Here’s a quick thing I’m sure all DM’s do in one form or another, whether it’s via email, wiki, pen and paper, or some other form: the game recap. In my particular case, we don’t get to game as often as most of us would like, so as game recap is a great way to get the players up to speed on the events that have occurred in-game up to the current moment.
This is something that I’ve only implemented recently, but I’ve found that it helps cut down the 10 minutes or so of last-session questions and answers before we start gaming for the night. Here’s what I’ve been doing… I’m building a document as a narrative of the previous game’s session, and I add to it at the end of the night.
A sample page from my recap document
Within the documents I’m adding maps, images, NPC quotes and other stuff directly lifted from the adventure I’m running, in order to make it more attractive and engaging to the guys. The document is simply a word one, converted to PDF. Very simple, yet effective. I even noticed that there were some printouts at the table last time we played. Everyone knew what had happened previously and we got right to playing for the night. That’s the point.
Now, what kind of recap you give your players works best depending on your group. Some groups and DM’s may prefer to write their own version of events on a wiki, using Obsidian Portal for example. Others may use a Google Group to keep track of what’s going on. Those are all great tools to use to keep track of your party’s progress, but in my case I’m using what I know is the best for us. Knowing my players, I don’t think they’d have the time to sit there and dig through a wiki looking for campaign info.
So how do you guys recap your game? Do you have any links to your campaign websites or wikis out there? I’d love to see them, as I’m sure other Dm’s would as well.
www. Newbie DM .com 
Pobman
November 6, 2009
My wife and I are the chief chroniclers (surely that’s not a word?)of our game. We write the session reports and as the group was formed through the East Midlands D&D Meetup group we get to use their space to host stuff. Here’s the main page for our game:
http://www.eastmidlandsroleplayers.org.uk/pages/The_Tales_of_Gravidy%27s_Crossing/?name=The_Tales_of_Gravidy%27s_Crossing
Session reports are kept up to date. Other stuff less so. We don’t write in character as I also like to include moments around the table that happen as well. Session 10 is my favourite report.
Phaezen
November 6, 2009
I am currently using Google Sites to host a webpage for my campaign, it is still a bit of a work in progress. We are looking at migrating the page to Wave when more people get invites, the preliminary work is underway.
http://sites.google.com/site/enemy4ecampaign/
Phaezen
Czar
November 6, 2009
I host my own wiki on my server and update it with a `Current Events` section that acts as the game recap. Before we start a session, I briefly recap what happened last time.
http://www.czaralex.com/wiki
However, now we’re using Google Wave to have RP and plot movement between sessions so I may not have to recap at the next session as the momentum is still there.
Daniel Anand
November 6, 2009
Although I also have a wiki page, I currently put my campaign journal in my blog, in a very succinct bullet point style. My players love it, and very often I use it to remind me a name or old event. You can check them out in a poor Google translation at:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rolando20.com.br%2Ftag%2Fescamas-purpuras%2F
Cheers!
Kameron
November 6, 2009
I post session reports to my blog. I’m going to broach the subject of a wiki and player journals at our next session. After reading e’s latest DM monologue, I’m going to try small XP rewards to get the players to contribute adventure hooks, provide feedback, and maybe flesh out their PCs via their journals.
Totte Alm
November 6, 2009
I’ve been using both a blog, where I enter reports written by the designated scribe, and I add and correct some details. Also, I have players using the notes feature of character builder, and they got small notebooks at the gaming table. Once I ran a session when we started up all thing e.gaming fluff, and we have live blogging, which was a complete disaster as the players was busy reading each others notes, but at the same time, that session notes really captured the session.
This was back in the end of the 3.5 days, and a a female player in our group wrote commens about the Warblade like “What is he doing stupid man? No brains, typical males…”
So, keeping track is hard, and we’ve even tried to record the whole session with iPods, but no one hand the time to listen through 10 hours of gaming session to write a nice report.
americannerd65
November 6, 2009
Obsidian Portal, Baby! Great resource for DM’s and Players alike!
