# Obsidian - World Building Notes vs DM Notes ![[images/Obsidian-World-Building-Notes-vs-DM-Notes.webp]] [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAGD4Yo6WFk) · 19:31 · Josh Plunkett · 2024-02-05 ## Outline ### 00:00 Introduction - Josh says this one isn't a technical lesson; he just wants to share thoughts from his years as a dungeon master. ### 00:06 Worldbuilding vs DM notes - Over the years he has met two distinct communities of note takers: **world builders** and **dungeon masters**. As a young DM he didn't know the difference and thought he needed notes on absolutely everything. - He opens his vault's map of the **Sword Coast**, the first setting he ran and something he has tinkered with since his first month as a DM. He scraped books "of all sorts" so that whichever way the players turned, he'd have a note on what and who was there. - Fifteen-odd years later he reckons he has used maybe **3%** of it, and not even in the format he wrote it in, since he mostly ran modules. - He still likes having it, because writing notes is how he *learns* a place before taking the party through it, not because he uses those notes at the table. - Example: his note for **Hulsa** (the city where the party had a big session) holds government types, groups, churches, criminal organisations, population breakdowns, imports and exports, much of it from the wiki, and almost none of it will ever be used. - His worry: new DMs building their own worlds believe they must write notes like this before they can roll dice. He doesn't think that's true. ![[images/Obsidian-World-Building-Notes-vs-DM-Notes-t0145.webp]] *The Sword Coast map in Josh's vault (01:45).* ![[images/Obsidian-World-Building-Notes-vs-DM-Notes-t0350.webp]] *A highly detailed town note, much of it sourced from the wiki (03:50).* ### 03:29 Essential town notes - Example from running **Tyranny of Dragons** loosely as a travel campaign, with the party constantly moving from town to town. - You don't need every NPC or business in a town. Players want a few categories of things: a place to **sleep**, a place to **eat** (usually the same inn in that era; "I'm pretty sure they didn't have McDonald's in Shadowdale"), and a place to **shop**. ### 06:11 Managing shops and items - Josh dislikes free-form shopping sessions where players hop between shops in Neverwinter hunting for one item. - Saying "yes, it's for sale" on the fly can break balance: three sessions later you realise a magic item has wrecked the game. Travel and communication items in particular can break the flow of a campaign. - He pre-lists what each shop sells, which fits the limited supply of the era and is less stressful at the table. He can share the shop note with players: "this is what's for sale; it's a small town, buy what you need, let's move on." - Players will always find a way to break whatever you give them, but a little control helps. ### 08:23 Creating practical NPCs - Beyond eat, sleep and shop, he adds an encounter. His real **Shadowdale** prep note was mostly ideas jotted down, with other notes pinned in for quick reference. - His NPC notes are often bare placeholders so the name can be linked, not his detailed templates. - To run an NPC he wants a **picture** (he right-clicks to show it to players), a **name**, and a rough idea of who they are and what they can do (innkeeper, blacksmith, parent). He skips voices: "I'm terrible at voices." - The note is less for describing the NPC in the moment and more a record of what he told the players, so he can recall them six months later. - In this case the party never even got there, which is the point: players always go off track. ![[images/Obsidian-World-Building-Notes-vs-DM-Notes-t0840.webp]] *The Shadowdale prep note: ideas, pinned notes and placeholder NPC links (08:40).* ### 11:26 Avoiding prep pitfalls - Four or five places per town is largely enough; a city campaign or a guild the party will definitely visit deserves more effort. - He echoes advice from bigger DM voices: don't prep six months ahead, because players will go off track. - World builders have different needs: they document a place so a reader understands it, possibly for books, where knowing a town exports gold and imports herbs and fish can drive a story. - These tools enable "insane" depth. He admits to having notes on hardwood vs softwood and silver vs wooden spoons. Notes you'll never use only delay the real work on your campaign and your players. - Think from the players' perspective: what do they need to know, at what level of detail, and then keep the game rolling. ### 13:47 The KISS method - He made the video after Discord conversations with people stuck in a "rabbit hole", stressed and still writing town notes two days before a session. He has done the same, including ten straight hours of data entry on a camping trip, then using none of it. - His Sword Coast map looks amazing, but it's a tool for educating himself about the Forgotten Realms, not for playing. - Advice: **KISS**, "keep it simple, stupid." If five keywords at the top of a note trigger your memory so you can confidently deliver content, that's enough. Players don't want to watch you read. ![[images/Obsidian-World-Building-Notes-vs-DM-Notes-t1500.webp]] *Back on the Sword Coast map: maybe 3 to 4% of it ever used (15:00).* ### 17:09 Player-facing notes - Players don't come to the table to be handed a laptop to read. "My notes are for me," to deliver the story more efficiently. - Many people chase player-facing wikis with hidden secrets and reveals. DM notes are rarely fit for players, so a player wiki means writing two versions of each note, doubling prep for little benefit. - He'd only consider a player wiki for a play-by-post game in a world the players don't know. In the Forgotten Realms his players know more than he does. ### 18:29 Community and support - Asks viewers whether they want more rambling videos like this. - Points to obsidianttrpgtutorials.com and its Community and Support page, especially the Obsidian TTRPG Community Discord, which he says is growing fast and maturing beyond TTRPG topics. - Thanks Patreon supporters; patrons get the Obsidian TTRPG Foundation Vault with plugins preinstalled. ![[images/Obsidian-World-Building-Notes-vs-DM-Notes-t1845.webp]] *The Community and Support page on obsidianttrpgtutorials.com (18:45).* ## Things Mentioned ### Tools, websites and community - **Obsidian** (free): https://obsidian.md/ - **Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials** (free site): https://obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/ - **Obsidian TTRPG Community Discord** (free), linked from the site's Community and Support page - **Josh Plunkett's Patreon** (paid), which includes the **Obsidian TTRPG Foundation Vault**: https://www.patreon.com/JPlunkett - **Forgotten Realms wiki**, the source of much of his detailed town data ### Obsidian features used - Map-based vault navigation of the Sword Coast - Linked placeholder notes for NPCs and pinned notes inside a session prep note - Sharing a shop note with players ### TTRPG systems, settings and products - **Dungeons & Dragons** (Forgotten Realms setting): the Sword Coast, Hulsa, Shadowdale, Neverwinter - **Tyranny of Dragons** (paid D&D adventure), run loosely as a travel campaign ### Concepts - World builder vs dungeon master note taking - The eat, sleep, shop and encounter minimum for a town - Curated shop inventories to control magic items - KISS ("keep it simple, stupid") - Player-facing wikis and play-by-post games ## Bios - **Josh Plunkett**: An Australian GM and YouTuber behind Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials, known for Obsidian vault-building guides and the TTRPG Foundation Vault on Patreon. Here he reflects on 12 to 15 years of DMing, mostly in the Forgotten Realms.