How to Use ChatGPT for DnD Session Summaries (And Why You Should Just Use This Instead)

TL;DR

• Use the prompt below with ChatGPT to summarize your DnD session notes or transcript.

• Use a ChatGPT Project to save your campaign information

• Alternatively, skip the work entirely and use Crit Scribbler. The Discord bot built specifically for DnD that takes session notes for you automatically.

How to Use ChatGPT for DnD Session Summaries

ChatGPT and other AI tools are great at summarizing, so the best way to get a good AI session summary for your DnD game is by having a prompt that is focused and leads to 0 hallucinations.

Below is a prompt that works well for either session notes or a full transcript.

An Easy ChatGPT Prompt for DnD Session Summaries

Copy-Paste this into ChatGPT, fill in the two bracketed sections at the bottom, and hit send.

You are summarizing a DnD session. Produce two sections in this exact order:

KEY POINTS
A bulleted list of the most important events from the session. Focus on:
- Plot progression and story beats
- Major decisions and actions the party made
- NPCs met, killed, or affected
- Major items discovered
- Unresolved threads or new quests
- Highlights unique enemy actions or abilities

Each bullet should be one sentence. Include the reason each point matters when possible.

SUMMARY
A 1 paragraph narrative recap of the session written in an engaging, slightly playful (but informative) tone. Reference characters by name.

Rules:
- Only use information from the input below. Do not invent details.
- Do not reference DnD lore, monster stats, or published module content not present in the input.
- If a character or NPC name is unclear, use your best guess from context and flag it with [?].
- Do not make assumptions about anything. Write it as the player has perceived it. This is to ensure you don't spoil anything.

Campaign info:
[A few sentences about what's going on in your campaign]

Character info:
[character names + one-line descriptions]

Session input:
[paste notes or transcript here]

You are summarizing a DnD session. Produce two sections in this exact order:

KEY POINTS
A bulleted list of the most important events from the session. Focus on:
- Plot progression and story beats
- Major decisions and actions the party made
- NPCs met, killed, or affected
- Major items discovered
- Unresolved threads or new quests
- Highlights unique enemy actions or abilities

Each bullet should be one sentence. Include the reason each point matters when possible.

SUMMARY
A 1 paragraph narrative recap of the session written in an engaging, slightly playful (but informative) tone. Reference characters by name.

Rules:
- Only use information from the input below. Do not invent details.
- Do not reference DnD lore, monster stats, or published module content not present in the input.
- If a character or NPC name is unclear, use your best guess from context and flag it with [?].
- Do not make assumptions about anything. Write it as the player has perceived it. This is to ensure you don't spoil anything.

Campaign info:
[A few sentences about what's going on in your campaign]

Character info:
[character names + one-line descriptions]

Session input:
[paste notes or transcript here]

You are summarizing a DnD session. Produce two sections in this exact order:

KEY POINTS
A bulleted list of the most important events from the session. Focus on:
- Plot progression and story beats
- Major decisions and actions the party made
- NPCs met, killed, or affected
- Major items discovered
- Unresolved threads or new quests
- Highlights unique enemy actions or abilities

Each bullet should be one sentence. Include the reason each point matters when possible.

SUMMARY
A 1 paragraph narrative recap of the session written in an engaging, slightly playful (but informative) tone. Reference characters by name.

Rules:
- Only use information from the input below. Do not invent details.
- Do not reference DnD lore, monster stats, or published module content not present in the input.
- If a character or NPC name is unclear, use your best guess from context and flag it with [?].
- Do not make assumptions about anything. Write it as the player has perceived it. This is to ensure you don't spoil anything.

Campaign info:
[A few sentences about what's going on in your campaign]

Character info:
[character names + one-line descriptions]

Session input:
[paste notes or transcript here]

I like my summaries to be relatively concise, or else I won't read them, so this prompt isn't going to give you every detail. If you feel the same way as me, then the only other thing you need to do is use it with notes that you've already taken or you can get better notes with more coverage if you have a transcript handy.

If You Have Session Notes

If you or a player took some notes during the session, this prompt will clean them up and turn them into a recap with a bit more substance and easier to read. A few tips to get better output:

• Be generous with character info. ChatGPT will call your rogue "the thief" if you don't tell it the rogue's name. One line per character is enough.

• Don't add funny/fancy tones. "Write the summary like a British fantasy novel narrator". These oftentimes are fun to read once - maybe twice - but if you want your notes for practical reasons, leave this out of it.

• Don't worry about messy input. Fragmented bullets, weird shorthand, mid-session scribbles, it'll figure it out. You can even just drop a screenshot or a photo into ChatGPT

For notes, ChatGPT is mostly just reformatting what you already wrote, so the output tracks pretty closely to your input. Which means the hard part isn't the summary. It's taking decent notes in the first place, especially if you're the one DMing. Essentially: Garbage in, slightly tidier garbage out.

If You Have a Transcript

If you're feeding in a full session transcript, you'll want to add this to the end of the prompt:

One thing to note:

Long transcripts may exceed ChatGPT's context window. A 3-hour session can easily run 30,000+ tokens (how AI counts words). If ChatGPT starts drifting or ignoring your instructions, split the transcript into chunks by scene and run the prompt on each one, then stitch the outputs together at the end.

Use a ChatGPT Project

You're going to use this prompt every session, so you don't want to have to copy-paste the prompt every time. To make this a lot easier, create a ChatGPT Project and drop the prompt into the project instructions. You won't have to re-paste your campaign and character info every time unless things need updating. You can see how to make a project in ChatGPT's documentation.

For a simpler approach, just keep using the same chat every time. ChatGPT will remember the context within that conversation.

All that said… you shouldn't even use ChatGPT to write your notes.

Why you shouldn't use ChatGPT for DnD session summaries

ChatGPT works, but you have to do this every single session.

For a weekly group, that's 50+ times a year. You will have to update the prompt every now and again due to things like major developments, character deaths (RIP), and tweaking it to make sure it works exactly how you want it.

On top of that, this summary is never going to be that great. You will get it to 7/10 quality. 8/10 on a good day. That's because ChatGPT is a general purpose AI. It knows what D&D is, but it doesn't know the nitty gritty rules, the nuances, or just the feel of it. It'll happily write a recap that spoils the monster your players are about to fight or hallucinate a specific ruling. Using a tool built for D&D will get you so much further.

Use an AI note taker designed for D&D instead

Crit Scribbler is an AI Discord bot that automatically creates your session summary within minutes of your session ending. It handles optimizing the prompt, integrating your character details, and paying attention to the important pieces while you focus on the game.

There is a free version, so you can try it out during your next session!

Add to Discord