Video Preview: Three Quick Tips for D&D

Showing initiative is a bane of my sessions as I use a laptop or tablet for encounter management,. I need to research if I can share part of the screen with my players or something like that. Also: I have found rolling initiative at the start of a session - before we get into any combat or even if there's no combat - speeds things up. I dress it up as 'how you're feeling today' - woke up slow-witted? or feeling just a little tired of all this spell casting and concentration? or having a bad day with distractions? - it's not a per-day-in-game roll but a per-session so the analogy isn't true, but it is appreciated and works well.

Add damage up -> mind blown! So simple, yet so effective... Why did I not think of this? I am very good at mental arithmetics, but subtracting takes a lot more energy than adding... This will reduce my mental workload by a lot!

Great tips! I really need to repair that initiative tracker I made years ago using clothpins for each player. Thanks for sharing, Mike!

All very good tips, the shared note taking works if all the players are taking notes to help for a consensus on interpretation. All too often one player becomes the secretary taking the minutes of the game, they miss one session, the information can be lost, causing the DM to spend time "ensuring" the whole party is up to speed.

I take the lazy way. I have my party keep track of monster total damage taken counting up. They like to see the total rise Great tip on using Notion for player’s note. I already use your template for prep and this item (1b). review character notes will help