Between work and my other hobbies, I spend a hell of a lot of time on digital devices during an average week – and I am sure you are the same. And I need a break.
To give myself this break, I have made a decision to go as analogue as possible for all my table-top gaming.
I have pretty much been doing this for my solo campaigns any way, so it’s not a huge jump to do the same for my online campaign.
But how are you going full analogue for an online campaign?
Analogue Online
I’ll still be using Discord for voice chat, and I will have to put up some notes and maps for the players (this is my two-player campaign), but other than that, it will be analogue.
That means all notes will be handwritten in notebooks, and all maps hand drawn. If I need to share something with the players, I can simply take a photo and upload it.
I also think (highlighted by a Twitter comment) that having analogue notebook will not only keep the detail fresher in my mind, but also allow me to see how the world has changed over time.
Organisation
Another Twitter comment touched on how I was going to organise all this. And it’s a great question – and one I don’t have a complete answer to just yet.
My first idea is to have individual notebooks for each campaign, and then use coloured tags stuck on to pages indicating what’s on a particular page. But I will need to play with this as I go.
Experimenting will be a big part of the fun – and I can update this post as I figure out what works.
Comments Elsewhere
@yum_dm I’m a big fan of the analogue approach too
— Pickpocket Press (@LowFantasyGamin) October 10, 2026
@yum_dm A campaign notebook has one excellent feature: the goblins can’t interrupt it with a software update. How are you indexing places and NPCs so lore stays easy to find once the maps and session notes start multiplying?
— P.X Universe | Sci-Fi (@pxuniverse) October 11, 2026
@yum_dm The friction is the feature — hand-drawing a map forces you to actually look at the world you’re making, and every copied note is a quiet chance to revise it. Screens make things efficient; notebooks make them real.
— BAAL (@Baalofgaming) October 11, 2026
@yum_dm The pencil map is lovely. A notebook like that becomes a record of how the world grew, not just what’s in it. The crossed-out names and redrawn borders are part of the story too. Definitely something worth keeping.
— The Zepherous Universe (@ZephUniverse) October 10, 2026
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