Stop Marking On Your Character Sheet (Seriously, There Are Better Ways)

When you first fill out your character sheet, it looks pristine. The sheet, like your PC, is newly-minted, as yet unscarred by the ravages of goblin blades, or the crippling touch of a shadow. But once you've gone up a few levels, you start to notice the dark marks, and ragged edges. The places where your damage isn't quite erasing the way you want, or how your stats are progressively tougher to read thanks to the ravages of ghouls, succubi, vampires, and other awful creatures you've had the misfortune to encounter.

Look at it. So neat. So clean. If only it could last...

Of course, you can just get a fresh character sheet and re-write the whole thing every couple of levels, if that's your bag. Or you can keep a digital character sheet, if you're willing to fully embrace the age of digital gaming. But for those of us who like to have the same sheet for an entire campaign, there is something to be said for keeping your shifting tallies somewhere other than on your permanent record. And in today's day and age, there's a unique way to do that.

Scratch Paper in The Digital Age

This is going to sound obvious to most players, but it didn't occur to me until recently that just because there's a space for damage, spell slots, etc. on your sheet, that doesn't mean you need to use it. Especially if it means you're going to constantly be marking and erasing, possibly several times a session. That's just how most groups I've played with rolled, and it didn't occur to me to change it up until one of my DMs got a thank you present from his job. At first I thought it was just a clipboard, but when he took out the stylus and started jotting the initiative order, NPC notes, and other things on it, I realized it was actually an electronic notepad.

Basically, this thing.

This LCD writing tablet is simple, durable, and it's got some serious staying power since it runs off of a basic watch battery. It's great for tracking damage, stat boosts/hindrances, pools of points that constantly shift (looking at you, swashbucklers and gunslingers), and most importantly keeping track of what spells or spell-like abilities you've used that day. Best of all, there's no worries about keeping it charged, and needing to get it prepped before game night; it uses so little power that a single watch battery can keep it running for years of gaming without incident.

On the one hand, it can be argued that this tablet doesn't do anything that a simple piece of paper doesn't do. And if you have a pad of scratch paper on-hand (as any good gamer should, really), then you can basically keep track of everything in a small notebook. I'm not denying that, as I basically have small pads of paper I keep in my character folders for exactly this reason... however, the tablet has one major advantage; it saves serious travel space.

And if you're a player who is going to someone else's house, or a DM who's running in an organized play style setting, that can be a serious advantage. Especially if you just want to leave said tablet in your bug-out bag so that you've always got it ready to record the results of the latest carnage.

Also, if keeping yourself organized at the table is your thing, you might also want to check out my previous post Organize Your Spell Cards With A Portable Spellbook!

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That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. Hopefully you enjoyed, and if you've used run these kinds of games before, leave us a comment to let us know what worked for you!

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