Adventuring Gear: Character Standees

Here are some of the useful tools and aides I typically use to make my games as organized and enjoyable as possible!

Standees: plain paper, outward facing text (with initiative note), player facing text

These are stand-up name tags made out of glossy poster board segments (purchased at Hobby Lobby or another crafts or hobby store), cut to the right size and folded over. I use a wet-erase marker so that I can wipe away the text with a damp sponge and re-use them. I keep one of these in front of each player to identify their character name and seat position at the table. These make it a lot easier to remember player character names, which is better than having a player explain that their dwarven warrior is Longhammer not Stronghammer for the umpteenth time a session. The player-facing side can be used by them to track stats and information, and there is usually room to attach sticky notes to help remember conditions that the characters are afflicted with.

Sometimes I use a permanent marker to write down a framework for combat statistics on the player side. Then they can record their stats with an erasable marker and keep them and change them for easy reference.

Permanent text on player side

Finally, variations of these cards can be hung from any DM screen. Some DMs like Mike Shea AKA Sly Flourish, The Lazy DM use this as a creative way to track initiative, which works as long as you remember that the player side and the DM side will have to be read in opposite directions. Remember that smaller hanging cards can be used to represent conditions and status updates like thus:

Image from slyflourish.com