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Campaign timeline / DM guide

Track the moments that changed your campaign.

A DM guide to recording timeline moments the way Multiloop edits them. Every entry has an event type, structured links to the session, location, and characters it touches, a major-event flag, and DM notes for private context. Use it inside Multiloop, or copy the same structure into any notes app.

The spine below shows five beats on one running campaign. Eight filled examples follow, one for every event type that appears across the arc.

Example timeline / sessions 3 to 11

Five beats on one campaign spine.

One dot per session the timeline holds a change for. Each dot shows what changed, the event type it falls under, and the location or characters the change touches.

  1. S3

    The Fellwake cook names Factor Madric as the Rumerton courier.

    Revelation

    Location / The Fellwake

    Characters / The cook, The party

  2. S6

    Party swears to deliver Quill's letter, unopened.

    Quest start

    Location / Rumerton

    Characters / Quill Harrowfen, The party

  3. S7

    Mireport docks fall under a sudden quarantine.

    Location

    Location / Mireport

  4. S9

    Madric reaches Saltwright first and burns the courier roster.

    PlotMajor event

    Location / Saltwright

    Characters / Factor Madric

  5. S11

    Party delivers Quill's letter, sealed, to the Mireport contact.

    Quest endMajor event

    Location / Mireport

    Characters / Quill Harrowfen, The party

Copy the outlineSee the full campaign workflow

Eight worked entries

One campaign arc, session 3 to session 12.

A Revelation names a target. A Quest start commits the party to a letter delivery. A Location entry closes a port. Plot entries reroute the plan and collect a consequence. A Quest end closes the letter delivery. A final Plot entry seeds the next arc in DM notes.

  1. S3/Revelation

    The Fellwake cook names Factor Madric as the Rumerton courier.

    What happened
    Over shipboard stew, the Fellwake cook drops a name the party had not heard yet. The cook thinks she is gossiping. She is doing more than that.
    Who was involved
    Party, Fellwake cook.
    Linked session, location, characters
    Factor Madric. Rumerton.
    Also mentions
    Fellwake.
    Description
    Madric funds the Rumerton relief shipments and moves goods through the Fellwake.
    DM notes
    Madric is laundering the shipments. The relief ledger is a cover for the 2% skim.
    What changed
    Madric is now a named party-side lead.
    Next consequence
    Party will try to meet Madric in S5.

    Last change from session notes

    S3 first entry. No prior state to compare against.

  2. S5/Plot

    Madric leaves Rumerton for Mireport the morning the party arrives.

    What happened
    The party reaches the Factors' Guildhouse and finds Madric's office cold. A clerk says he left before dawn. The party knows he is not here. They do not know why.
    Who was involved
    Party, guildhouse clerk. Madric off-screen.
    Linked session, location, characters
    Factor Madric. Quill Harrowfen.
    Also mentions
    Mireport Factors' Guild.
    Description
    Madric is not in his office. He left in a hurry.
    DM notes
    Madric is following Quill Harrowfen, who slipped out of Rumerton two nights before. He wants eyes on her, not the party.
    What changed
    Party misses their meeting. Madric gains a lead on Quill.
    Next consequence
    Party must track Madric through Mireport dockhands.
  3. S6/Quest start

    Party swears to deliver Quill's letter, unopened.

    What happened
    Quill hands the party a sealed letter over an unfinished drink. She will not say what is inside, only who it goes to. They agree.
    Who was involved
    Party, Quill Harrowfen.
    Linked session, location, characters
    Quill Harrowfen. Mireport.
    Also mentions
    Archivists of Ewenfast.
    Description
    They owe Quill delivery of a sealed letter to a Mireport contact.
    DM notes
    The seal bears the Ewenfast sigil. The contents name Madric as the skimmer. Quill has copies in safer hands.
    What changed
    Party is bound to Quill's faction whether they realize it or not.
    Next consequence
    The sigil will be recognized at the Mireport gate.

    Last change from session notes

    S6 new quest_start entry. Creates the letter-delivery quest.

  4. S7/Location

    Mireport docks fall under a sudden quarantine.

    What happened
    Harbor patrol stops the party at the gate. No boats are sailing, no bodies are sick. The party is turned around in front of a crowd.
    Who was involved
    Party, Mireport harbor patrol.
    Linked session, location, characters
    Mireport. Saltwright.
    Also mentions
    Harbor Patrol.
    Description
    The Mireport gate is closed. Sailing north through Mireport is off the table.
    DM notes
    The quarantine is staged. The harbor master traded the ban to Madric in exchange for time.
    What changed
    Party's Mireport plan is broken. Saltwright becomes the only route left.
    Next consequence
    Party will attempt the Saltwright crossing in S8.
  5. S8/Plot

    Harbor patrol arrests two Fellwake crew on old warrants.

