Automated RPG Session Summary - How I Stopped Taking Notes in D&D

---

My Note-Taking Broke Down

I used to think I could keep up. Bit of scrap paper, notes in the margin of the module, maybe a spreadsheet for "important" stuff. Total lie. After three sessions I couldn't remember half the names, let alone what the hell we were doing in some cursed mine. Every campaign, same story: chaos in the moment, silence a week later. I'd ask "Wait, who was that wizard again?" and get five different answers or just blank looks.

Writing stuff down mid-session was a disaster. You can't roll, talk, improvise voices and jot legible notes all at once. I'd scribble something like "Joren - thief? maybe?" then weeks later wonder if Joren was even real. Timeline? Gone. Scene order? Wrong. NPCs? Merged into one big shopkeeper blob.

Re-listening to session audio was worse. Four hours of people talking over each other, with me hoping to catch one useful line buried between snack chat and arguing about spell slots. My ADHD just said "nah." I never made it past the first 10 minutes.

I tried outsourcing it to a player once. They bailed after one session. Said it was like homework. Fair. They didn't sign up to be a scribe.

So I gave up and built something that could just listen. That's it. Something to hear what happened, write it down properly, and pull out the good stuff. I didn't want perfect. I wanted usable.

I built CharGen's Session Summariser so I could stop juggling a dice in one hand and a pen in the other, and just play. And weirdly, it worked. First time we used it, I ran the audio through it after the game, and next morning I had a clean transcript, plot summary, key NPC list, and even a timeline of events.

Now I don't take notes. I don't need to. I just hit record, and deal with it later with AI doing the boring part for me.

Meet CharGen AI Session Summariser

CharGen's Session Summariser is a tool I made for people like me. DMs mostly, but players can use it too. It's a web app. You drop your audio in, or paste a YouTube or Google Drive link, and that's it. It chews through the session and gives you all the important stuff back.

It doesn't just transcribe the words. It splits who said what, adds speaker names (if you want), and shows it in proper dialogue blocks. You can scan through like it's a movie script.

Then it pulls out all the big bits: places you visited, NPCs you met, weird events that came up, key moments in the story. There's a proper full recap in paragraph form, a short one-liner summary, and a timeline of the whole session with timestamps.

If you're playing in-person, just record the session with your phone. If online, you can rip the audio straight from Discord or Zoom. Doesn't matter how janky the file is, the tool handles it. I've thrown in 5-hour sessions full of background noise and it still gave me back something readable.

You can edit anything. Fix speaker names. Remove useless filler. Add your own notes alongside the AI's guesses. And it all gets saved to your campaign automatically. You don't need to mess with files or folders or anything.

I didn't build this to be flashy. I built it because I needed it. And now I just use it every session without thinking. It saves me time, keeps my players in the loop, and finally lets me run long campaigns without forgetting what happened 3 months ago.

Audio In, Structured Data Out

You give it audio, it gives you a breakdown. That's it.

First step is transcription. CharGen's engine converts your whole session into text using speech-to-text. It even tries to label who's speaking, based on how often they talk. You can rename speakers after if needed. Takes 30 seconds.

What you get back isn't just a dump of raw text. It's clean. Proper paragraphs. Speaker labels. Easy to read, like a chat log or script. I wanted something that felt like skimming a group chat, not reading a court transcript.

The full thing's available instantly. You can scroll, search, highlight, whatever. If someone said something important like "We made a deal with the goblin king" you can find it fast.

It also breaks the session into logical blocks. Scene changes, long pauses, key turns in the conversation. It figures that out too, so you're not just staring at one huge wall of dialogue.

Basically, the AI listens so you don't have to later. You get the whole thing written out, ready to scan or share with your group. And because it's all structured cleanly, it makes the next features way more useful.

Instant Plot & Timeline

Once the transcript's done, the Summariser auto-generates a short recap. One paragraph. No waffle. Just the main stuff that happened. If you only read one thing before your next session, it's that bit.

