As mentioned before, with this past game of Pathfinder, I rolled out a newly revised mechanic for equipment tracking. Keep in mind, we have a particularly large group of 10 players, many of which are either new, or still adapting to having to track their own gear. In the past, I have updated character sheets each game, but that is impractical both with rapid changes in gear, and in costs of printing.
In our long running Rise of the Runelords game, I briefly attempted a similar process – I created custom cards with game mechanics and stats for all gear in the game. However, this rapidly was reduced to only magic items, and then only to consumables, before it was ultimately scrapped. Again, the gear simply changed too quickly and often to keep up with pre-printed cards.
So with this newest iteration, I am putting the focus in the players hands, same basic process, but instead of pre-printed cards, blank 3×5 cards. Then each player is responsible for filling out the respective cards, adding the game mechanics notes, and following some basic standards. Thus the fighter now has a card for his axe, shield, armor, and other pieces of gear – and we can adapt to changes quickly by just writing up a new card.
To extend the analogy, I provided small pocket envelopes to represent pouches, bags, and backpacks – place the item in the envelope to represent where items are being held. This actually seemed to help – not only do the players have a better sense of what they are carrying, but they also spotted a few gaps in gear (lack of backpacks, etc).
Overall, I think the process thus far is successful – the group not only organized their own gear, but survived a post-adventure shopping trip without issue (and managed to sell gear perhaps a bit more efficiently). Will report in the future how well it manages to survive long term.
