Hey folks,
I constantly struggle with organizing my prep-notes for cosmic horror games. I feel like some of my notes are obsolete while others are not detailed enough. But this develops into a rabbit hole. Hence I want to “reset my mindset”.
I know some of you guys run cosmic horror games. How do you organize your notes? What notes do you take? What do you leave out to improvise at the table?
Happy Holidays!
Cheers
glocke
Got an example of your notes for use to look over and figure out where we can offer practical advice?
Mystery investigation RPG adventures, like mystery fiction stories, tend to be the most highly structured examples of their genre and format. There are a lot of “moving parts” behind the scenes for the gamemaster to orchestrate in order to create an atmospheric and challenging environment for discovery for the players and their characters.
My most important prep for Call of Cthulhu-style cosmic horror investigation adventures consists of fairly detailed timetables of NPC actions and world events, usually organized at their top level by in-game day. If a bad guy has a nefarious plan to unleash evil, it can usually be broken down into steps and phases. The PCs’ relative success or failure in uncovering and spoiling the villain’s plan is usually a matter not only of intervention but also of timing.
Hand in hand with the timing of events in mystery investigations is the discovery of clues and key information. It is useful for GMs to prepare multiple sources and means for the players to discover significant in-game truths that will help them on their quest and provide context and gravity for the actions they take within the story. A team of investigators can miss an important clue early on owing to player choices but uncover the same information later on in the game through other means, leaving the PCs with less time to act to achieve their goal or with irrevocable story consequences as the result of revelation later in the timetable. Therefore, these ideas are good for the savvy mystery GM to prep in advance.
HTH… 
I know that you adhere to the two-page-spread method of session prep so maximalists like me would simply reply: increase descriptions, be verbose, purple your prose. 
Jokes aside though: if two pages are all the space you have, you have to be extremely concise with your notes.
Templates help a lot, so every little bit of text falls into one pre-defined category. Formatting text also helps to visually distinguish things (I think you already do this with underlining things that will be handouts).
Here’s some brainstormy ideas for possible templates and some examples.
Places are pretty straightforward, I think.
Before we get into the template for NPCs, some quick preamble. There’s of course the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template and the Advanced NPC Roleplaying Template by Justin Alexander, but they might take up too much space. I also found a post on Reddit for Note-Card NPCs which seems much more suitable. Condensing that even further we get something like:
If I remember correctly, you already use a Mythos World-template for how you structure your session notes in general, so one of the categories is for mysteries. I don’t know if those profit from rigid structure, but what I’m thinking of looks like that:
How would this look in practice and will it all fit onto a two-page-spread? I can only answer the first question.
Orphanage: dilapidated building with iron barred windows; earthy + damp, howling wind; door is locked
Arthur: timid, nervous, weird; logic, curiosity, supernatural; carries bones of birds in satchel; wants to find his dead parents
People disappear: townsfolk are worried, someone close to PCs has vanished, mayor suspects butcher; PCs find children drawings, hear children laughing without seeing children, find newspaper about orphanage; ghost of orphans kidnap adults to have them be their parents
I break my notes into 5 main sections:
1. The Truth
This is the full reveal of the story and events and it usually takes about a paragraph. Often players will never get all of this, but it helps me as a compass.
2. What’s Known
This is the catalytic event, why PCs are drawn into the events. A murder, disappearance, strange lights in the sky, whatever. It’s the loose thread that sets PCs upon the unraveling of the mystery. I like to start my players here, media res.
Here I may also jot down the progression of events that occur if the players do nothing. Because often these games are a race against time this list of events helps me to keep tension and pace.
3. Clues (Treats)
Regarding clues, the game is not about players finding clues. It’s about the clues finding the players. Clues are needed to move the game forward so shouldn’t be hidden, the clues need to move to the foreground so PCs can find them.
I’ll jot down a bunch of different clues that either a) reveal a bit of the whole tapestry, or b) give players needed info to move forward. With each clue I’ll notate about 3 potential Cast or Locations these clues can be found. Because clues need to find the players, I may need to move them around in the game.
I may, for example, have a clue inside a tome for a PC to read but in reading it there’s a risk of sanity loss. If the PC accepts that risk, I’ll make that Clue a big one or reveal several clues since they too the risk… big risk gets big rewards. But, if PC s choose not to take the risk I be sure to reveal that clue somewhere else, too, but I may not have it as big a reveal as if they had took the risk. Clues are looking for the players.
4. Cast
Jot down several NPCs that players may encounter along with the NPC’s Likes, Dislikes, and Agenda. I may even scribble down a sentence or two that they might say as a means for me to get a grip on how they act in-game.
With each NPC, I may also jot down the Clues that may have, or the Locations they may be fond or have access to.
5. Locations
A list of cool and/or essential setting locations along with the Clues and Cast that may be found there, along with any threats (monsters, traps, sanity). I’ll note interesting atmosphere elements of the locations, too.
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Basically, I’m really just jotting down clues and how they could be found and events as they may occur if they aren’t found in time.
For something like a mystery that the PCs could be romping around in and going from place to place looking for people, a map of connections is going to be important. A connection map of NPCs that connect to other NPCs and Locations. Hank’s “circle method” helps make those easier to represent and keep it concise. I don’t know if he came up with the idea or not. Draw connections between a few NPCs, and make the notes. Same with locations. That way, an NPC isn’t tied to a specific Location if need be.
Like Chris said, a timeline of events that is loosely held to helps figure out the Grim Portents (taken from Dungeon World’s Fronts and Mythic Bastionland’s Myths+Omens). As your PCs progress (or fail) through the story, events take place from your Grim Portents or Omens.
Depending on the size of your notebook page, A5, Composition, A4, you can make the notes as detailed as you want, but picking a trope or archetype for your NPCs will help you reduce the amount of specifics you need to write down, leaving the bullets to the unique things about them. Same with Locations.
Well, here’s how I go about things:
I really like investigations, but to run one well I need to know what happened before and how this all reach the players. So, to the ICRPG WORLDS template I have added this category: Past to present. I use bullet points just like in the original template. Starting with the initial situation, I just go through telling a story that must cascade down to a quest giver or to the players directly. So the last bullet point is my adventure hook.
With that, you should have a pretty good idea of where your players begin the adventure, the obstacles in their way, and where they must go to win as per the suggestion Location-Obstacles-Goal from your ICRPG book. If needed, add a personal and a worldly incentive for the PCs as it is always appreciated.
A very interesting article from Mindstorm Question-Based Adventure Design has thaught me how to integrate twists better in my adventures, while also changing how I go at things when writing an adventure so I highler recommend it. Ask yourself a few questions that your players might have about the key elements of your adventure and see where you can slot a few twists, unrelated but intriguing characters, and hints to other key elements.
Finally, for NPCs, I give them three bullet points as I do not need more than that to portray them:
After that, up to you to add fitting gameplay elements such as the rooms and the TTTs, but frankly you should be set.
What do you think?
Roll fun! 
