A complete example of TTRPG Session notes

February 1918. Lucien Morel, Madeleine Roche, and Emile Varnier arrive at Fort Saint-Helme after a driver drops them outside the building and immediately leaves to escape the approaching storm. The fort is a medieval stone fortress converted into an emergency hospital, isolated by cold and snow. The wind rises quickly, their footprints vanish almost at once, and only a short climb remains before they reach the gates.

During the journey, the three briefly explained why they were coming. Madeleine Roche said that she was a nurse and wanted to help the staff and wounded soldiers however she could. Emile Varnier explained that he had served at the front and was there to observe how care was organized and assess the hospital’s methods. Lucien Morel described himself as a former soldier sent to reinforce the teams, still deeply wary after the war. He offers to carry Madeleine’s luggage and leads the group toward the fort.

Doctor Keller is waiting at the entrance and brings them inside. He introduces himself as the head of the hospital and describes a strained situation: around fifty patients and a staff of roughly ten, including four nurses, four orderlies, and two doctors. Two veterans also work as orderlies, helping with security and the most difficult patients. Keller tells the newcomers that they will sleep in the first-floor wing, then gives them time to rest and settle in before discussing their work the following day.

A nurse leads them upstairs to a large common room with tables, benches, several wheelchairs, and a number of patients. The first floor seems calm and modest. The third floor, by contrast, is reserved for the most difficult cases, with more secure rooms and permanent supervision by at least one orderly and one nurse. The nurse explains that six permanent patients live on the first floor, then lets the three choose among identical rooms.

Madeleine speaks with Nurse Chloé beside an unresponsive patient in a wheelchair who is facing the wall. She learns that he has been there for two or three months, remains mute but compliant, and can still be fed. Chloé advises her to avoid the third floor for now because its patients are violent or deeply traumatized. She also admits that incidents have happened and that some patients are moved upstairs for their own safety.

Meanwhile, Lucien takes an interest in Victor Rey, a man sitting near the window. The storm is already fierce outside, and visibility has fallen to only a few metres. Victor says that he is not there to make friends. He expects his treatment to end in a few weeks and intends to leave immediately afterward. Lucien notices that Victor has lost a leg and bears severe scarring from a shell fragment. He shows Victor his own scar from the front and quietly promises support if he needs it.

Emile approaches a man who is acting like a doctor while speaking to a patient named Andrée, despite wearing patient’s clothes himself. The man says that Andrée has stomach pain, that he has prescribed medicine and a fibre-rich diet, and that she must follow the treatment that evening and the next day. When Emile presses him about prescriptions and medicine distribution, the man awkwardly ends the conversation and tells him to attend to the other patients.

That evening, a nurse and an orderly bring trays of mash and either broth or stew. The staff explain that first-floor patients eat in the common room, that a doctor will visit later, and that the nurses have already returned the other patients to their rooms. The food is simple but warm. Doctor Keller then joins them to organize the next day. Emile will make rounds with him, Lucien will accompany an orderly, and Madeleine will follow Nurse Jeanne. Keller again advises them to avoid the third floor, though he does not formally forbid access.

At night, Lucien returns to his room, instinctively jams a chair under the handle, briefly studies the window, and reads a novel before falling asleep. Madeleine and Emile also retire. The next morning, they meet in the common room and notice that the wall clock has stopped at 5:06 p.m. Emile takes it apart, puts it back together, and resets it, but it still refuses to run. Madeleine then moves the hands to 9 a.m. Like everything else, the detail feels unnaturally fixed.

The three decide to explore further. Lucien retrieves the heavy battery-powered torch he requested the previous day. They pass through locked double doors into a corridor of bedrooms and realize that the wing is larger than they first thought. Emile has checked the floor register, which lists six patients even though only four are visible in the common room. Each door bears a name.

They open several rooms. Pierre Lemoyne is asleep in one, so they leave him alone. Jules Mortel’s room is empty. Another part of the corridor opens onto a small area with two desks and a changing-room door. The space seems to have been abandoned for weeks or months, not years. Among the papers, they find prescription sheets, medical forms, and case studies, most of them concerning soldiers with post-traumatic conditions and women who returned from serving as nurses at the front. In the same office, Madeleine finds a prescription signed by Doctor Emile Varnier and dated October 1917, along with a photograph of all three of them standing outside Fort Saint-Helme in patient’s clothes. She also discovers a door bearing her own name.

The documents deepen their unease. Lucien reads his file and learns that he was observed holding a door closed during a confinement, with one sentence recorded in the report: “If we open it, everyone dies.” His file describes traumatic shock, a distorted perception of danger, and extreme defensive behaviour. Emile’s file attributes the confinement to him, along with the isolation of dangerous cases and a determination to protect others at a terrible cost. Madeleine learns that she hesitated to open the door because she wanted to save everyone. The three realize that they share a connection to an old event they have forgotten.

On their way back to the common room, the sensations intensify. Madeleine feels déjà vu when she places her hand on a door handle. Emile hears muffled screams and senses a hand hesitating before a handle. Lucien smells burning, briefly sees a charred patch on a wall, and then sees it vanish. When they reach the common room, the patient in the wheelchair is gone. The wall he had faced is now blackened, and the nearby door bears impact marks as though someone had struck it from the other side.

Doctor Keller joins them and asks why they did not open the door. Lucien replies that everyone else’s safety came first. Madeleine admits that she hesitated and that part of her wanted to save everyone, but Lucien persuaded her. Keller guides them toward accepting what happened. The setting darkens, the corridor disappears, and each of them wakes in a treatment room with a heavy head and wired patches attached to their temples and forearms. Keller, Nurse Jeanne, and the orderly Claude tell them that the therapy took a long time, but they have finally returned.

The final revelation puts the entire session into perspective. They all worked at Fort Saint-Helme between 1916 and 1918. After a shell struck the fort, Emile had to choose between sacrificing wounded patients and risking the destruction of the entire building. Lucien held the door closed, Madeleine tried to object, and the trauma left them with severe symptoms and amnesia. They were never newly arrived reinforcements. They were former members of the staff undergoing sensory recall therapy.