How to DM on easy mode!
How to structure your sessions!
Structuring your sessions can be as complex or as easy as you like. For myself, I like to break it down into a few categories that allow my notes to be clear but detailed enough. You can keep these notes however you want though for me I like to use Notion and have built my own template to use in it. If you are interested in using this one check out this article that explains how to access it here!
I break my session notes into a few categories in the following order.
Strong Start - Giving me a thematic and powerful opening to guide the direction.
Scenes - Which has listed any special locations the group will most likely visit that session
Conversations - Which is broken down into two components
The first is numbered components for each important conversation they are likely to have.
The second is then checkboxes for information they should find out from this conversation.
NPC’s - This will have links to any important people they are likely to deal with during this session for easy access
Encounters - In this section, I will insert links to or include the information for the possible encounters they may have during this session.
Treasures - Here there will be a list of any special items or treasures they should find in this session outside of combat rewards. For example a thematically appropriate weapon or magical tool.
Session Notes - This is a catch-all for anything I just need to write down during the session to make my life a bit easier.
Making Combat Easier
Now the tricky part of a session for a DM really comes when trying to work out, who, what and where everything is going at any given moment for the combat. There are a few ways to make this easier though, the first is to do your initiative order on physical objects. For example I use little perspex squares which you can see on the top of my privacy screen below, but you can use little blocks or whatever suits you. On these I write the name of a given monster or character and underneath their score, this means that I can write the info down in any order and then just reorder them physically to the correct order. This also allows for an easy visual queue for when my players or myself lose our place.
The second way I make my combat easier is by using my Notion Encounter system. This allows for me to collect information before the battle with an autofilling cell system based upon a master database of monsters that you can customise. It also makes it easier for me to track in round damage and see when a monster should have been killed, or how it interacts with certain status effects. Lastly this system allows for me to easily see what rewards the players are supposed to be receiving from this battle.
