Quite aside from issues of legibility, my campaign notes need some work. It always starts out well enough. On the back of my character sheet I’ll list my fellow PCs, their respective players, and a note about their races and classes. Then I’ll pencil in a dividing line:

NPCs

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dude the 1st

Dude the 2nd

Dude the etc.

That shouldn’t be a hard thing to keep up, but it gets ugly in a hurry. I’ll learn new information about my respective dudes, and so I’ll jot down the new details in tiny print between the lines. Then I’ll realize that it makes more sense to list NPCs according to location, so I’ll belatedly tack on the name of the starting town, nesting the NPCs under that. But dammit! I’ve already written in a few next-town-over dudes. Maybe I’ll just put in an asterisk to show the difference. Perfect! Wait a minute though… What do you mean I’ve been mispronouncing that one dude’s name the whole time? Somebody pass me an eraser! There’s at least a 10% chance it won’t rip through the sheet.

Several sessions of this mess go by until (hallelujah and praise Bahamut!) it’s finally time to level up. Except now I find myself in need of a new character sheet. Holy shit is that an ordeal! Do I keep the old sheet as a dedicated notes page? What if I mix that up with the current version of my character? Should I just transpose all my old notes? Every single time I level up? Ugh… Fine!

By the time level 5 rolls around my character binder is growing fat. My simple system has grown into a monster. The print has grown tiny, the eraser marks numerous. My PC pals have all acquired companions that need to be tracked (the inconsiderate jerks!) and the pain in my ass compounds.

Do any of you guys have a better system? As Fighter so ably demonstrates, simply trying to remember everything isn’t exactly an easy feat either. If I ever want to keep my Lords What’s-his-buckets separated from my Ladies The-annoying-ones, I clearly need some help.

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