D&D SESSION NOTES
Notes
Notes that link to the NPCs, places and quests they mention, so a session recap is a doorway rather than a dead end. And if you never write them, the chronicler can draft one from what happened.
THE RECAP NOBODY WROTE
You ran a brilliant session. You wrote down nothing. It was three weeks ago.
Session notes are the most universally agreed-upon good habit in the hobby and the least universally practised. The session ends at half past eleven, everyone's tired and pleased, and the last thing anyone is going to do is write six paragraphs about it.
Three weeks later you need to remember what the party promised the harbourmaster, and the available sources are your memory and one player's cryptic phone note that says "WAREHOUSE - ask about the manifest??"
So notes here do two things differently: they link into the campaign, so a recap is a way back into the NPCs and quests it mentions, and when you genuinely didn't write anything, the chronicler can draft one from what the campaign already knows happened.
What a note can do
Notes that link
Mention an NPC, a place or a quest and it becomes a link. A recap turns into a doorway.
Session and lore
What happened on Friday, and the standing lore that isn't tied to any one night.
Pinned to dates
Notes can sit on the campaign calendar, so "when did that happen" has an answer.
Player-visible, selectively
Share the recap. Keep the paragraph about what's actually going on.
The chronicler
Didn't take notes? It can draft a recap from what the campaign already knows.
Their notes too
Players write their own, on anything, private or shared with the party.
TWO KINDS OF NOTE
What happened, and what it means. Only one of those is for sharing.
Almost every DM's notes split cleanly in two. There's the record (the party went here, met this person, agreed to that), which your players should absolutely have, and which saves you the recap every single session.
And there's the other kind: why the harbourmaster is lying, what's actually in the warehouse, which of the party's allies is going to betray them in session twenty. Sharing is per note, because these two things live in the same document in your head and must not live in the same document on the table.
Questions a DM would actually ask
What makes these different from a text file?
The links. A note that mentions Old Maggie can link to Old Maggie, so reading last session's recap gives you a way into the NPC, the location and the quest it touched. A text file is a dead end; this is an index into the campaign.
What's the chronicler?
A generator that drafts a session recap from what the campaign already contains: the encounters that ran, the quests that moved, the NPCs involved. It's for the very common case of having run a great session and written down nothing. Like every AI feature, it vanishes entirely when you switch AI off.
Should I share notes with players?
Share the recap; keep the rest. Most DMs end up with two kinds of note: what happened, which the party should absolutely have, and what it means, which is the whole plot. The share control is per note for exactly that reason.
Do players write notes as well?
Yes, and theirs are arguably more valuable. Players can pin a private or party note to any NPC, location, item, quest or session. Six months later that's the note that saves the session, in their own words, written when it was fresh.
Can I keep lore that isn't about a session?
Yes. Not everything is a recap: the history of the kingdom, how magic works in your setting, the thing that happened three hundred years ago. Lore notes sit alongside session notes and link into the world the same way.
How many notes do I get free?
Ten on the free DM tier. Pro removes the cap. Your players' notes are unlimited and always free, because their notes are the ones that keep your campaign coherent.
Write four sentences after the next session.
Link the two names that matter. In three weeks it'll be the most valuable thing in the campaign.
Open your grimoire for freeNo card. No beta waitlist. Always free for your players.
IN THE SAME GRIMOIRE
The Mint
Mint VTT tokens from your portraits, and print setting-appropriate coins your players can stack.
Illuminator
Give any image a torn-edge, parchment treatment so a handout looks like it came out of a book.
Encounter Runner
Initiative, HP, conditions, factions and mid-combat spawning. The TPK is on you; the bookkeeping is on us.