I ordered two of these, one for me and one for my partner. As fantastic as all the digital toolsets are, there was the temptation for me to disengage from the game by using them. It became a lot less of the D&D I remember from the early 80's when I started and a lot more like Monopoly. Sure, all the counters and cards and board are printed and ready to go. And you only need to think about whether or not to buy something you land on. But this carried over to D&D for me and I began to feel I had lost something by abstracting myself from all the facets of the game.
That's where the book came in. It's a fantastic product and elicited jealous looks from everyone at the game table. The quality is good - not perfect. Some pages are a little roughly cut. It would be amazing if the character pages were able to be written on. In feedback to the creator, they acknowledged this is a common request and is not their preferred vision for the book either - but sometimes things happen in production and that seems to be the case.
I LOVE the division of the book into sections for NPCs, Locations, Factions, pre-printed Reference Material, and so on. The session note pages are a great touch. I will say that you MUST do yourself a favor and get the pdf the seller has. Knowing I can print extra pages, even if I can't bind them into the book itself, is a huge relief for me. If this was ever released as a 6 ring A5 binder option, I would never look at another notebook again. Hint Hint.
While I'm hinting, it seems to me that an opportunity has been missed by not including a fauna/flora section so all of us crafter/explorer types can record the plants and beasts magical and mundane we come across.
But these are minor wishlist items for me. This is unquestionably the closest to a perfect D&D journal I have ever come across. Thoughtfully laid out, reference section included, the ability to index on the section header pages, all of it just works. And it works at the table where it really matters. I tabbed the sections so I could quickly flip and I realized that catching all the notes in the session log and then following up after if a person or place needed further development worked better than trying to flip to the right section and take notes on something or someone not fully fleshed out yet. Session notes are the unsung hero of the journal. I would even push for a two-page spread option - but as it is, they are great for easily breaking out important parts of the session on the fly.
I found the erasable insert less useful than the session cards that are sold separately. Wizards sold class kits a while back and I picked up the one for fighter. It has an erasable board for the usual HP, weapon bonuses etc, and also has small tokens for status effects, noting inspiration and so on. The inset in the book seemed more appropriate for DM play as it carried a lot of information that covered multiple players, and the player focused stuff seemed unnecessary. In all, I didn't find much value in that.
But should these things deter you from getting this? In a word, NO. I'm planning to get more and hoard them just in case they sell out. If you want to reengage with D&D as a hobby and not just as a game, I can't recommend these books highly enough. Get one. Get two. You'll be glad you did.
