally original thing. I tend to use different spread for separate types of encounters. Some examples are listed below. As always, you don’t have to use these. You should come up with your own categories, based on the nature of your campaign and the preferences of your players. Traps: Idea for various devices both dangerous and bizarre. Unusual designs, bizarre effects, and mechanisms meant to emulate anachronistic things that somehow show up in your setting. Puzzles and Riddles: If you’re old school and into that sort of thing, this is where you can devise clever wordplay, trivia questions, and other things meant to baffle and confuse your players. Courtly Intrigue: Who likes who, who hates who, plans and schemes, love affairs, and other sources of personal conflict. For when you like Arthurian drama, Game of Thrones, The Three Musketeers, and soap operas. City Encounters: People, events, and dangerous objects that are only found in “civilized” locations. Crowds, marketplaces, shops, thieves, city guard patrols, wealthy aristocrats, and other hallmarks of city life. Wilderness Encounters: Things found in the wild, including dangerous animals, feral monsters, and wandering tribes of humanoids. Druids, rangers, forests, mountains, and all things outdoorsy. Underground Encounters: Elements exclusive to dungeons, caverns, and the world belong the surface. Darkness, the metaphorical underworld of evil beings, hidden things, banished people, and forbidden ideologies. 21

Unusual Characters: Odd non-player characters, not necessarily adversaries but people who can make the world strange and wonderful. They could be helpful, annoying, or create problems, but they stand out.

Maps Dotted journals are better than graph paper for drawing maps. There, I said it. No blue lines, and unconnected dots sort of fade into the background. I know this is bound to be a controversial hot take, because people like the faux non-repo blue because it represents some sort of tradition, but I like the cleaner look I get with dots. I’ve found doodling maps in my bullet journal to be a good way to work out ideas. It’s perfect for sketching out a random room when you’re not sure where it belongs. When I’m happy with it and have a place for it, I can redraw it on larger paper or a software program to create the maps I share with players. You can also use it for the “gamemaster only” version of maps, showing where traps, secret doors, and other hidden goodies are located.

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