    What happened
    The arrested crew are Quill's couriers. The warrants are decades old. Nothing explains why they fired now except that someone called them in.
    Who was involved
    Party, Fellwake crew, harbor patrol.
    Linked session, location, characters
    Quill Harrowfen.
    Also mentions
    Harbor Patrol. Fellwake.
    Description
    Two of their Fellwake crew are in a Mireport cell on old warrants.
    DM notes
    The warrants were handed to Madric two days earlier. He traded them for time he has now spent.
    What changed
    Quill loses two known couriers. Her trust in the party rises.
    Next consequence
    Quill will ask the party to pick up the courier run in S10.
  6. S9/Plot

    Madric reaches Saltwright first and burns the courier roster.

    What happened
    The party finds the Saltwright roster box pried open and most of its pages burned to ash in the stove. No witnesses, no note.
    Who was involved
    Party, Saltwright vendor (off-screen).
    Linked session, location, characters
    Factor Madric. Saltwright.
    Also mentions
    Courier roster.
    Description
    The roster box is empty. Their list of remaining couriers is gone.
    DM notes
    The burn was partial. Three names survived on a private copy kept by a Saltwright vendor who does not yet know what he has.
    What changed
    Party's courier list is broken but not destroyed.
    Next consequence
    Party must find the Saltwright vendor before Madric does.

    Last change from session notes

    S9 plot entry follows the S7 location entry.

  7. S11/Quest end

    Party delivers Quill's letter, sealed, to the Mireport contact.

    What happened
    Between shifts at the Mireport gate, the party passes the letter to Quill's contact. The seal is unbroken. The contact reads it and does not smile.
    Who was involved
    Party, Quill's Mireport contact.
    Linked session, location, characters
    Quill Harrowfen. Mireport. Factor Madric.
    Description
    They paid off their S6 promise. The contact knows something now; they do not.
    DM notes
    The sealed contents name Madric as the skimmer and line up the receipts. Quill's faction will publish the names within a tenday.
    What changed
    Madric is named publicly by Quill's faction.
    Next consequence
    Madric goes to ground. Reveals stop arriving through him.

    Last change from session notes

    S11 quest_end entry closes the S6 quest_start.

  8. S12/Plot

    Madric hires a Rumerton crew to track the party's known faces.

    What happened
    Between sessions, Madric pays a small Rumerton crew to find where the party sleeps when they come back through. The party has no contact with the crew yet.
    Who was involved
    Madric, Rumerton crew. Party unaware.
    Linked session, location, characters
    Factor Madric. Rumerton. Party's innkeeper.
    Description
    Nothing yet. Keep the reveal in DM notes until the crew surfaces at the table.
    DM notes
    The crew is shadowing the party's Rumerton innkeeper. They have names and a rough sleep schedule.
    What changed
    Party has a silent stalker none of them has noticed yet.
    Next consequence
    Stalker surfaces next time the party sleeps in Rumerton.

The timeline entry / field by field

What each row is for.

Three groups. When is one field. What sets the change in the world. Aftermath keeps the public description separate from DM notes and names the consequence you should remember before the next session.

Group

When

One field. Where on the session count this change happened. Every other field inherits from this.

  1. Date and linked session

    Lead with the session number. Multiloop can carry both a calendar date and an in-world date label on the same entry, and each entry can link to the session it belongs to.

    Example / Session 11. In-world date: 14th of Lastrain. Linked session: S11.

Group

What

The change itself. These are the fields the timeline view reads when it renders the entry.

  1. Title

    One short sentence from the campaign point of view, not the players. Use it as the scannable label for the entry in the timeline view.

    Example / Party delivers Quill's letter, sealed, to the Mireport contact.

  2. Event type

    Pick one event type from the fifteen Multiloop supports: Plot, Character intro, Character death, Location, Combat, Revelation, Quest start, Quest end, Session, Discovery, Quest complete, Death, Romance, Alliance, Other. Exactly one per entry. Multi-typed moments should split into two entries.

    Example / Quest end for the S11 letter delivery. Revelation for the S3 cook naming Madric. Location for the S7 Mireport quarantine.

  3. Description

    Two or three sentences of the change itself, not the play-by-play. Skip combat rounds, skip travel color, skip downtime jokes.

    Example / Between shifts at the Mireport gate, the party passes the letter to the contact. The seal is unbroken. The contact reads it and does not smile.

  4. Linked session, location, and characters

    The session the event belongs to, the primary location it happened at, and the characters involved. Multiloop stores all three as direct links to those records. Quests and factions are not linked here; reference them by name inside the description or DM notes.

    Example / Linked session: S11. Location: Mireport. Characters: Quill Harrowfen, the Mireport contact.

Group

Aftermath

The fields that decide whether the entry still matters next session. There is no "timeline status" in Multiloop; use the fields below instead.

