GM's and Record Keeping, Tips and Tricks Options

[Aaron]

Anybody got any good methods for keeping track of stuff during a game? I've got one for marking damage to bad guys. I start out by writing down the number of boxes in the condition monitor: one for grunts, two (labelled with a "C" and "P") for NPCs. I then mark damage as sides of triangles. This allows me to easily note how many dice pool each grunt has lost at a glance. When the number of sides is equal to the number I jotted down, that guy is down.

For example (if the forum can handle the weird characters), a standard grunt with 3 Body would look like this with four damage:

10: Δ /

and like this when taken out:

10: Δ Δ Δ /

If a bad guy has some form of pain resistance, I mark that first with regular hash marks, then go into triangles. So an adept with a Body of 4 and three levels of Pain Resistance would look like this when taken out:

10: ||| Δ Δ /

[Smokeskin]

That's brilliant!

[deek]

Pretty cool idea with the triangles...I'll have to use that.

I can honestly say that my group has continued to avoid combat or even shooting a gun...its not going to last for long, but seeing this is a starting group and both adventures were setup to allow players to avoid combat, I haven't had to keep track of much besides matrix stuff...

I am sure in the coming weeks, I will have more to share, but I will certainly keep monitoring this post for ideas!

[Egon]

I like poker chips my self. Just make a stack for each npc behind the screen, or if they are just fodder put them under the fig a you wont have to answer the question "Is this one hurt?"