Underneath that, there's a longer version too. Full recap, written like a blog post. It includes all the important beats: where you went, what you found, who you fought, and any major consequences. No weird filler, no repeated phrases, just the actual story.

Then there's the timeline. This bit's gold. It lists every key event in order, with timestamps. You can jump straight to 00:41:33 and see "Party negotiates truce with Red Fang orcs." No guessing where stuff happened.

You also get tags for types of events. Combat, discovery, dialogue, etc. So it's dead easy to skim. Great when someone says, "Wait, why are we in Waterdeep again?" and you don't want to scroll back through four sessions.

It's made my prep 10x faster. And my players actually read it, which never happened with my old typed recaps.

NPC Extraction That Actually Works

This was the bit I couldn't find in other tools. NPCs that weren't just random names in a wall of text.

CharGen's summariser actually pulls out every named NPC it hears. Doesn't matter if it's "Captain Thorne" or "Dave, the guy at the fish stall." If someone in the session gets a name, it logs them.

Each NPC gets a quick profile: name, their vibe (if described), what they did, and when they last showed up. It'll even tag how many times they appeared and what sessions they were in. So if you want to find "the old halfling that gave us the cursed map," you just check the NPC tab.

No more guessing which shopkeeper was which, or trying to remember if "Lady Velryn" was an ally or enemy. It's all there. Clean. Fast.

Even better: if you fix a typo or update a name once, it stays fixed. Every session after will use the corrected info. You don't have to re-tag anything.

Soon, it'll have full memory too. So when the same NPC pops up later, it'll know. No double entries. You'll just see them appear again with new context added.

Honestly, this part alone saved me hours. It's like having a scribe who remembers everything. Except it doesn't fall asleep or forget what happened three sessions ago.

Locations Mapped & Described

Any time you mention a location (city, tavern, temple, dungeon) CharGen catches it. Doesn't matter if it's a proper noun like "Daggerford" or just "the ruined chapel." It tags them all.

Each spot gets a short description pulled from the session. Something like:
Redspire Keep ruined fortress overrun by undead, party entered via old catacombs.

Then it tracks how many times that location appeared, what scenes it was part of, and if anything important happened there. You get a count of appearances, which helps spot major vs. throwaway places fast.

Click a location and you'll see all the events tied to it. Great when you're trying to remember what actually went down in that weird forest glade three sessions back.

It's not just for GMs either. Players use it to remember which NPC ran what shop, or where the last boss fight was. Keeps everything grounded without digging through pages of notes.

Simple idea. Big result. Now I barely ever ask "Where was that again?"

DM Notes Ride Shotgun

The AI pulls in the basics, but sometimes you just need to add your own stuff. That's what DM Notes are for.

You can write private notes right next to anything the AI generates. Transcripts, timelines, events, NPCs—just click and type. Add reminders, future plot hooks, questions for yourself, or stuff the AI missed. It's instant, no weird editor or pop-up. Just text, inline.

And it's private. Only you see it. Players won't accidentally read your note about the mayor being a disguised dragon. You can even flag notes as "secret" or "spoiler," so you don't forget which things are player-facing and which are still under wraps.

Every note sticks to the session file it came from. Doesn't float off into some separate doc you'll lose. When you come back weeks later, everything's exactly where you left it—your notes alongside what actually happened.

It's not just for corrections. I use it mid-campaign planning to drop in ideas for twists or changes, based on what players latched onto. Works as a living memory of what I meant to do versus what actually unfolded.

Basically, the AI's the foundation. But your human brain still has the steering wheel. Notes make sure your intent doesn't get lost between sessions. And best of all—it's all stored in one place.

One Dashboard, All Campaigns

I used to track campaigns in Google Docs, Discord threads, half-finished Notion pages... it was a mess.

Now it's all in one spot. The dashboard shows every campaign I've touched—each with a card that shows the name, last played date, session count, and a status tag: Active, Paused, Completed, or Archived.

