My players don’t take notes and I honestly don’t care

I’ve been seeing a lot of discussions about player note taking and I thought I’d weigh in.

I’ve been running a game now with 6 of my close college friends for 2 years, and only one of the players take notes (my old roommate who homebrewed the world with me). I’ve come to realize that they are able to the remember bigger plot points, but stumble a little at when/where/if they met a certain NPC.

There are times when I say “you may wanna write this down” and they will, but outside of those small instances where I prompt them, there is generally no note taking.

At first I was a little worried, your typical, “ah shit they don’t care” and “am I doing a good enough job” but that’s just every DM having imposter syndrome at one point or another.

But that’s just not how my players play.

I realized for incredibly trivial information such as “where we met this NPC” I can just remind them, and without missing a beat, the players fall right back into the game, without the hangup of a roll. Just because the player forgets, doesn’t mean the PC does.

It’s kind of funny, they’ll forget the name of our most used NPC, and then, off the top of their dome, recall a quote a different NPC said that perfectly predicts the situation they might walk into. Or I’ll be talking with one of them outside of DND and they bring up an idea they had or a theory about the campaign.

And it’s then that reminds me the world that we created really does exist, regardless of if they write down information on a piece of paper, they still care. And that’s really all a DM can ask for. It may be heard to see, and they may not vocalize their appreciation immediately, but their willingness to continue playing is all the reassurance you need.

Not every player is looking to replicate Marisha Ray when it comes to piecing plot points together. And in my games case, that’s not where their fun comes from. AND THATS OKAY. If there’s something the players should know but because they didn’t take notes they don’t? Just tell them. Don’t dangle a set of keys in front of a door and ask them to try them all out. Don’t let it ruin the flow of play.