My 4E Campaign is at:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-darkness-between
Bevin Flannery
November 6, 2009
Obsidian Portal – all the GMs in our group have tried to move to it. Makes it very easy for folks to catch up on nights they’ve missed, to keep track of “who was that NPC we met at the Libraries?” and the like.
davek
November 6, 2009
For the players, I have a Ning portal. I keep my wiki private through Luminotes.
brentnewhall
November 10, 2009
I have my players do this for me. Works great so far!
WolfStar76
November 10, 2009
I used to encourage my players (with a small XP bonus) to do their own recaps of the previous play session. We’d store/share these in a private forum, often in the form of in-character journals.
That way, not only did I get a weekly recap – but I got it from the Point of View of (multiple!) characters, so I could what they were getting vs. what I was giving.
Was a great way to keep everyone on-track, and to make sure I (the GM) was on the same page as my players.
Edhel
February 4, 2010
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/conan-ae
This is the wiki for our Conan campaign. It has lost some graphics due server problems and it’s not nearly up-to-date but it includes years (both in game time and real time) of adventuring. Earlier stories are written by our GM but later on you have stories from character perspective – mostly told in character and not always reliable.
My characters are Alcemides (dead), Feng Bai (dead), Flavius (dead) and Thothmekri the Stygian.
QuestingWord
April 20, 2010
I don’t have any games to post recaps at the moment, but good intentions and also some troubles with 8-5 employment, instead the HOST of our games is working the crazy hours who works nights and EVERY weekend… he and his wife host the games due to space and location when I live, and 2 great big foldable tables (plastic tops) that we use for our 5-6 people… so, I am really just posting an opinion about recaps, excuse the digression before my point, of this reply… I just had to post that fustrationg sitiation on the net for some reason… anyways,
I have an account I pay for on Obsidian Portal… I started a wiki about 1 year ago to the day and I didn’t get farther then the main page… and also, I have also been charged for another year… so I guess I might as well use it, but I don’t think the players are going to be sitting on the edges of their seats reading it, since for various reasons… more to do with busy professional life styles and just plain age… I so, wish!… that I had been born a decade late and was provided with a childhood and teenage experience of the web… I am 36 now, and I am starting to feel guilty for not devoting all my time to my retirement and also a professional life style instead of gaming, which I have relatively recently picked back up, and also suprisingly my old buds and new ones have an interest in D&D and games of our youth…
ok, so back to the point, my point is… I think the wikis, recaps and all that will and is extensively more useful to the younger guys and gals since they still depend on it not as a ‘business necessity (web in general)’ but as a place to ‘expouse their creativity’… which for the 30 somethings (not all of course, but the ones I know) is generally using the web in more ‘serious’ ways…
BUT… I think I would like to do something NewbieDM is doing. I have all the tools anyone could ever need for making maps, content, supplemental DM material, etc… thanks to Adobe.com and I am sure they appreciate my patronage.. (they better!) I should start by just making an InDesign document which I add to and make avalable on the net somewhere, where… my players will be able to download it and print it out. Or, I print it out and provide an update each session for them at the beginning, recapping outload in a storytelling narritive manner what happened. I think that will grab them, especially since I have their attention at that moment and not depending on waiting for them to read a wiki online.
But, I am also going to add to that Wiki at Obsidian Portal some information not provided in the recap and also use the forums for each campaign I create on there to keep in touch better, or at least, I guess.. all I can do is push that and hopefully they will catch on to its usefulness.
Colmarr
May 9, 2010
I too post recaps to a blog (under the SSTL entries).
I’m never really sure whether anyone reads them (including the other players), but I take some satisfaction in knowing that long after the campaign finishes, I’ll be able to read back through them and reminisce about all the interested stuff our alter-egos got up to.
useful source
May 17, 2013
I’m new to developing web sites and I was wondering if having your website title related to your content really that critical? I see your title, “Warstories: The Game Recap | www. Newbie DM .com ” does appear to be spot on with what your website is about but, I prefer to keep my title less content descriptive and based more around site branding. Would you think this is a good idea or bad idea? Any kind of assistance would be greatly valued.
seo blogs
August 28, 2013
Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the images on this blog loading?
I’m trying to figure out if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.