That "last played" bit sounds small, but it's huge. No more scrolling through folders wondering when we last played or what we did. You can see it at a glance and click right in.

Status tags help too. I can pause a game when someone's out for a few weeks, archive a dead campaign, or flip one back to active when we start it up again. It's not just pretty. It's functional. Zero friction.

And each campaign card leads to all its sessions, transcripts, NPCs, events, locations—everything. So I don't have to remember which folder I shoved the audio into or what I named a file.

I can run three campaigns at once and not lose track. Which, before this, I couldn't do without chaos. This dashboard just keeps things tidy. I open one tab, and I'm straight back in the world. No warm-up, no mental gymnastics. Just campaign, session, recap, done.

Healthy-Campaign Stats

It's hard to see how much you've actually played unless you track it. CharGen does it automatically.

Every campaign shows stats: total session count, average play length, total hours played. Just from uploading your audio, it starts building up the history without you needing to touch a spreadsheet.

I use it to check pacing. If we've had four 90-minute sessions back-to-back, I know to plan tighter scenes. If we've played for 40+ hours and barely scratched the plot, that tells me something too.

It also helps spot player drop-off. When stats stop ticking up, it's usually a sign something's dragging—or we're due a break.

These aren't fancy charts. They're just clear, useful numbers to keep your game on track. Think of it like a session Fitbit. You see the progress and get a pulse check on your group's energy.

More stats are coming. Player talk time, time spent in combat vs roleplay, etc. But even now it's already miles better than guessing. And it's all visible right on the dashboard. No digging.

Edit, Fix, Delete—Right There

AI isn't perfect. Sometimes it guesses wrong. That's fine—because you can fix it right there in the app.

See a typo in a speaker name? Click it, edit, done. Want to change a timeline label? Same thing. No weird forms or separate editors. Everything's inline and instant.

You can also drag and drop to reorder key highlights. If the AI marked the orc ambush after the big reveal, just drag it up. Sorted in seconds.

Deleting a session is safe too. You get a confirmation gate, so you won't nuke your notes by accident. But if you really need to clear something out, it's one click.

No export-reimport loops. No downloading files, editing in Word, re-uploading. It's all in one place, and all built to be changed easily. That means less faff, more focus.

It treats you like someone who knows their own story and just wants the tool to keep up.

Prep Time Slashed (Real Numbers)

This tool saved me time. Like, actual minutes I now spend doing other stuff.

Before, every recap took me 30 to 45 minutes minimum. I'd scroll through half-finished notes, re-listen to audio, try to remember what happened, and then write something readable. Now? I upload the session audio and it spits back everything I need—recap, timeline, NPCs, the lot.

Even better, my players actually read it. They check the summary between games, remind themselves who's who, and even call out stuff I forgot. That never happened with my old notes.

Now when I prep a session, I glance at the last summary, skim the timeline, maybe tweak an NPC name—and that's it. Done in ten minutes max.

My physical notebook? It's not for notes anymore. It's for doodles. Mostly goblins. Sometimes swords. But yeah, that's how little I need it now.

This didn't just cut my prep time. It made campaign continuity way easier. I don't miss hooks. I don't forget villains. And if a player's been away for a few sessions, they can catch up in five minutes.

Massive time-saver. Total game-changer.

Ready to Give It a Spin?

You can try it now. Just head to the tool and drop in your first session. First upload is free. After that, it's $0.70 per hour—half the price of other AI recap tools.

👉 Use the Session Summariser

Here's the challenge: next session, hit record. Don't take a single note. Upload the audio after, and see what comes back.

If it helps, brilliant. If it breaks, even better—drop your feedback in the comments or ping me directly. I want to keep improving it, and real sessions help way more than test data.

So try it. Worst case, you waste five minutes. Best case, you never take handwritten notes again.

---

(Stay tuned—next update I'll embed real screenshots and a quick-start video. Until then, may your recaps be ever concise.)