In the early days of the Internet, one of my Dungeon Masters did something innovative. He had one of us take notes which he used to email us a summary of that session. We had details about what happened, XP summaries, wound summaries, and a list of the treasure found.
I’m sure session summaries are fairly common to most tabletop RPG sessions now. If you’re not using them, they can really help the experience in several ways.
First, I hold off on sending a summary out until a few days before we are scheduled to play again. This serves as a reminder that we are playing and it brings the players back to where their characters are paused in the adventure. This is especially helpful if there is a large gap between sessions.
The summary also gives me an opportunity to provide any information I might have forgotten to mention while we were playing, to flesh out details (especially useful if I’m working out an encounter on the fly), or to retcon details to better suit the narrative I’m developing. With respect to that last point, I don’t make major changes, just ones that help put past or future events into context. For example, maybe a guard cries out an alarm as the fighter cuts him down even though that wasn’t mentioned during play.
Lastly, these summaries help me remember details about what happened as the campaign moves forward. I might be looking for something to do for the next encounter, review my summaries and remember that a minor villain managed to run away from a fight sometime last year. Time for her to make a reappearance with vengeance on her mind.
One of the things I like most about being a Game Master is the ability to tell a story. But this also provides me with my biggest frustration. I put time and effort into building an encounter. I know how it fits into the bigger picture. I know why an enemy is doing what they are doing. However, for the players these encounters are usually just stops along the plot path. They might figure out some of the details, but they never get the whole story.
That’s what makes other narrative styles, such as books or film, so engaging. The audience can be let in on information that characters would never get.
Recently I stumbled upon a way to give the players this information without giving away the whole plot, and it involves session summaries.
The party in my current D&D campaign are trying to build up to starting a civil war. They are looking for allies in the upcoming struggle. They happened across the Druids of the North. The druids were concerned about recent events which were the reason the party wanted to overthrow the current government. However, the Druids wanted to be sure the party’s intentions weren’t at odds with their own. They gave the party a task.
The fire giants and frost giants had gone to war. While the Druids would normally stay out of the conflict, the collateral damage from the war was having a serious impact of the lands and creatures they swore to protect. The Druids tasked the party with finding the cause of, and hopefully a way to end the war.
The players were able to discover that the fire giants were wrongfully accused of stealing a holy artifact from the frost giants. In retaliation the frost giants kidnapped the fire giant king’s daughter. The players were able to figure out through divination magic that the real culprit was a cloud giant.
The party made their way to the cloud giant city and began making inquiries, a little too obviously. The cloud giant got word and sent his henchmen to ambush the party.
I built an interesting group of henchmen. Each had their own reasons for working for the cloud giant. None was a cookie cutter character. The ambush happened. The party was victorious. All the backstory I had worked out faded into nothingness.
This is where I used the session summary to make my hard work as interesting for my players as it was for me. I told the summary from the point of view of the ambushers. I began with the cloud giant giving his henchmen their orders. I showed how the henchmen were connected to the tiefling rogue that set up the party. I was able to show that the cloud giant operated a museum and that the frost giant relic was taken to be part of the collection. I was able to explain who each of the henchmen were, and touch on why they were doing what they did. I was also able to show how each companion’s death impacted the survivors among the henchmen.
My players loved it. They told me it was one of the best summaries I ever gave them.
I’ve used that technique a few times since then. I don’t make every summary about the villains. It only happens enough to let the players in on information their characters would never get.
If you like to use summaries to keep your players up to date, I would recommend shifting the point of view once in a while. It helps give your world life and lets you tell more of the story.