# [[Live - Lazy GM note taking with Notion and Obsidian]] <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k1YgPpvQYnw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> ![[Lazy GM note taking in Notion and Obsidian.png]] ## Guests ## Topics ### Intro Hey everyone, hola a tod@s, I'm Nicole van der Hoeven. He's Mike Shea, your pal, from Sly Flourish, and we're here to talk about all things in note-taking and RPGs. This show, like all the work from Sly Flourish and me, is brought to you by Patreons, both his and mine. you can find the link down there in the description to both. To our patrons, thank you so much for your support. ### Topics - Mike, for the fine folks who somehow don't know who you are, could you please tell people about all the awesome things you do? - How did we meet? - If you couldn't tell from how I co-opted your intro, I'm obviously a huge fan-- I've bought I think everything you've made, some of them multiple times over. - I just played a game today and have been instructed to say that our party, The Temporary White Circle, blesses you. - Another group that I have is related directly to you-- I made friends with someone when we were both watching your livestream on Twitch. We got together to play Mörk Borg and then have joined two other groups since then. The current one is playing Numenera, also because you played it and covered it so heavily. So thank you! - What I'd like to do: talk about our approaches to note-taking (how they're different and how they're similar) - Being the Lazy GM is part of your brand - how does that affect the way you approach note-taking? What do you seek to do with your notes? - Parts of note-taking - Prep - Rules - Random tables - Sly Flourish's [Adventure Generators](obsidian://open?vault=ttrpg-vault&file=sources%2FDungeons%20and%20Dragons%2F5e%2FSly%20Flourish%2FAdventure%20Generators): Zotero link to PDF + actual random tables. - How it's part of my "During the game" workspace - monster database - embedding page of a PDF - PDF database - Arcadia - item database - Maps (Leaflet) - During the session - Creating a new session - Show him my session template - Initiative tracker + combat log - Fantasy Calendar - After the session - You don't process your notes afterwards!! Why!! - [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Quests and Questions|Quests and Questions]] - If you were a player in a long-term campaign, do you think you'd take more notes? - Character sheets/character builder - Excalidraw: [[Ylara]] - TTRPG statblocks: [[Venus]] - Would you ever switch from Notion? What would make you switch? ### Questions From [[Andy Polaine]]: my DM > I can no longer imagine DMing without my laptop. While part of me wouldn't mind just a binder, bookmarks and some statblocks, I think I'd feel pretty naked. I wonder how he feels about this now that he has so much in Notion? > The underlying thinking here is that we play "pencil and paper RPGs" and I wonder how much the digital tools have gone from being assistants to crutches to masters. ### Outro Friends! I wanna thank you all for hanging out with us today while we talked about all things note-taking for RPGs. If you enjoyed this show, there are a few ways to support Mike: - First, you can subscribe to the Sly Flourish newsletter. You will get a weekly RPG-related email sent directly to your inbox as well as a free adventure generator PDF. - Second, you can support him on Patreon. Patreons get access to all kinds of exclusive material, the Patreon Q&A, the Sly Flourish Discord server, and a lot of other material. There's a Hero and a Veteran tier (I'm a Hero of course). - Third, you can pick up any of his books on the Sly Flourish bookstore. Links to all of that are down in the shownotes below. Thank you all so much-- have a great day and get out there and take notes for an RPG. ## Timestamps 00:00:00 Who is Sly Flourish? 00:04:03 The Lazy GM's note-taking 00:08:46 Monster database in Notion 00:10:50 Digital notes for in-person games 00:18:50 Lazy GM session prep templates in Obsidian 00:20:58 Initiative tracker in Obsidian 00:22:38 Monster database in Obsidian 00:26:19 Random tables in Obsidian 00:29:33 Vault of magic items in Obsidian 00:37:22 What would it take to switch to Obsidian from Notion? 00:39:08 Obsidian Leaflet, Excalidraw, Fantasy Statblocks 00:41:08 Chat GPT for statblocks in Notion 00:46:56 Notion vs. Obsidian - different approaches 00:54:37 Is Mike switching to Obsidian? 00:57:08 Nicole plays a Twilight Cleric 01:01:42 Excalidraw + Leaflet for maps in Obsidian 01:06:09 Mike's Forge of Foes and outro ## References Hey folks, @slyflourish and I are about to go live on my channel to literally compare our notes for RPGs (his in Notion, mine in Obsidian). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1YgPpvQYnw ## Checklist ### Way before the show - [x] Create a thumbnail. - [x] Schedule the broadcast on Streamyard, and select YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitch as the destinations. - [x] Get the Streamyard invite link and put it in the "location" of the calendar invite to the guest. - [x] Get the YouTube link to the show. - [x] Schedule announcement on Twitter. - [x] Schedule announcement on Mastodon. - [x] Schedule a tweet just when the show begins to say "We're live now!" - [x] Schedule a Mastodon post for when the show is live. ### Just before the show - [x] How do you pronounce your name? - [x] What are your pronouns? - [x] Twitter handles. - [x] Does anyone want to share their screen? We can do that now, and I can show you how that works. - [x] We'll be streaming to Twitch and YouTube at once. - [x] You'll be able to see comments, but if you have links, I have to paste it into the private chat. - [x] You can also use the private chat if you need to say something, but you can also just say it out loud. - [ ] Afterwards, we'll say goodbye to the stream, but please stay on past that. - [ ] Just in case I disconnect... stall for a minute and I'll be right back. - [x] Anything you *don't* want to talk about? If so, that's totally fine. ### After the show - [ ] Order captions from Rev. - [ ] Add timestamps to the video (at least four). - [ ] Add any links shared to the description of the video. - [ ] Add the video to any relevant playlists. - [ ] Add to [video-database](obsidian://open?vault=obsidian-playbook&file=video-database%2FVideo%20database) or vault as necessary. - [ ] Create a blog post on [site](https://nicolevanderhoeven.com). - [ ] Promote on Discord (NVDH).