  1. Major event

    Flag the entry as a major event when the timeline view should highlight it: deaths, betrayals, world-changing consequences. Leave it off for routine rows.

    Example / Major: the S11 quest end that names Madric publicly. Not major: a quiet S8 arrest the party rolls past.

  2. DM notes

    DM-only prep: the secret behind the reveal, the lie behind the promise, the NPC's real motive. Multiloop hides DM notes from the player-facing campaign share view, so put anything the party should not read here rather than in the description.

    Example / The sealed contents name Madric. Quill's faction will publish the names within a tenday.

  3. Timeline position

    A simple ordering number for entries that share the same session or date. Most timelines never need to set this by hand; the default ordering is usually correct.

    Example / 10 for the first entry of a session; 20 for the second; leave blank in most cases.

All fifteen event types

One event type per entry. A small, stable set.

These are the fifteen event types Multiloop uses on a timeline entry. Keep the vocabulary closed; a small stable set is what lets you scan a year of timeline entries in a minute. Use Other when the change is genuinely outside the fourteen specific values.

Plot
A main-plot beat: a named faction or antagonist moves deliberately, a campaign arc advances, or a major story thread shifts between scenes.
Character intro
A named NPC enters the story for the first time. Use this when the character will carry forward; walk-ons belong in session notes.
Character death
A named NPC dies. Separate from Death below, which is used for non-character deaths (creatures, anonymous casualties).
Location
A place the party cares about changes state: under new control, closed, altered, or gone. Also used for first visits to a new location that will matter.
Combat
An encounter that changed the campaign. Skip the round-by-round; keep the outcome and its consequence.
Revelation
The party now knows something they did not. The world did not change; their map of it did.
Quest start
A new quest is created or accepted. Pairs with the quest record itself; the timeline entry is the narrative marker.
Quest end
A running quest is closed: completed, failed, or abandoned. The timeline entry names the moment; the quest itself carries the status.
Session
A session-level marker. Useful for session-open and session-close entries when you want timeline boundaries that match the table calendar.
Discovery
The party uncovered something in the world: a hidden location, a cache, a connection. Different from a revelation; discovery is physical or spatial, revelation is informational.
Quest complete
A quest closed in the party's favor. Use when Quest end is too broad; reserve for success outcomes.
Death
A death the campaign will feel, but not a named NPC. For named NPCs, use Character death.
Romance
A relationship beat that changed the tie between two characters in a romance-coded way. Pair with the relationship record that carries the tie.
Alliance
An alliance formed or broken between factions or between a character and a faction. Often pairs with a change in faction relationships.
Other
Escape hatch for events that do not fit the fourteen specific values. Use sparingly; a campaign full of Other entries is harder to scan.

One more row

Per-entry deltas live in DM notes.

Multiloop does not hold a separate 'last change from session notes' field on each timeline entry. If you want a one-line delta from the last session that touched the entry, write it into the entry's DM notes when the party should not see it, or into the description when they can. An entry that is not marked major and has no remaining consequence in play is a signal the row has gone quiet; consider whether it still needs to surface in the timeline view.

Update rhythm

After each session: pull, mark, link, set up.

Ten minutes after the game, not a week later. Most sessions add one to three rows. Some sessions add none.

  1. 01

    Right after play

    Pull

    Read your session notes once and pull one to five timeline entries. Fewer is fine. A quiet session honestly has one.

  2. 02

    Same sitting

    Type and link

    For each new entry, pick one of the fifteen event types. Link the session, the location, and the characters involved where the entry actually touches those records.

  3. 03

    Same sitting

    Write

    Write the title as one scannable sentence and the description as two or three sentences of the change itself. Put DM-only context into DM notes. Mark the entry as a major event only for the rows the timeline view should highlight.

  4. 04

    Only when real

    Review and commit

    Check that every entry has an honest event type and at least one link to a session, location, or character. Entries that are only prose without any link rarely help when you come back to the timeline in six months.

A DM's working library at night: open ledgers on a long table, tallow light, a wall of bound volumes behind.

The timeline holds the entries the party will still be paying for five sessions from now. Nothing else.

Margin rule / write

What belongs in the timeline.

Only changes that will still matter five sessions from now. The question on every row is: did anything change?

  • Reveals the party earned or were told.
  • Decisions that closed off an alternative.
  • Promises, debts, and named threats on either side.
  • Deaths, betrayals, and faction moves the party will still feel next arc.
  • Location changes the party will step into or around next time.
  • Major discoveries that rewrite the party map of the world.
  • Consequences from earlier rows that finally collected.

Margin rule / cut

What stays out.

Every row you write is a row you maintain. The timeline fails the moment it starts reading like a transcript.

