The first thing I am going to tell you about is the smartpen. More specificly the Echo 8 GB Smartpen from Livescribe.
Yes it is a bit expencive, but if you are a student like me then this tool will be a savior for you and your grades AND be an exelent adition to your RPG toolset. In fact: I bought this to help me with my studies, but I use it every roleplaying session we have to record the game. I used to record everything on paper, every little detail, while gaming, but it took a lot of time and sometimes we just didn't have time to write down everything. After a while my notes looked like something taken out of a garbage pile. Post-its, papers, note books, character sheets, dice, pens, pencils, rubbers and small notes all jumbled up in a huge mess, so when I bought myself a smartpen and started using it to record everything my large pile of roleplaying gear was reduced down to the following items:
My Echo pen and a dedicated A4 notebook with smartpaper.
My box of dice
A pamphlet containing the character sheet, spell sheet and other important info (including item record sheet and bank holdings etc. all acording to wich character I am playing)
A pad og post-its to record HP and other changing stats.
And that's it at the gaming table. In my home office I have a dedicated binder with all my previous notes sorted by date and organized (well ... sorta).
So, more about the pen and roleplaying:
As I said earlier I record everything during roleplaying sessions. I start the recording after we have settled down at the table and pause it every time we take a break, and finally stop recording when the xp have been given and we all say goodbye. When I then sit down to go over the session later, I can take out the notebook and look at the notes I did last session and replay what was said as I wrote. This is especially usefull when it comes to descriptions of places, people etc. When the DM (my husband) mentions a place or person etc. I make a note of the name and make a bracket ([xxxxx]) around it. This way I can go back and listen to the description again later if I forget who/how the person/place were, and I don't have to look through a lot of hurridly written notes to do so.
I can then connect it to my computer and load the notes and assosiated audio onto my HDD. And then I can edit, listen to, revise and send the files to the others in the group that want them. In the group with Mrs. L I send all my audio (only audio) files to her after the sessions are over. I might have to edit some of them later to remove bits where her character was away (and she was out smoking or something other). Then she uses them to record her characters version of the event, and to keep track of the items and valuables she got before we session again.
I could go on and on about how usefull the Sartpen is, but I shal cut myself of here and say adieu for now. But I strongly recomend checking it out.
Still here when you come back
Mrs. K
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