Records

Accounting.

If there's anything that is seen as a watchword for not fun, it is having to keep track of fun things.  Yet as much as both players and DM complain about this thankless aspect of a complicated, content-rich game, there are aspects about it that can't be ignored.

My best and most appreciated players have always been those who will dig in and create some kind of control framework for their equipment, their skills and abilities ... and for all those little details about places and people that help keep track of where they've been and who they know.  It is a particular kind of person ~ not based on their personality type, as many people believe, but based on having learned through experience that there is a benefit to keeping track of things.

Allow me to give an everyday example, one that might apply to anyone.  How long has it been since you've misplaced your keys?  Or your glasses?  How long has it been since you've locked yourself out of your house?  Or had to have a particular paper for some official that you misplaced and can't find?  How long has it been since you let your phone run completely dead?  Or failed to get the oil changed on your car?  Or run out of gas?  When was the last time you forgot to pay your phone bill, your mortgage or your car payment?

Some reading this will be able to say, "Last night.  Last week.  I did that Tuesday."

And others will say, "Oh, jeez ... years."

Let me explain that.  All those things above suck if they're not controlled.  Over time, a lot of time for some folks, it is just such a hassle to call the bank or call the insurance company, or stagger around the house looking for keys and other assorted things, they learn to take steps to stop it.  The keys go in a bowl by the front door.  The glasses go into their case at night, which goes into the drawer next to the bed, and always on the same side of the drawer.  We write notifications on email servers to make sure we pay the bills, and we set a day and a time to sit down and do all those things we don't want to do, so we're not doing them on the fly.

Some people call that "being adult," because they can remember their fathers and mothers doing it; because their parents seemed to think it was such a big deal.  Trust me, your father locked himself out of his car.  Your mother has run out of gas at a bad time.  At some point, it became more important for them to prevent those things than it was to just let shit ride, because letting shit ride seemed easier.

People who have learned these lessons, whom we call "responsible," get picked as the people to organize the schedule for this season's little league games.  They're people who get comfort knowing that shit is worked out in advance.  That it is prepared.  That the tables are made, that the caterer's have been called, that Aunt Judy's flight for the wedding will be on time.  Some of us will call that "anal;" or we will call these people, "worry warts."  And sometimes these people will get a bit too controlling; they will try to control everything ~ not just the lost papers and the damage deposit for the hall so that the reading or the dance will take place.  Sometimes these people can get positively aggravating, bossy even, when the world does not work according to the set principles of their clip-boards.

We've met these people, and sometimes been under their thumbs ~ particularly in school, am I right?  And that sets a loop in our heads that says, "Don't ever make me like that!  I never, ever want to be that guy with the clipboard.  I never want to be the sort of person who shouts at my kid to wear his coat.  I want to be relaxed.  I want to be fun."

One day, your kid will come home sick from school; really, really sick.  One day, when everything is on the line, having that clipboard is going to save your ass.  Then you're going to understand.  Then you're going to become one of those people.

I ... think that gets us on the same page.

Let's say you're a DM.  Let's say the players step into a tavern in the little town of Rankin, where they meet in important contact.  It's going to occur to you that you should give the tavern a name.  And that the contact should have a name.  So you shoot one out and you don't write it down.

Does it matter?  That's your first hurdle.  A lot of readers will think it doesn't, not really.  I mean, the players are probably never coming back to this town, and the contact is probably a one-off too.  Hell, we forget people's names all the time in real life, don't we?  And we don't remember every shit-piss bar we've been in throughout our lives.  So we can answer fairly, it doesn't matter.

I was 11 in 1975.  My parents took us down to California to see Disneyland, and then we drove up to visit Sequoia national park.  Outside the park, there's a little town called Three Rivers; and in that town, in 1975, there was a restaurant/bar called Ardfarkle's Grub & Grog.  Telling the name just now, I didn't need to look it up.  It was right there, poking at me, the moment I thought, "think of a memorable bar."  There was something ... really different about it.  I remember the food was good; I remember the interior was all log cabin wood and such; but hell, I was eleven.  What did I know about food, or anything really?  Though yes, even then, I could have drawn a map of California from memory if asked.

I found this online:

And this link, which is a bit creepy, because in an earlier paragraph, before I thought of Ardfarkles, I happened to use the name "Judy."  Synchronicity.

Little things matter.  You may pretend they don't, you may sluff them off, but that's only because you haven't learned enough in your life to realize that the smallest, most trivial things are also those things that pull our lives together.  I remember so little about that California trip; we were only a day at Sequoia N.P. and mostly I only remember the trees.  But I can reach back in my memory and tag something that ~ at the time ~ I never expected I would ever be able to touch again.

Our forebears kept voluminous diaries because they learned that keeping track of these small things that happened so long ago helps enrich our lives.  That is why we write it down.  Someone asks  me, how do I keep track of all this information so that it can be retrieved later if the party ever comes back?

Write it down.  Write it down as you come up with it in the middle of the session, or try to make notes after the game is over.  You won't remember everything, but you'll get better at it with practice and you'll find it gives your game dimensions you haven't encountered.  If you can't write it down, point to your most studious player and say, "You, write that down!  You'll need it later."  You'll find they will.  And when you need that information later, you'll find you can get it back from your player.

You can call it accounting if you like; it is certainly record keeping.  If you need it to be cool, then think of it as recording History.  That's what you're doing.  The books we occasionally read about explorers and pioneers, saying what they did and what they ate on a particular day, that's what history is built on.  You're keeping your own account, making your own diary.  And in the process, building a culture that will envelop your players and your world.

It's effort to do that.  It's remembering to drop your house keys into the bowl and getting your car serviced, and calling your mother on Mother's Day.  These little things add up.  These things make our lives better.  You may be young and unable to see that now ~ but you will see that.  You'll see.