Hi. I'm struggling to organize my GM Notebook for peoplesoft. What are the sections/contents of sections you use in your GM Notebook (regardless of format) (e.g., NPC's, Session Prep, Threats, etc). If you can include a quick line abut what is in that section and the format if it's ambiguous that would be great!

Geographical maps

Glossography:  includes location description and local/dungeon maps

Demographics:  population lists, resources lists, alliances/feuds

Religion:  generally focus more on demographics than rites

Sample locations:  generic castle, village, tower, inn, etc

Generic NPCs:  one for each class level 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10, normal character generation

Named NPCs:  normal character generation

Monsters:  mostly humans, like the Conflagulators of Moran Vas

Miscellaneous

I was about the fliply answer "Session notes" and "Brainstorming", but reflecting, it's slightly more complicated than that.

Session notes has:

1) Players in attendance and a one-line summary of their character
2) Reminders
3) Quick notes of things that happened
4) Names of any NPCs or other elements I make up on the fly (so I can refer to them later)
5) Narrative after action report of the session
6) Events and time breakdown (if I found the session was taking too long so I can get a better idea of how much time is spent doing things and what to cut)

Brainstorming/prep is a little less organized, but usually has
1) events I am planning
2) NPCs
3) locations

Thank you!

Eeesh, I don't have a "notebook."  I have a milk crate.  Two of them, in fact.

In one of those crates are the system's two corebooks and the two key splatbooks I keep to hand.  Also there are three three-ring binders.  One has my price lists, one has the religion writeups, and the third is background information.

In the other milkcrate are file folders covering the following, from front to back, with dividers splitting the sections up:

* Two sections for my current two groups, each with a main folder, and one with two other folders covering key NPCs and the notes on the ongoing civil war in that nation;

* The 3-ring binder that holds my "GM screen" information;

* Maps, with folders holding local maps, district maps, regional and world maps, and a folder of situational hexmaps for tactical combat (including cutouts on hex paper drawn up for ship sizes);

* NPC folders by archetype, including generic examples;

* A folder with every PC sheet in my campaign's history for which I still have a copy (150 or so) that I use for NPCs from time to time;

* My binder of my complete adventure/XP records from 1981 forward;

* Folders of reusable blank sheets, including calendar, adventure session sheets, fortress blanks, and the like;

* My Old Adventure Stuff folder, into which I jam every handout, note, plan or scenario I ever commit to paper, much of which I recycle every decade or so.

A full campaign involves a piece of luggage worth of stuff. Often something like this:

World maps - geography of the world

Political maps - treaties and borders and so on, drawn on photocopies of the geographical maps

Data maps - other types of maps, such as elevation, climate, crops, demographics, plant/animal population distributions, historical maps, sailing maps showing sea currents / weather / trade routes, etc., depending on what crazy stuff I've detailed for the world in map format.

Map Notes - Setting information organized by what map it's on. Every named location on a map is then listed, with overview of what's there, what it's like, etc.

Cultures - All kinds of information related to cultures.

History - Chronological information, sorted by region (usually larger than maps, sometimes not for certain subjects). Includes past and near-future events, and weather records and forecasts.

Characters - Piles of NPCs who don't belong in some other file (mostly adventurers and travelers, generally not lords or shopkeeps or other stationary or highly-organiztion-aligned types), sorted into piles by where they currently are in the world.

The Dead File - Piles of sheets of dead NPCs, sorted into detailed individual NPCs, and sheets with multiple dead combatants per sheet.

Creatures - Notable monsters, beasts, other non-human entities.

Tables - All sorts of tables and charts and lists of practical useful information, sorted by type - encounter tables, loot tables, weather tables, magic item breakdown tables, combat tables, quick reference sheets for various rule systems such as medicine, travel, etc. etc.

Rules - Packets of house rules and borrowed rules

Nation files - Explanations of nations and what goes on in them, who the major players are, yearly events, struggles, conflicts, problems, etc.

Military - Details for the military organizations of the world.

Religion - Usually several folders, one per religion, describing what there is to describe about them, from theory to organization, locations, member populations, histories and current events/conflicts, artifacts, magic, nonhuman entities, etc.

Cities/Towns/Villages/Hamlets - Maps, data, characters who stay in cities, market info, garrisons, etc.

Locations - Details of other locations (ruins, temples, guild halls, wizard's towers, mines, forts, caverns, etc). Maps, maps notes, characters who are always there, reoccurring events, random encounters, etc.

Magic - Spells, magical school curriculums, spell knowledge proliferation, magic marketplaces, guilds, orders, laws, etc.

Legal - Legal system notes - often put next to map notes and culture notes.

Heraldry - Flags, insignia, symbols, heraldry.

Economy - Economic notes, what's available where, prices, merchant, production, consumption, coin, coffers, etc.

Guilds/Organizations - Details of guilds and major organizations such as Wizard's Guild, Merchant/Crafter Guilds, Clubs, Academic organizations, spy rings, crime organizations, martial orders, etc.

Parties - Files for PC parties and relevant stuff pulled from other files for their current situation. Notes on where they buried stuff, whom they killed, robbed, befriended, impregnated, offended, etc.

Special Effects - GM-made maps and documents that represent in-game maps & documents etc. Also illustrations and pictures showing what things look like.

Battle Maps - Hexmaps (or hexless sheets to be laid under hex transparencies) used to play out combats using tactical combat, and/or later used for studying scenes of violence after they were played out. Range/LOS rulers. Transparencies. Blank hexes. Battle mats.

Counters - Cardboard counters used rather than miniatures for tactical combat. Other cardboard counters used to represent military units in large battles. Counters for fire, smoke, dropped weapons, wagons, animals, furniture, doors, etc.

Notes - Notes and notebooks used to pass private messages between players & GM during play. Also logs of what happened in play.

Obsolete - File full of papers that aren't useful any more because they were replaced, don't apply, were worksheets or bad ideas or whatever.

Skarg reminded me of the OTHER stuff hanging around my GM's chair ...

Under the aforementioned two milk crates is another milk crate (this one one of those old fashioned solid wood ones with a tin bottom and tin reinforcements).  That one has my miniatures collection, or most of it, anyway.

I keep my nation/city stuff in separate three-ring binders, and a bookshelf in my study is needed to hold them all.  My two groups are paying attention to three of those binders, which are on the floor to the right of my chair.

Thanks

I don't have a GM's notebook.

Note? Book?

What manner of deviltry is this?

In all seriousness I just bring relevant rules materials and some handwritten notes loosely organized into places, people, and things with some randomization charts thrown in.

Names. Names for wizards, for nations, for cities, etc.

Lots of drawings and sketches.

Little one or two-page adventures, both complete and incomplete.