  • Combat rounds and initiative order. Those are session-note detail.
  • Temporary jokes, table asides, and out-of-character banter.
  • Shopping totals and inventory minutiae unless something changed hands that matters later.
  • Travel color for its own sake. Three days of forest is one row if nothing happened.
  • Mechanics and numbers. Those live in your rules tools, not the timeline.
  • Transcripts. If you are pasting dialogue, you are building session notes, not a timeline.
  • Forced next consequences invented to fill the field. If nothing is on deck, write 'None yet.'

Margin rule / connect

How this fits Multiloop

Timeline entries live in the Timeline module. Each entry carries the fields above and connects to the sessions, locations, and characters it touches.

Timeline row reference

Use it without Multiloop
Copy the outline into a document, spreadsheet, notes app, or paper notebook. The field names match Multiloop, so moving the rows into the product later is a direct copy.
Structured links
Timeline entries in Multiloop link directly to the session they belong to, the primary location, and the characters involved. Quests and factions are not linked on the timeline entry itself; reference them by name inside the description or DM notes.
Event type (fifteen values)
Pick from: Plot, Character intro, Character death, Location, Combat, Revelation, Quest start, Quest end, Session, Discovery, Quest complete, Death, Romance, Alliance, Other. The timeline view renders icons and colors keyed to these fifteen values.
Major event flag
Use the major-event flag for the small subset of entries the timeline view should highlight: deaths, betrayals, world-changing consequences. Leave it off for routine rows.
Analysis review
Analysis proposes new timeline entries from DM and shared player session notes for you to approve. Approved suggestions become new entries; editing existing entries happens in the native timeline editor.

In Multiloop

  1. 01Every timeline entry in Multiloop links directly to the session it belongs to, the primary location it happened at, and the characters involved. Quests and factions are not linked structurally on the timeline entry today; reference them by name inside the description or DM notes.
  2. 02Session notes and shared player notes drive Analysis. It proposes new timeline entries from the moments it can source in the notes; you review each one and approve what becomes part of the campaign record.
  3. 03Approved timeline suggestions become new entries. Existing timeline entries still change in the native timeline editor, so the product keeps the review loop fast without pretending to rewrite old entries silently.

Sharing is explicit through the campaign share view. There is no standalone timeline-page share URL; the timeline appears only inside the campaign share view when the owner includes it. DM notes are kept out of the shared view, so put private context there rather than in the description.

Next prep opens with approved new timeline entries already in place, the session and character links attached, and private context still in DM notes.

Copy the outline into your notes app.

Markdown / plain text

One block per entry. Paste this into a document, a spreadsheet row, a markdown file, or a notebook page. The structure fits all four.

# Timeline event

When
   Date:                 (calendar date, e.g. 2026-04-10)
   In-world date:        (optional, e.g. 14th of Lastrain)
   Linked session:       (e.g. S11)

What
   Title:                (one sentence, scannable)
   Event type:           (Plot / Character intro / Character death / Location /
                          Combat / Revelation / Quest start / Quest end /
                          Session / Discovery / Quest complete / Death /
                          Romance / Alliance / Other)
   Description:          (two or three sentences; the change, not the transcript)

Links
   Location:             (primary location, if any)
   Characters involved:  (one name per line)

Aftermath
   Major event:          (mark only for highlight rows)
   Timeline position:    (optional; only needed when two entries share a date)

DM only (not included in the campaign share view)
   DM notes:             (reveal triggers, private motives, one-line session deltas)

FAQ

Before you open your first entry.

How is this different from session notes?
Session notes capture what happened during play in the DM's own voice. The timeline captures only what changed because of what happened, trimmed to the entries that will still matter five sessions from now. Session notes are the raw material; the timeline is the ledger.
Should I use in-world dates or session numbers?
Start with session numbers. They are unambiguous, always available, and every DM already tracks them. Add in-world dates only if your campaign already tracks an in-world calendar the players refer to at the table.
How detailed should each entry be?
Two or three sentences in the description. A single title sentence scannable from the timeline view. If an entry needs more than that, the extra detail belongs in session notes, not on the timeline row.
Should players see the campaign timeline?
In Multiloop, the campaign share view can include the Timeline section. Write player-safe text in the title and description, and keep private context in DM notes. There is no standalone timeline-page share URL; the timeline only appears inside the campaign share view when the owner includes it.
Does this work outside D&D?
Yes. Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, and most campaign-based tabletop RPGs run on the same change layer. The fifteen event types are generic enough to map onto most systems; when a system has no good match, Other is a valid choice.
Do I need a tool, or will a document work?
A document works. The field names match Multiloop, so the rows move directly into the product later if you want. A campaign manager helps once timeline entries need to stay linked to sessions, locations, and characters without retyping.

Get Early Access

Keep the timeline connected after the game.

Multiloop holds your session notes, shared player notes, Entities, and timeline in one place, and proposes timeline entries from the notes for you to approve.