Just commenting on various things, in no particular order:
- on using writing instead of tokens -- you could do that, of course, but in my opinion it is a step backwards. That was the point of my original post. The act of using tokens, or say poker chips, is something well-learned from the boardgame industry. It really does make a difference. I agree that the beads and cardboard chits seem fiddly, but they're really not bad. And if you absolutely hate them, poker chips are about as clean as you can get, and easily distinguishable by colour in set denominations. When we level up too far to easily fit tokens in the spaces, we're switching to poker chips.
You could simply write the book-keeping stuff out, but I really think there is something interesting to getting rid of the ink-sticks and simplifying the book-keeping. Something visceral. For an old-school gamer like me it was pretty tough to take at first, but the results don't lie.
- On Skill Cards - Grandpa's latest power cards set is CRAZY! Beautiful! Fantastic! Skill cards, inventory cards, every possible feat, just everything under the sun! Race abilities, alignment notes, Combat conditions! The thing is, you don't need to write stuff out, because you can have a little "skill deck" that sits neatly until you need it. Then you haul it out, find your card, then put 'em away again. Okay, okay, maybe I won't use all of 'em, but man, it is nice to have all those options!
- On book-keeping for Feats -- see above about Grandpa's cards
My point is that the less you write out, the less cluttered things will be. Using cards is a pretty snazzy way of tracking 'em.
On Clutter and Spreading Out Cards -- realistically, the only cards that are "spread out" are the ones you need to tap into for powers. The rest you only look at to remind yourself of rules, and those you keep in nice, neat, sorted piles. So besides your mat, you have a Skill Deck, a Combat Deck, a "Character Notes Deck" with your feats, racial cards, and alignment/Diety stuff, an inventory deck (maybe with some prime magic items laid out untapped and ready for use) and then spread out your Power Cards ready for use. Realistically, about the same footprint as spreading out two sheets of paper, side-by-side. Pretty tidy.
On Wet-Erase and Plastic -- different markers and different plastic react differently. I have one set of markers which write beautifully on my "report covers", but which don't seem to write as well on the stuff I have covered with contact-paper. I'm not sure what the difference is. And, of course, since plastic card-sleeves seem to be designed to protect from all forms of liquid attack, they don't seem happy with my attempts to write on them with wet-erase markers. If anybody finds a wet-erase marker/card-sleeve combo (or a dry-erase one, for that matter) then let me know brand names. For Markers, I use Sanford Vis-a-Vis wet-erase Fine Points, and I'm happy with them (except on my little cardsleeves, where I have to write 6 times to get any staying power at all)
I'm amazed at the refinements that have taken place since my first endeavour. I'm amazed at the beautiful work done by the people in this thread, and also by the upgrades done by Grandpa (and others) which must've been an amazingly labour-intensive project. I sent him an e-mail to thank him for his efforts, but I want to thank everybody here for their efforts as well.
'cause you know I'm stealing all your work, right!?
