God bless players who take notes.

I too have been the unplanned "Secretary" in groups I've played.  I started writing my own  synopsis.  And then the following session everyone is like:  What are we doing again?  lol   Love this.  You could turn these into printables.  Especially the cheat sheet.🖊

SESSION MOMENTS !!!! I have kept session moments for every session for the past 5+ years, introducing it to every group I meet. I am so happy to hear this idea is elsewhere. 100% recommend keeping in-game quotes to anyone and everyone.

Tabs are the best for a busy D&D journal. As a player I have game notes, personal inventory, party inventory, Road Map/Travel Log, NPCs, Places, Graveyard (where I record important NPC deaths), & a page for each PC (including me) so I can record what my PC knows of them not what I know about them. I also have a key for symbols I use when writing notes and I make sure I create a margin for each game notes pages for tasks, questions, highlight important information and expand on things in the notes without being too messy.

I created my own printable character sheet in GoodNotes where I have sections for modifiers and modified modifiers (ie: ring of protection or belt of giant strength). I makes things easy to know what my modifer is with or without equipment in case I am caught without something on me.

To keep track of spell splots and hp I use an index card in a card sleeve and a wet erase marker.

Personally i do a bit of both physical and digital notes. During session i use my physical notebook to write down lore and then transfer it to a color coded Google spread sheet that i was able to share with my party so everyone can reference it if needed. I love a good spread sheet hahaha

Generally, I keep my character on the sheets I print out from DnDBeyond - I find it's cleaner and easier read quickly. But after that, I do love me a big fat journal! Here's what I make room for:
1) List of NPCs with Name, Location, Friend or Foe, Uses, Page # or Session Date
2) List of Missions, quests or jobs with Location, Who For, Reward, Page # or Session Date
3) Big milestone events with Description, Location, Page # or Session Date

I am starting a new campaign later next month and just started experimenting with a DnD journal! I love the layouts you have. I have about a month until our first session so I have time to explore what might work for me. 🖋️

I had uncharacteristic wisdom as a 17 year old, I got a voice recorder a year or two prior from when I started dnd and I recorded the audio from 99% of the sessions I ever played over the past 9 years. Have been wanting to do a proper journal recently. I actually got a custom a5 leather binder ordered on Etsy recently 🖊 the idea is when a campaign is done I'll sleeve the pages in plastic and put them in cheaper binders on a shelf to have a physical record of everything

very cool. The little backpack is so cute.  I've always had a journal for all my characters, cause I love reading back on them. I love to draw mini comics of funny or dramatic scenes. Also drawing the special items or making a mini map helps my memory too.
For my players who have trouble remembering their inventory, little cards like that is a godsend. I gave them all little treasure chests where they can keep their loot and its helped so much.

Put your bonus to Initiative rolls in the blank slot on your character sheet - you didn't make too many, you have the perfect amount!

Pretty cool set up!  You’ve given me some ideas, as well as earned a subscriber. Nice voice too. 😊

Planning on moving my dnd note-taking into a journal and I love the session summaries section! Will def incorporate that.

im in love with this journal. as a multi-device dnd player and also big journaler, i've always wanted to transition into journaling for my dnd campaign. i even have a filofax bought specifically for my character that i have yet to kit out. i am politely borrowing some of these page ideas, i hope you don't mindd :)

I love your layout!!

I play multiple TTRPGs, DnD is the one played the least. For characters that I really love, or who's campaign is complicated, I have specific 3-ring binders for them. I'm up to 8, but 2 are for GMing, which I've just started to do.

Front page is just their name and images, both to show the character and get their vibe. Then it is character sheet, character notes (what their personality is like, their favorite things, who their family is, and backstory), and any specific rules for their class, special abilities, equipment and the like. The next section is session notes (I'm usually the only one in our group note taking during a session). I only write on one side of the paper so I can add notes or questions to the back side between sessions (sometimes it's even predictions on what I think will happen). Next up is a section for NPCs. Each important NPC gets their own page. Here I keep track of who they are, what their relationship is to other NPCs (fiance, mother, brother, etc), how our characters know them, and what information we have gotten from them or how they are connected to the story. Last section, and this isn't in all of the binders, is correspondence. A few of my characters tend to write to other NPCs for advice, to give them news, ask questions, or try to further their relationships. Here I have letters to specific NPCs in order so I know what has been sent and how the recipient has responded.

I chose to use 3-ring binders because of the flexibility and that it's the same size as the character sheet. I've also had to add more loose leaf paper multiple times to the session notes section because of the length of sessions, or that the campaign has gone much longer than I thought it would. I can also add any new correspondence, rules, item notes, NPCs, or maps as they appear and put them in their proper place for easy reference.

For added fun I also created my own images for the divider pages and laminated them for extra durability. I've also started going back through my notes to add stickers and stamps to them to signify what type of person is encountered, or what was happening in the session. To signify an NPC death, I use little skull stickers (a little morbid, but I can't use ghosts as there are literal ghosts in the RPG world).
🖋

Hi! Thank you so much for this video. I write fanfiction (heavy on inserting original characters) and this journal template would be super useful for that, with modifications to personalize.

🖊I use a binder, personally (a little 5.5x8 mini binder) because when I use a bound journal, I get too precious with it and spend too much time trying to "plan" how I'll use it so I can stay organized, and then I don't end up using it. Having something I can rearrange means it will actually get used. It also means I can have lots of different paper types -- I've got some lined paper, some graph paper, some blnk paper, some thicker cardstock for sketching, but I also have some of those plastic page pockets and uhuhuhuhuhu, card pocket pages. I love makin' item/spell/npc cards.

I love that little backpack. A pocket wouldn't be nearly enough for me, but a backpack-shaped divider for the inventory section of my notebook would be so much fun to make. Thank you for he inspiration! :D

I only play online, but I've wanted to create some character binder/journal for a while regardless. Still considering it. Thanks for some awesome ideas! 🖋

I was a DM since 1990 and never really had the chance to actually play. My files are full of the DM-side of things, so watching this has made me understand what I've actually missed out on. I'm not sure if I will ever be gifted the chance to play. The idea of a player journal is beautiful. To have an individual PC p.o.v. would be magical to develop. Well done sir!

I always see these cute notebooks and am like.. yeah no i need a binder with pages i can move around lol  I did normally spiral notebooks for awhile and the number of times i ripped out whole sections to redo them..

I didnt take notes when i started playing as a teenager. i still have all my 2e character sheets and i remember SOME of the highlights but even reading the hand drawn character sheets and teh shorthand i did is kinda hard.  
some of my previous notes were all in character, or in character after session notes (the GM at the time was really good about posting detailed summaries for us so i was a little lazy) now i write like a front and back page of notes every session. i track combat rounds, what everyone did, damage rolls (for myself) and who got kills. plus all of the details of teh role play and such.

This is really awesome! I'm a dungeon master and I have a DM journal. I actually talk about it a bit on my channel. I love some of these ideas though, definitely some things I'm going to add to mine. 😄👍