I've got information spread out across half a dozen threads here, and I'm historically bad at organization. I would like to fix that with a better system! What do I need to keep track of? Overarching story outlines. PC-specific things like NPCs and plot lines. General setting info (in this case, there's some for multiple types of supernatural organizations in an urban fantasy game). General NPCs. I have locations in one thread.

Any advice on this, friends of RPOL?

... in Word documents on my own hard drive.  I can't imagine using anything that doesn't come with a useful Search function.

I haven't used it but there is the wiki, some organize things there. I am a linking fiend so I tend to do a directory thread and link all threads there so I don't have to hunt them down.

Fair enough. Plus you could make headers and TOCs with that.

How many documents do you use? One per category? What's your general scheme like, if you have any examples?

Problem with a wiki is that the search simply doesn't work as far as I can tell.

Best bet on site is to just have a single thread because at least that way you can set view to all and ctrl-f the whole thing.

I use Notion. It’s got great formatting features, it offers great linking between pages, good search, and works on my phone as well as my PC. I couldn’t live without it. I just dump information in there and it’s so useful to reference quickly. Typically separate pages with summary information on different NPCs, or a district, and then always one for each session (IRL). I struggle the most keeping reference pages up to date.

Obsidian. Perfect for organizing and linking things together.

The wiki is useful for group information but for GM information, I’ve found searching threads for details shared is bothersome. Best to organize how it works best for me. The program has plenty of plugins if you need extra features (like interactive maps).

Chaos. pure chaos.

I've been using scratchpad (yes, RPOL has a scratchpad) forever, both as a player and a GM.

I like using Google Docs and Google Sheets. It's a similar idea to Notion, with links to character sheets and my GM cheat sheets for combat.

Hunter - I have seen the scratchpad & thought it was a temporary list only. Can the players also view it ?? Curious ...

I use Word docs for idea jotting & such, so will have to look at Notion.

Be warned, it’s easy to spend endless time tweaking formatting and reorganizing notes, under the guise of “being productive.” My database of pages for planets in my Traveller campaign is a sight to behold…

You can also share Notion pages like webpages publicly, so you can put together info pages for your players.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:42, Tue 10 Sept.

In reply to Aslanii76 (msg # 11):

Players have their own scratchpads.  Nobody can view another user's scratchpad (including the GM) - it's completely private.

It depends on the game and time and effort I am putting in, but I definitely feel the point about doing lots of organising under the guise of productivity!

I try and keep everything in one Word doc on my laptop with headers.  I'll have a header for every character containing their background, what I think their motivations are (either because the player has told me or it is coming out in play), what story hooks are emerging, their relationships to other characters.  I also do this for NPC's and spend a lot of time hyperlinking and separating 'in-game' knowledge and 'in my head ideas' or 'secret to players'.

I have a story so far with all the story points and a short list of 'the next three big things' that I want to happen / could happen and a short list of 'things that may happen / interesting points'.  I'll have a timeline - what's happened, what's going to happen next to push a story on and what's happening outside of the player's attention.

I also do a big visual relationship, story hook and event map to try and capture a 'whole story picture'  - I'm loose with my definition here, but when I have this map I can see where there are gaps, where people are more involved in the story than others, what I need to pull others in and any hooks that emerge from seeing a bigger picture

As bigbadron mentioned, it's completely private.   It's also basically impossible to loose or misplace, as it's part of the game rather than being stored elsewhere.

Plus, I tend to be absent=minded so....what was I talking about again?  ^_^

I just found obsidian. I'll give it a plus 1 too. Cross references all sorts of stuff easily!