D&D session notes template
A session log template that survives a real campaign, plus five more for session zero, NPCs, locations, quests and player characters. Copy one, download one, or take all six as a single Markdown file.
Plain Markdown, so they paste into Obsidian, Notion, a Google Doc or anything else. Free, no account, no email.
What happened, who they met, what they took, and what is still open.
# Session Log: [Date]
## Summary
A brief, one or two-paragraph summary of the key events that occurred during the session.
---
## Key Events
- **Event 1:** Description of the first major event.
- **Event 2:** Description of the second major event.
- **Event 3:** And so on...
## NPCs Encountered
- [[NPC Name]]: Briefly describe the interaction.
- [[Another NPC]]: What happened with them?
## Loot & Rewards
- 500 Gold Pieces
- 1x Potion of Healing
- [[Magic Sword]]
## Notes & Loose Ends
- The party decided to head towards [[New Location]].
- They still haven't figured out the mystery of the [[Strange Amulet]].
- A question that was left unanswered.Plain Markdown — it pastes into Obsidian, Notion, a Google Doc or anything else. These are the same templates Dungeon Ledger creates notes from, so starting a campaign there gives you them already wired up, with [[links]] that resolve to real notes.
The template
The session log, in full
# Session Log: [Date]
## Summary
A brief, one or two-paragraph summary of the key events that occurred during the session.
---
## Key Events
- **Event 1:** Description of the first major event.
- **Event 2:** Description of the second major event.
- **Event 3:** And so on...
## NPCs Encountered
- [[NPC Name]]: Briefly describe the interaction.
- [[Another NPC]]: What happened with them?
## Loot & Rewards
- 500 Gold Pieces
- 1x Potion of Healing
- [[Magic Sword]]
## Notes & Loose Ends
- The party decided to head towards [[New Location]].
- They still haven't figured out the mystery of the [[Strange Amulet]].
- A question that was left unanswered.Why this shape
Five headings, and why each earns its place
Summary is written for the person who missed the session. One or two paragraphs, no detail, no dice. If you only ever write this section, the notes are still worth keeping — and on a bad week it is the only section you should feel obliged to fill in.
Key events is the spine. Bullets, not prose, because you are writing this at eleven at night and prose is where session logs go to die. Three to six bullets is the right size; if you have fifteen, you are transcribing rather than summarising.
NPCs encountered is the section that pays off latest and largest. Six weeks from now somebody will ask "who was the woman at the docks?" and this is the only record. Write the name and one clause about what happened — that is enough.
Loot and rewards exists because it is the one thing players will independently remember differently from you, and the disagreement always surfaces at the worst moment.
Notes and loose ends is what makes the log useful before next session, not only after it. It is your prep list: the thread they pulled, the door they did not open, the promise they made.
Making it stick
The habit, not the format
Identical structure every week is the whole trick. When every log has the same five headings, writing one stops being composition and becomes filling in a form — and reading thirty of them becomes possible, because you know where to look.
Write it the same evening, or hand the job to a player. A rotating scribe works better than a DM who means to write it up on Wednesday, and players notice details you were too busy running the game to register.
Ten minutes is the budget. A log that takes forty minutes gets written three times and then never again, and a campaign with three logs is worse than one with thirty short ones.
Beyond the file
Where a Markdown template stops working
A template solves the blank page. It does not solve the two problems that actually kill campaign notes, and it is worth being clear about that before you commit to a folder of .md files.
The first is that the notes are in one person’s app. If they live in the DM’s vault, the players never read them, and when that person misses a week the record has a hole in it. A template does not change who can see the file.
The second is retrieval. Thirty session logs in a folder is thirty documents; you cannot ask them who the party met in the port city, because nothing connects an NPC in session four to the same NPC in session nineteen. That is what the [[NPC Name]] links in these templates are for — in a plain folder they are decoration, and in a tool that resolves them they become the map of your campaign.
Common questions
- What should a D&D session log include?
- A short summary for whoever missed it, three to six bullets of key events, the NPCs met with one clause each, loot gained, and the loose ends you want to pick up next time. Anything more and the log stops getting written.
- Are these templates free to use?
- Yes, for anything — home games, published material, whatever you like. They are plain Markdown with no restrictions and no email required to download them.
- Will these work in Obsidian or Notion?
- Yes. They are standard Markdown, so they paste straight into Obsidian, Notion, a Google Doc or any text editor. The [[double bracket]] links are Obsidian-style and will resolve there, and in Dungeon Ledger.
- Who should write the session notes?
- Whoever will actually do it every week. A rotating player scribe usually beats the DM, because the DM is the busiest person at the table and players catch details the person running the game missed.
- How long should session notes take to write?
- About ten minutes. That is the budget the structure is designed around — a log that takes forty minutes gets written a few times and then abandoned, and a campaign with three logs is worse off than one with thirty short ones.
More free tools
- Encounter difficulty calculatorHow hard is this fight? Easy to deadly under the 2014 DMG, or low to high under the 2024 rules.
- XP split calculatorDivide an encounter’s XP across the party, and see how close that lands them to levelling.
- Travel time calculatorHow long a journey takes by pace, terrain and hours per day — with forced march rules.
- CR calculatorWork out a homebrew monster’s challenge rating from its defences and its damage output.
Keep reading
- How to take D&D session notesWhat to record during a session, and how to keep it worth reading later.
- The five-thing session logThe reasoning behind this structure, at length.
- What to write down in session zeroWhich agreements are worth a record, and who should be able to change them.
- Building a campaign wikiHow linked notes turn thirty session logs into something you can search.
A template is the easy part
The hard part is everyone using the same one, and the notes still being findable in month six. That is what Dungeon Ledger does — these templates, shared with your table, linked together. Free to start.
Create your campaign