Session Recaps Players Actually Read

You write a three-page recap. Nobody reads it. They show up asking who the baron was. Recaps fail when they are too long, too prose-heavy, or buried in a chat scroll. Fix format, placement, and timing — not word count alone.

The bullet template

• Where we ended: one sentence location and situation
• Key outcomes: three bullets max — who died, what was found, who owes whom
• Open hooks: two bullets — unfinished business
• Next session: date, time, link

Under 150 words total. Prose flavor belongs in session, not recap email.

When to send

Within twenty-four hours while memory is fresh. Schedule send for same evening if you finish late. Before next session, pin the recap in group chat or campaign tool — dungeonmaster.website campaign summary field feeds AI context and player reminders if shared.

Player contributions

Rotate recap duty among players — each writes three bullets from their POV. You merge into one doc. Shared ownership increases read rates dramatically.

Audio and AI assist

Record session audio with consent; summarize with transcription tools for your private notes, then edit to bullet recap manually. Do not paste raw AI summaries without fact-checking — names drift and loot invents itself.

What to exclude

Do not recap every dice roll. Do not guilt players who missed a session with inside jokes they cannot parse — add a "last time for absentees" box with four lines.

If players still do not read recaps, start session one with "30-second catch-up — someone tell me where we are." Social accountability beats longer emails.

Good recaps reduce "what were we doing?" time to under five minutes. That is more game time per month than any rules optimization will ever buy you.