[Kot]

Games like Earthdawn suggest it and even reward the party for having journals like that. There's a library in Barsaive (in the dwarf kingdom of Throal*) that once a year takes in journals from adventurers, and pays for them. And there's also the big Legend Points (exp) award for that.

* I was just thinking, even though Thera blew up, Throal might still be around, buried under tons of rock. Maybe even the Grand Library of Thoral exists still. And you can find tomes on Horrors, Namegivers, magic, and such there. And of course recreate most of the Fourth World languages.

[FastJack]

The journals in games I played were just basically someone taking notes on all the things that were going on from their player's perspectives. Made for some interesting reading. And, usually, the recorder got XP or something for taking the time.

[Dead Monky]

In all the games I play we keep logs of what we do.  Even if it is just so we can keep track of everything and remember what we've done and who we've met.  EarthDawn just has a reward mechanic for it.  Which is nice.

[FastJack]

Ideally, for D&D games, I like to split responsibilities between the group. One person keeps the journal (recording all the facts, names, places, etc.), another tracks the treasure for the group, another may track healing items/buffs in a "party pool" and it's always nice to have a cartographer as well...

[Coldbringer]

I give karma for character journals, although only one player is taking advantage of it. It proves useful in generating subplots.

[Mystic]

In my group, we have one guy who is usually designaed the group "secretary". We have given up on trying to get someone else to do it because he seems happy and wants to do it. Maybe he feels he is making up for all his botched rolls.

 

Nah, seriously, I think he's just an accountant and dosen't want to admit it. Seriously though, if he had made it through basic training, he would have been a killer logistics officer. Takes all kinds, I guess.

[Fizzygoo]

Best journal keeping I ever encountered was when I DM'd a D&D game and the wizard in the party kept a journal...from the wizard's lying perspective. "As the greatest Red Wizard of all Faerun (he wasn't), my fireballs incinerated the rushing horde of mounted Zhents (they mostly survived) as my henchmen (the other players) watched on in awe and horror (were fighting tooth and nail against the Zhents). They fell to their knees and praised me like the god I am to become!" And so on and so on. It was a treat to have him read the events of the previous session at the start of each new one.

Unfortunately I never ran a SR game where any of the players kept journals. But I think that had more to do with the "real world paranoia" of it. If the characters are keeping a journal then that's something that could be stolen and used against them...best not to leave any more records of your illicit deeds than absolutely necessary.

[Coldbringer]

Personally, I would never use the joirnals against them in an evidence sort of way. To as fuel to explore the player/character's interests and fears  oh yeah!

[inca1980]

I'm gonna pitch that to my players....it would help because we have rather long shadowruns.....and are in the middle of kind of a long story arc.  I don't like doing the whole session=1 shadowrun.  Then it's just like a sky-scraper crawl instead of a dungeon-crawl.  Once in a while that's cool to throw in.....but by and large it's cooler to just feel free to make story arcs long and then play them out over several sessions while they pick-up contacts, karma and loot.  I do give them karma at the end of each session though and if they want they take time out to train and improve.  We get together once a week for the most part and it's been really fun cuz just looking back they've covered a lot of ground.  A player journal would organize that more.  However I would just make it a meta-game thing, it wouldn't mean they're actually keeping journals in-game necessarily if they didn't want to.

[etherial]

In my group, we have one guy who is usually designaed the group "secretary". We have given up on trying to get someone else to do it because he seems happy and wants to do it. Maybe he feels he is making up for all his botched rolls.

 

Nah, seriously, I think he's just an accountant and dosen't want to admit it. Seriously though, if he had made it through basic training, he would have been a killer logistics officer. Takes all kinds, I guess.

We generally give out XP for Secretar(ies), Treasurer, and Cartographer.