Ok, so I’m pretty terrible at organisation. I plan my campaigns in Onenote files and keep everything documented but when it comes to actually running games I usually jot down the plot hooks in bullet points and the stats for any NPCs the party might encounter on a session-by-session basis.
This is fine until I need to find the stats of an NPC that came up five sessions ago and then it all falls apart. Now I don’t want a big chunky folder or notebook with tons of tabs - I know this works for some people but I don’t like flipping through pages of content while playing and I don’t like doing the same with my Onenote folder either. It slows down the game and I usuaully end up spacing out and overlooking the one bit of information I need.
So my solution - NPC Index Cards. I bought some A6 card on amazon and made myself a mini-character sheet template. As NPCs crop up, I’ll write up their stats, keep them handy in a plastic tub and take them out before a session starts so their stats are always on hand.
I thought others might benefit from this so I’m sharing on here, feel free to download my template and print it for your own use. I had hoped to make it single-sided but unfortunately if I scaled things down much more they’d become illegible.
I wanted to just get the essential information, I intentionally missed out attribute levels because I thought they were unnecessary and it saved space, if you know the dice you know the level.
– Guard, Toughness and Resolve are abbreviated to keep it looking clean.
– Boons and Banes are put in a single ‘actions’ panel.
– Description (or notes) and feats go on the back.
– Since the character sheets are printable, you can fill them in with pencil and adjust NPCs stats as the player progress or tweak things that aren’t working.
The ‘example character’ is just some nonsense I threw together as I went, I just wanted to fill in some of the boxes to show scale and legibility.
Any suggestions on improving them is welcomed, if I’ve missed anything vital let me know, I’d be happy to update the design if other people find them helpful.
Not sure if it would actually do anything in the end, but usually for an NPC you don’t need to know all the Attributes, just the main ones you are using, and/or you don’t use every Attribute. You could pare down the Attributes and leave them blank to fill in. The downside of this is the time you would have to spend filling in the name of the stat, but if you are preparing ahead of time, I don’t think that would be an issue as much. So, the question would be whether the additional space you could save would be worth having to fill in the names of the Attributes.
The cool thing about a pre-printed card is the time savings, even if it wastes space. To that end, I would even add more to it… like vs G/T/R where you just circle the right one for that action. You could do the same with attributes by putting in the d so you would just need to write 3d8.
Also, give space for writing in the max hit points AND an area for CURRENT hp.
I’m sure I could think of more, but I figured this gives you more ideas so I’m excited for v2!
I did think about doing this when I first set out on the design but I decided against it, I think having all the attributes pre-printed means that you can use this exact template for any conceivable NPC and you aren’t limited to say, 5 rows that you need to hand-write.
Parring down the attributes would definitely save space, but I don’t think it would be a dramatic amount of space that would be put to use elsewhere (for example saving enough space to make them single-sided). And as @ucffool pointed out, this saves time : )
Thanks for pointing this out, A sizes are standard here so I often forget they’re not used elsewhere. Just as an addition to this - if you really really wanted a single sided sheet, you could potentially stack the images on top of each other and print on a single sheet of A5 - which is double the size of these A6 templates.
Love this idea, I’ve added it to the sheet
Wasn’t too keen on this one - if you want to track current HP then you can do so next to the HP box (since you’ll be erasing it anyway) but personally speaking, I track all combat stuff in my notepad, splitting it across notepad and index card seems unnecessary. Also adding an extra box would have thrown off the design and I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.
By all means if you have more suggestions do let me know! As for now, here’s V2:
Added @ucffool’s G/T/R idea - made it the same colour as the grid so pencil mark circles will stand out more
Changed ‘Description’ on page 2 to ‘Notes’ - this was a personal gripe since I knew full well that I would use that box for more than just a character description
Changed spacing on the HP, G, T, R boxes - you might not notice a visible difference here but I made the boxes exactly 15mm with the divide cutting into the box 5mm in. This was to make them line up nicely with the new G/T/R column in the actions panel - would have looked wonky if I didn’t do this.
Unified line width, I had a bit of a mix up and the stroke width on some lines. Some were 1pt and others were .75pt - now they should all be .75pt for a sharper look and so they cut into your writing space less.
Not sure if anyone is getting any use out of these but I’ve been playing around with them a bit more and added a few new sections. Here’s the download links for V.3 - as always feel free to print to use in your own games : )
Lightened the grey on the grids, this may look ‘too light’ on-screen but printing results are better
Changed some alignment and spacings to make the design a little tighter
Added a CR box next to the Name box
Added miscellaneous boxes to the Attributes, Actions, Feats and Notes grids These are for tracking Attribute points, Boss Edge, Feats Points etc. Not necessary for most scenarios but this gives you the option and is easily ignored if you don’t need it.
Overall these changes were intended to make the cards more versatile, you can now use them for more if you choose to do so, but (in my opinion) the changes haven’t hampered the original simplicity of the design and the additional boxes can simply be ignored if you don’t feel you need them for a specific NPC.
Thanks for taking a look feedback always appreciated!
feedback always appreciated!
