A session recap has one job: get everyone back into the story before the next game, in the ninety seconds they'll actually spend reading it. Most recaps fail because they try to be a transcript. The good ones are a memory jog, not a record.
Lead with what changed, not what happened
The temptation is to narrate the session in order: they went here, then they fought this, then they talked to that person. But your players don't need the sequence — they need the consequences. What is true now that wasn't true last week? A debt is owed, an ally is dead, a door that was locked is open. Open on the change and the rest hangs off it.
A useful test: if a beat didn't move a relationship, a goal, or a threat, it probably doesn't belong in the recap. It happened; it just isn't load-bearing.
Keep it to one screen
The recap competes with everything else in a group chat, and length is the enemy of getting read. Aim for something a player can take in without scrolling — a few short paragraphs, or a handful of tight beats. If a session was enormous, that's a sign to be more ruthless about what changed, not to write more.
Name people, and let them act
Attribute the choices. "The party decided" is forgettable; "Bram paid the ferryman with the ring his sister gave him" is a hook the whole table remembers. Naming the character who made a call — and what it cost — is what turns a summary into a story your players feel ownership over. It also quietly rewards the people who took the interesting risks.
End on the open question
The last line should point forward. What is unresolved, who is owed an answer, what is the party walking toward next session? A recap that ends on a cliff does the work of getting people excited to show up — which is the entire point.
Write it the night of — or let it write itself
Recaps rot fast. Written the night of the session, it takes fifteen minutes and reads true; written three days later, you've forgotten the small human moments that made it worth reading, and it becomes a chore you eventually skip. The best recap is the one that actually gets sent.
This is the part Six Axes takes off your plate: it sits in the session, transcribes it, and writes the recap for you — grounded in what was actually said and rolled, not invented — so you can edit a draft instead of facing a blank page at midnight. If you'd rather do it by hand, the same principles above still hold; the tool just removes the excuse of being too tired. See how it works, or join the pilot.
Related: our free session zero checklist and the pacing planner help with the other half of running a campaign — the part before the recap.