Player Journals

Despite spending more time on the other side of the DM Screen, one of my little obsessions it finding the best way to organize everything as a player. This has led to a few researching endeavors such as planning out my own D&D table to backing a multitude of interesting Kickstarters. Player Journals being one that I have collect quite a few of now and I just wanted to share my thoughts below.

Arcana Note Journal by Arcane Goods

Easily my favorite of the bunch. It just checks so many boxes. Leather cover, pockets, character sheets, dividers for organization, spell card slots, a FREAKING DICE TRAY, mini DM screen, initiative/condition/spell cards, basic item and combat reference pages, and colored rubber bands! Then you even have a nice pouch the keep it all in. Not a bad deal for $59.

Also comes in a felt cover

Hero Book by Material Components

Not every character deserves the extravagance of an Arcana note and maybe you're looking for more references on your character. In comes there HeroBook. Made with a special binding so it always lays flat (which is oh so nice to have when you aren't using a binder type book), the HeroBook's first half is filled with SRD content on Races, Classes, and game mechanics. You wouldn't believe how nice it is to use instead of flipping through the PHB. The front pages are made of a dry erase material and contain your Character Sheet info, a quick reference sheet behind that for combat and movements, and finally an index you can fill out, starting with the SRD content mentioned before. On the otherhand that means the latter half is just blank pages and blank grid pages, other than a few basic character reference (probably for party members). The back has another quick reference for conditions and another set of dry erase pages with a grid.

I think this was about $30 but the prices are missing on the shop right now. 

Character Journal by Dandy Beyond

At $10 on Amazon, this is the Christmas gift I gave my D&D group. Also despite the price its also somehow one of the larger Journals at about 10x7. There is no SRD content in this one but it has the basics of what you need. There is a Table of Contents at the front which has all 5 (yes 5) character sheet locations, 1 in the front the other 4 in the back, each with 7 pages going over backstory, Class/Race, inventory, Ability scores, Traits, and Spell sheets. Everything else between is simple lined paper and a handful of grid paper towards the back. For the price its an absolute STEAL.

Erasable D&D 5e Character Boards by Khephri Creations

Ok so its not really a journal but a big dry erase character sheet made out of laser engraved wood that was sandwiched together with some counter wheels in-between for HP and even had a spellsheet add-on. Unfortunately due to severe difficulties with production he isn't making any more of these. Still pretty cool

Far Travelers Notebook by The Rook and The Raven Publishing

This one honestly ended up somewhat disappointing and the delays in the kickstarter hurt it a lot. Basically this is series of 5 smaller notebooks (5e character, session notes, lorekeeper, spellweaver, and the KS exclusive Grand Explorers insert) which use a unique system of elastic bands to bind them inside of a beautiful leather wraparound cover. One notable thing about the character insert is that it has clear pages you can use to not actually write on the character sheet. One of the few times I've seen this method, but normally because it slides around and doesn't match up, which this also fall victim to. In practice this thing is a mess to use either inside the leather or even as 5 separate books. Combined with the expensive $75 price tag and it falls short in everything but looks. 

Character Campaign Journal by Tim Krause

This was the largest offering I have acquired at a full 8.5 x 11 paper size, but space utilization inside made it feel a lot smaller. For example the character sheet is actually just a standard 5e character sheets but is sized so its only 6 inches wide. I'm not the biggest fan of the style that this journal went with as it organized rigidly into 12 adventure sections each containing: Other characters, small section of notes and NPCs, Monsters, Treasure/magic, a dungeon grid, a wilderness hex, and an illustration sort of in the same style as on the front, Finally it has notes and illustrations pages in the back as blank pages. At $15.99 its not bad, but does not seem like it will fit the style of sessions I normally run in.

RPG Campaign Journal by Crit for Brains

To my surprise this was designed for DMs rather than plays and includes random tables and dungeon designs. So I'll save my thoughts on this for now.

Tome of Delving by Dungeon Notebook

One of the only hardcover books of the bunch was the Tome of Delving which came in at a surprisingly cheap $20. The main thing I've noticed about this book is that it was MADE for tracking things. Animal Companion? Check. Wild Shapes? Check. Money ledger? Check. As a bonus it has refences on the inside of the cover for actions, weapons, and items, while the back has more in depth descriptions of actions and combat like 2 weapon fighting. It give a lot of space to just about everything. There's like 3 pages just for computations like investigation stats, all your saves, and skills. I was a bit worried that because of that everything was spread out too much but between the painted edges for sections and the 2 book marking ribbons, you should be able to find your way through this Tome.

A Better DnD Campaign Notebook by Griffin Ess

Cant find it. 

Rover Book by Dungeons and Stationary

Cant find it.

Adventure Journal by Table Titans

The second hardcover book at a smaller size. Actually has enough space for 3 characters with plenty of dedicated space for notes and maps. The character stats section isn't particularly expansive and is compacted to 2 pages for stats, 2 pages for inventory, and 2 pages for flavoring (including a last will and testament section). While it is missing an index of some sort it does have a bookmark ribbon. As you might expect it is littered with drawings from the Table Titans series. Its respectable at $20 for this 8x5 book, but pales when we compare to the Tome of Delving from before.

Unfulfilled still

Theorycraft Character Planner by Theorycraft