July 12, 2026
A D&D session notes template that survives real life (steal it)
The short answer: the notes template that actually survives a long campaign is entity-first and tiny. Five prompts, five minutes, filled in right after the session:
WHO: new or important people/factions this session (one line each: who they are, what they want).
WHERE: places visited or named (and why they matter).
DEALS: promises made, jobs taken, debts incurred, by anyone, to anyone.
LOOT & LEADS: items gained and clues found, with where they point.
CLIFFHANGER: the exact moment you stopped.
Why entity-first beats a play-by-play
A chronological journal reads like a book nobody will reread. The questions your table actually asks are lookups: who was that noble? what did we promise the Saint of Ash? where did we leave the ledger? Notes organized by WHO/WHERE/DEALS answer those in seconds. Notes organized by “and then we…” require rereading three sessions to find one name.
An example, filled in
WHO: Saint of Ash - broker under the Sunken Keep, buys debts, knows everyone's price.
WHERE: the Sunken Keep - flooded fortress below the salt market; her court.
DEALS: we clear the Crows' debt → she hands over the Tidewrit Ledger.
LOOT & LEADS: the ledger names everyone she's ever bought, including (maybe) one of us.
CLIFFHANGER: Gilded Crows waiting at the dock as we surfaced.
Making it stick
- Fill it in before you leave the table (or the voice call). Recency is 90% of the value.
- Rotate the scribe if you play in person; one person doing it forever is how the system dies.
- Pair it with the 60-second recap template (the recap writes itself from these five lines).
And the disclosure you'd expect by now: we make Lorevia because the step after this template, keeping a running entry per WHO/WHERE/DEAL across forty sessions, is the part every table abandons. It reads these exact kinds of notes and maintains the codex for you. The template needs no tool at all, though. Start with the template.