how I take my dungeons & dragons notes | advice & tips

Hello friends and happy fall to my fellow Northern Hemisphere dwellers! This video was very highly requested, so I hope it helps you with some new ideas for how note-taking in d&d can function! I think my notes blend fun and function in a way that really works for my brain. My note-taking system may not be exactly how others take notes, but I hope that my tips can help all the same! ✨
INSTAGRAM | / shapingshan
MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO //
⭐️ Lavender A5 Binder www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09K...
⭐️ Kraft A5 Paper www.amazon.ca/dp/B08PNZTYTB/
⭐️ Dot-grid A5 Paper www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07V...
⭐️ Gridded Notebooks www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B081...
⭐️ Note-taking stickers by r-n-w.net (the colour palette I have doesn't appear to be available but these are similar!): www.r-n-w.net/play/character-...

[@jolkienrolkienrolkientolki8416]

Love the way you take notes! Never thought of collaborating with other players to make a comprehensive doc of everyone's notes. I'll have to try that at my table!

[@pinkcupcake4717]

This is the best layout for taking notes I've ever seen, I'm definitely stealing this for when I get into a new campaign! And don't be afraid to ask the DM to pause or repeat something for your notes. The DM is probably happy that you're so invested and putting the effort in for their campaign!

[@anastasiamochalova7132]

LICHES GET STITCHES killed me 😂😂😂😂

[@Kendrone]

This was much needed. Also for the collaborative notes, my group is planning on using world anvil for our group notes. Though a google doc is easier, the fact that we get our own wiki for our campaign is awesome.

[@elle4885]

Hey, this was a super helpful video! I’ve always struggled to take notes, but I love the idea of taking D&D notes in a bullet journal style. I also love the idea of separating player and character knowledge like this, super interesting!

[@emmathomas2832]

I always take quick notes on what's happening in the session, juicy lore bits etc. I also then like to have a "Session summary" section with more structured notes that read more like a bullet journal as to what exactly happened during the session and then pages on party members, important NPCs and locations as well of lists of NPCs and how we know them. Unfortunately my party has a tendency to forget/not pay attention to the lore our DM is handing out. They fully did not know that our boss was trans for 4 months of real life time despite many hints.

[@NerdyBirdie.]

im so excited for this video! thank you for the tips!

[@emthelibrarian]

Discovered your channel from your video about your character journal for aisling, which inspired me to make my own dnd binder! Using the location or NPC as the top bullet is SO smart for notes, will definitely be borrowing that!

[@izzymartin9011]

i’m so obsessed with your videos! they inspire me to get so much more organized w/ my setup haha

[@shapingshan]

Thank you so much!! ❤️

[@mikime7923]

Love these videos as it's kind of hard to find how people take their notes and set up their notebooks. I've just started working on my own character journal/notebook and the only thing I'm still deciding is how I want to separate my different types of notes in the one book for our in person sessions (which can be a LOT less structured). I realise now that it would have been much easier to get myself a binder, I love that idea, but I bought a normal notebook with a similar cover but I can't swap out or add pages. Your handwriting pleases me greatly and I love seeing these videos!

[@shapingshan]

Thank you! It’s definitely very different for each person because we all have very different brains- I’m happy to share what works for me in hopes it can help! A way to organize different kinds of sessions in a notebook where you can’t move the pages could be to use sticky notes to add colour-coded tabs, so it’s easy to find different categories of pages? good luck with your journal setup!

[@jacerlab]

May I recommend the Cornell method, it changed my life! 10/10

[@Soggy_Toast14]

For me I just quick jot all rolls and info (npcs, outcomes, backstories, descriptions, etc) in a note book, using a few pages for each session, and then go and sort it all and put it all in easily searchable spreadsheets to use later or while in game. My group uses a physical note and D&D Beyond combo, so I find that it’s easy to be able to flip to a spread sheet with searchable characters attributes for example. This method is very cool and helped me think or organization categories, so it’s much appreciated :)

[@shapingshan]

Using spreadsheets is a great way to organize things!! I also use a combo of physical sheets and DNDBeyond so I definitely appreciate making things a bit more streamlined to find info quicker. Thanks for watching! ✨

[@carrierryan1]

Wow, you have amazing hand writing! (mine is.... terrible) Great stuff. Thanks for the ideas

[@shapingshan]

thank you! it definitely took some conscious effort to improve it- my handwriting didn't always look this nice, but it's something that can be changed with some practice! ✨

[@claudinhaonha]

I love that France doesn't exists in the canon and that some DOORKNOB gave you 8k in loose change.

[@Pottagecore]

Loved the video! I looked up the binders on Amazon and I'm wondering where you ordered your paper from? Thanks

[@shapingshan]

Thank you! The papers and notebooks are also from Amazon: the kraft paper inserts are from Toplive and the dot grid inserts and grid notebooks are both from Ancicraft!

[@sal_the_sloth9244]

got here early

[@jess_serin]

paused right on the "exist/doesn't exist" page by accident 😂

[@shapingshan]

It’s definitely one of my favourite pages! 😂

[@SanguinaryStrife]

This sounds like too much. Why write down dialogue?

[@shapingshan]

A fair question, especially as I'll admit I tend to be a little "too much" in general! I'm a scrapbooker and memory keeper so I love writing down little moments of things the characters or even my friends say, even if they're not always plot relevant. And I definitely don't write down all dialogue: just the conversations that we might want to remember or analyze later. This is just an example of how I take notes: it might be too much for some and just right for others! ☺