You'd Best Be Taking Notes, Son.

In the on-going effort to be the least cool member of the GWJ Old Man's Club, I've recently found myself diving back into Fallout New Vegas with a notebook in hand, pausing to jot down notes as I'm piecing together the plot. Clues, locations to explore, and bits of lore to follow-up on all get written down, with an eye towards supplementing the in-game journal rather than replacing it.

Contrary to my initial expectations, it's not a chore. In fact, my hastily scrawled notes -- "man in checkered suit went to Nipton after stopping by Primm...why?" -- are increasing my sense of immersion. Instead of just having a blip on my map, I have context. If I put the game down for a month and then return, I have a chronological list of things I was interested in to refer back to. I can see not only what the game wanted me to do, but also what I was interested in following up on. There was a time when this would have been standard practice; I still recall writing down copious amounts of information when playing Wizardry (1!), or drawing out a map in Zork. While map-making is not something I pine for, taking notes seem far less laborious.

Has anyone else put pen to paper while playing, especially in a modern game? It's not appropriate for all titles, sure, but for sprawling open-world games I think the spiral-bound college-rule may once again have its place on my gaming shelf.

I keep a small note pad near my desk for solving puzzles in games, does that count?

I used to do that a lot for adventure games, as I think a lot of people did. My big-box copy of Myst included a large, well-printed "Myst Journal" that was like 64 lined, blank pages. It was great. Not so much anymore, though. I like the idea; I'll bet you're right about increased immersion.

I still have my Wizardry graph paper maps and Ultima IV notebook. When I look back at my pre-teen scribblings for Ultima, they now look like the fevered ramblings of a madman

Nowadays I'll jot a few notes in Wordpad here and there.

Wow, I wish I had the patience to do that. I guess that's why I always forget what I was doing if I leave a game for a couple of weeks : /

I always have one of my tablets close to hand for notes when playing a game of any length, but, then, I have the memory of an amnesiac goldfish.

I did an in-character "diary" a while back while playing Morrowind and doing things like that do raise immersion. I'd do more, but I just don't have the time anymore.

Part of it wound up on-line, but I never finished it.

I'm re-running through Fallout 3 (never made it past Arefu before something glittery caught my eye); maybe I'll try this. Sounds like good stuff.

I commonly keep lists and occasionally spreadsheets for any game more common than Mario, but it's mostly on my laptop. The only real time I break out pen and paper is for maps.

You guys never heard of "Tablet PCs"?!

I do this for puzzle adventure games and/or morrowind.

I still have the notes for my unfinished game of Grim Fandango.

Remembering the usual scrawl of notes everywhere after finishing an adventure or RPG game, the thought occurs: what must a person's desk look like after making one?

All the time. I'd never get through a jRPG without it.

Malor wrote:

what must a person's desk look like after making one?

A paper version of Wikipedia? Or that crazy sticky note web future Hiro made in Season 1 of Heroes.

Recently I have ended up with pages of notes from piecing together the story of Analogue: A Hate Story, while solving puzzles in La-Mulana, and while trying to keep track of how to assemble some complicated fusion chains in Persona 3. I often kept notes on the names and prices of items for a particular champion while I was learning how to play LoL several years ago.

Oh, yes, especially with Bethesda games. I filled more than one notebook playing Morrowind, and despite all the improvements to the in-game journal, still found paper notes useful in Skyrim.

Pen plus whatever scrap of paper is around, or alt+tab and notepad.exe

I remember mapping out one of the old school Bard's tale games and having to fit pieces together jigsaw puzzle style because teleporters. When all the walls look exactly the same, teleporters are dicks. fact.

You pretty much need to take notes when doing Investigation Missions in The Secret World if you want to have any hope of solving them without cheating.

Probably the first time I've taken notes in a game since my days of mapping out Vvardenfell in Morrowind. It's one of the reasons I absolutely adore The Secret World.

I still do, often with a notebook or alt+tab (Secondary monitors are good for that.). Which is weird, since I have a very odd medium-long term memory. Sthillary has used my encyclopedic memory for games I like to her advantage many times.

I kept a Skyrim journal, because the ingame journal was haggis.

While it was good to keep track of things and remind myself of stuff to go back to, not every recorded detail led to a deeper understanding of the world

There was one dungeon with a chest in front of a statue at the end of a corridor. The chest contained a note that mentioned a bunch of things that the goddess (presumably the statue) desired as a sacrifice in order to open the door. I took this to mean that I had to put stuff in the chest that fit the clues in the note and was stuck for hours putting stuff in there, expecting a door to open, then going out and looking for other stuff. Considering one of the clues was an emotion, it was hard to know what was required.

After a few hours, I gave up and turned to the internet for the answer. Turns out there was a chain behind the statue that opened the door.

Anyway, I reckon F:NV would reward note-taking, as Obsidian arre pretty good at dropping clues and lore around as dots for you to join.

I'm interested in knowing if taking notes holds up through all of New Vegas.

garion333 wrote:

I'm interested in knowing if taking notes holds up through all of New Vegas.

Same here. I've drifted in and out of NV more than once; I blame the 130 hours of Fallout 3 for my fatigue, and intentionally set the game aside without ever really digging in as a result. Now, I'm playing from scratch, on Very Hard/Hardcore, on the 360 (so as to avoid any mod distraction). So far, so good.

I always keep a notebook on my desk mainly for this reason, and I have filled out multiple with things that would only make sense to me. I will put small reminders for myself before I close whatever game I'm playing for the night, or make a list of specific things I missed that I need to do to satisfy the completionist in me. Depending on the game, I'll also draw out simple maps.
I could tab out and type my notes I suppose, but I greatly enjoy writing things by hand as well as doodling during cutscenes.

I almost always take notes on games I am "seriously" playing. I like to know what I was doing since I can go a long time between sessions. Quest logs in RPGs are a lot better than the used to be but still don't get to the level of detail I like. Long-form strategy games almost require this, since sitting and playing through Crusader Kings 2 or Victoria 2, say, in one sitting just ain't gonna happen. Without notes, firing up a game in progress is just weird.

Chronic note taker, if the story permits it of course (no scraps of paper for Forza)!

Spoiler:

Actually, that is a lie, reading back, I remembered I did keep notes of the cars I still needed to buy for the 'acquisition' achievements, so I could track and bargain hunt them in the Auction House.

This has dropped a little with the acquisition of the iPad, as most of my notes were things I would read on FAQs on screen, in another room, then compare to my own notes.

It seems we are not alone, I'm looking forward to giving the Dragon Shout App a trial when I finally dig back into Bethesda World with Skyrim, probably in the new year.

I have a bunch of post-its with Minecraft coords scribbled on them.

I'm also playing Fallout: New Vegas now. I'm not sure why I wasn't keeping notes of my own, because I certainly played my share of RPGs in the '90's that really made doing it necessary. I was in Vault 11 last night rather frustrated because you can download recordings into your Pip-Boy, but not notes you find on computers. You need both to piece together the situation in that vault. Time to pull out the notebook! BTW that quest was well constructed. I suspected what the situation was about halfway through, but needed all of the details to put it all together. The visual details were very effective.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I have a bunch of post-its with Minecraft coords scribbled on them.

I did the same with SWG coords and graduated to a small notebook. Only time i've bothered though.