Organization is its own kind of game
My Blades in the Dark campaign, like most of my life, only functions because I have a Notion the size of Nebraska.
Even before I started planning out the Blades in the Dark game I would be playing with my fellow rascals, I set up a Notion. For those of you uninitiated, a Notion is a database tool that allows for nested pages, data tables, calendars, and galleries. Think of it as an extremely user-friendly wiki builder. With very little hesitation, I began to sort out what I would need in order to play this game, not to wrap my mind around the mechanics or the gameplay, but sorting through how I wanted to keep track of the specific in-world lore and story. The intricate quilt of organization and practicality was a craft of love, a couple hours spent stitching together different colors and patterns until I found a way to arrange all the parts of this new world together.
I didn’t need to do this—I’m not one to brag, but I’m old hat at improv games. If I just wanted to spin a story off the top of the dome like cotton candy at a state fair, I wouldn’t even need to put on clown makeup. But doing this kind of in depth lore building and world organization according to strata of hierarchical mechanical needs necessitates something to help keep track of all the moving pieces.
