Jack Daniel
Legend
Whenever I play a long-running campaign, I'm always baffled and astonished by the player characters' propensity to acquire stuff. Things get picked up, forgotten about, and left on the character sheet right up until the end of the game. If and when I ever audit a character's encumbrance (which I try to do every time a character levels up), it's always grossly underestimated too!
Add to that the fact that certain parts of the character sheet—the places for hit points, experience points, treasure, the inventory, and wherever characters mark their spells cast per day—are inevitably going to get grubby from constant erasure, and I'm all for searching out some alternatives.
A few moments ago, I just picked up some small (3" x 2.5") index cards from an office supply store. Handily enough, they make packets of these cards in five colors, so I can already imagine using these in interesting ways. For example, I could use one color of card for consumable items (potions and scrolls), another for equipment (weapons and armor), and yet another for mundane items; and then write the game effects of each item right on the card. Characters then have a "deck" of cards representing the items in their inventory, with new ones written up as players acquire new stuff, and discarding cards whenever items are dropped or used up.
Encumbrance values could also be marked on the corners of the cards for easy tallying, so that the PCs aren't just pulling things out of their extradimensional pants like cartoon characters.
I could probably do something similar with memorized spells, making up a deck of spell cards (several copies of each spell the character has in his spell-book) from which to draw the spells memorized that day, laid out in front of the player for easy access during play. Like 4th edition power cards, but for the Auld Game.
Has anyone ever tried this sort of thing before? If so, any warnings or pitfalls? Might it get too cumbersome to deal with? My next campaign has a couple of neophytes who aren't exactly clear on how to play D&D (and they're having some trouble understanding how magic-users work), so I'm hoping that they'll benefit from the tactile and visual experience of having their characters' things and spells laid out for them in card form.
Add to that the fact that certain parts of the character sheet—the places for hit points, experience points, treasure, the inventory, and wherever characters mark their spells cast per day—are inevitably going to get grubby from constant erasure, and I'm all for searching out some alternatives.
A few moments ago, I just picked up some small (3" x 2.5") index cards from an office supply store. Handily enough, they make packets of these cards in five colors, so I can already imagine using these in interesting ways. For example, I could use one color of card for consumable items (potions and scrolls), another for equipment (weapons and armor), and yet another for mundane items; and then write the game effects of each item right on the card. Characters then have a "deck" of cards representing the items in their inventory, with new ones written up as players acquire new stuff, and discarding cards whenever items are dropped or used up.
Encumbrance values could also be marked on the corners of the cards for easy tallying, so that the PCs aren't just pulling things out of their extradimensional pants like cartoon characters.
I could probably do something similar with memorized spells, making up a deck of spell cards (several copies of each spell the character has in his spell-book) from which to draw the spells memorized that day, laid out in front of the player for easy access during play. Like 4th edition power cards, but for the Auld Game.
Has anyone ever tried this sort of thing before? If so, any warnings or pitfalls? Might it get too cumbersome to deal with? My next campaign has a couple of neophytes who aren't exactly clear on how to play D&D (and they're having some trouble understanding how magic-users work), so I'm hoping that they'll benefit from the tactile and visual experience of having their characters' things and spells laid out for them in card form.
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