Howabout Dry Erase Counters?

[Patrick]

Since the counters are getting bigger and there's relatively little to keep track of when dealing with "cardboard" foes, coated counters might be a cool way to keep track of combat dry erase or grease pencil. Or perhaps a set of plastic counter jackets to write on.

[guymc]

I've been looking at the status marker discussion, too, and it overlaps with something else I'm doing. Would there be any interest or benefit to an off-board status indicator, say on individual character "dashboards"? Or is taking the indicator off-board too distant?

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by guymc

I've been looking at the status marker discussion, too, and it overlaps with something else I'm doing. Would there be any interest or benefit to an off-board status indicator, say on individual character "dashboards"? Or is taking the indicator off-board too distant?

I prefer it directly on the counters, since it is always hard to read something upside down on the other side of the table. But maybe an initiative list for player character DX scores and such could be valuable. Maybe status effects count down list of some sort might see some use as well.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by guymc

I've been looking at the status marker discussion, too, and it overlaps with something else I'm doing. Would there be any interest or benefit to an off-board status indicator, say on individual character "dashboards"? Or is taking the indicator off-board too distant?

Hi Guy, everyone.
I've been playing TFT for years, and I find I don't need a lot of counters or markers for keeping track of status. Generally we are fine remembering that person X is at permanent negatives, person Y has -2 DX from being stunned earlier, etc.

We flip counters for Dead / Unconscious, and remember who are prone.

Where I do use counters are:
-- Poison dice to count down how long you have to treat poison. (Important, and 5 turns is too easy to mess up.) Very few poisons in my campaign are instant, most give you a bit of time to counteract or mitigate them.

-- Dice to show how many hits NPC's have in huge fights.

-- Dropped weapons. (Hey, I have a bag of them, why not use them?)

IMHO, I do not think we need a counter to mark every single status change.

Warm regards, Rick.

[JLV]

I'm not entirely sure that a "dashboard" concept is a good idea with a game this simple, however, since my only experience with such things was with games like SPI's Air War (an incredibly complex game), my opinion may well be worthless in this regard.

So...I'll reserve judgment until I see an actual screenshot or mock-up of what we're talking about here...

[Groknard]

Although I don't necessarily see the need or expense for the counters themselves to be dry erase, it would be QUITE nice to have some punchable 1-hex square and 2-hex rectangles in the megahex sheets. I imagine that there will be some leftover "white space" on those. It might be the perfect opportunity to have some counter-sized blanks in there that you could use however you wish. Want a status counter (like "prone")? Draw a P on it. Need a 2-hex table that could be tipped or moved? Draw it on a blank.

I'm sure in many cases you could simply draw on a megahex itself. But for the big Dyson boards or the Melee/Wizard boards, you don't want to do that. So using the spare area of megahex sheets would be a nice, cost effective touch. In fact, even if SJG doesn't, I'll probably use the leftover from the megahexes and do it myself.

[JLV]

That's a really good idea. I don't know how practical it is in economic terms, but if it IS something SJG could do, I, for one, would greatly appreciate it! They could locate them on the existing Megahex sheets and use up a bit of that empty space that way...

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by JLV

I'm not entirely sure that a "dashboard" concept is a good idea with a game this simple, however, since my only experience with such things was with games like SPI's Air War (an incredibly complex game), my opinion may well be worthless in this regard.

So...I'll reserve judgment until I see an actual screenshot or mock-up of what we're talking about here...

Think of the dashboard as a dry-erase (or wet erase or grease pencil) version of a character sheet. You can make all the notes for poison, on fire, unconscious, bolo'd or any other status that might have a timer or require multiple turns to 'undo' in combat.

Keep in mind, a lot of experienced players might not need them, but we want MORE NEW PLATERS and they do not come with the rules pre-installed.

[JLV]

No, I get that, Kevin -- I'm just remembering that the dashboard concept in those long ago Air War games worked, but it would have been pretty fiddly to use if it hadn't been absolutely necessary to track all the things that a pilot would get from his HUD and control panels. In TFT, I'm not seeing enough variables to make it worth the extra work load.

But, as I said, that was based on my experience with the concept in that ONE game, and four decades ago. Which is why I've deferred any real comment until I can see an example of what Guy is thinking of...

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Guy, everyone.
I've been playing TFT for years,

Yes, YOU have, but p[art of this is to help get NEW players involved and that also means NEW GMs. Not everyone has all the rules memorized, or mismemorized in some cases, and having useful tokens or markers for NEW players is useful.