How to record, transcribe and remember your D&D sessions
Practical, tool-agnostic advice on recording your sessions, keeping notes that survive the week, and remembering what happened last time — written for people running Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop RPGs.
How to record your D&D session so the audio is actually usable
Where to put the mic at a real table, how to record Discord and Zoom games, cheap gear that helps, and what good enough session audio actually means.
· 11 min read
How to Take Notes During a D&D Session Without Wrecking the Game
A working note system for DMs: what to capture mid-session, what can wait, the one-line-per-beat method, player scribes, and the 10-minute post-game dump.
· 10 min read
How to Write a D&D Session Recap Your Players Will Actually Read
A short, practical method for D&D session recaps: previously-on framing, what to cut, how to hide reveals, a worked example, and a skeleton you can copy.
· 10 min read
How to Remember What Happened Last Session (and Rebuild a Campaign You've Lost the Thread Of)
Forgot what happened last session? A practical system for D&D campaign memory: what to record, how to rebuild lost context, how to restart after a break.
· 8 min read
How to Record and Transcribe a D&D Session on Discord
Recording an online D&D game on Discord end to end: which bot or capture method to use, per-speaker tracks, and turning four hours into a transcript.
· 9 min read
Recording your D&D game with Craig, the Discord bot that gives you one file per player
How to record a D&D session with Craig: the /join and /stop flow, which export format to pick, what the per-speaker files are, and the consent talk first.
· 8 min read
Using Whisper to transcribe a D&D session, and where it falls down
Whisper is free, open source and good at speech. It is bad at invented names and does not label speakers. What to do about both.
· 4 min read
Recording your game: consent, the law, and the conversation to have first
Whether you need everyone’s permission to record a session, why an online game complicates it, and how to actually raise it with your table.
· 3 min read
What it actually costs to transcribe a four-hour D&D session
Rev, Otter, Notta, Fireflies, OpenAI Whisper and DM Scribe priced for one four-hour session and a weekly campaign — real math, sourced and dated.
· 4 min read
The best way to transcribe a D&D session depends on who you are
Every real way to turn a four-hour, six-voice session into text, ranked by use case — publishing, meetings, DIY Whisper, human-grade. We make one of them.
· 3 min read
Recording a D&D session on Zoom, including the per-player audio trick
Zoom can hand you one audio file per player, but only on local recordings and only if you turn it on first. Set it up before session one.
· 5 min read
Recording a Foundry VTT session when Foundry does not record
Foundry has built-in voice chat but no recording. Here is what its A/V actually is, and the three ways tables capture audio around it.
· 4 min read
Recording a D&D session on Roll20, which has no record button
Roll20 has no built-in recording — not even of its own voice chat. The two setups that actually work (Discord + a bot, or OBS), and the mistakes to skip.
· 3 min read
How long should D&D prep take, and where the time actually goes
Surveyed DMs split almost evenly between an hour and three-plus per session. The useful question is not how long, but what the hour buys.
· 5 min read
Where to go next
- DM Scribe compared to the other campaign tools
World Anvil, Kanka, LegendKeeper, Obsidian, Otter and the two direct competitors, with current prices and the date we checked them.
- What DM Scribe actually does
Transcription, recaps, the campaign wiki, the relationship graph and asking questions of your own campaign.
- Whether it fits how you play
Actual-play shows, paid DMs, west-marches tables, Daggerheart and Pathfinder 2e.
- Pricing
Three plans, what each hour limit really buys, and what stays free.