I’m new to the game and was curious how people handle tracking stress in game? I have noticed there is a spot on the character sheet, but how do you differentiate between you max ‘vigor’ and the amount of stress that you have taken that round? Do you use a whiteboard/notebook to track this? Do you just erase the character sheet over and over again? I was curious what solutions/methods people came up with. Thanks.
For online games as on Roll20 or other VTT platforms, there are usually (different) ways to keep track of current and maximum Vigor and Resolve.
On Roll20, for example, you can have two stress bars on your character’s token where you can see how much Vigor or Resolve you have left from your maximum value.
Only in the case of Despair or Fatigue you need to manually reduce the maximum shown, but you still keep the actual maximum on your sheet.
In games at the table I use glass beads for every player to put in front of them to mark their maximum Vigor and Resolve. The stats are still on the printed sheet, but you don’t need to erase and re-write on the sheet at all.
The same for Wounds and Trauma, I use the larger poker chips for those types of Harm, and if they are treated, they get replaced by a different color, to show their treated status.
That is in addition to having physical tokens for Fortune and Doom at the table.
This way, I can always see at a glance how stressed and how injured the party currently is.
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That’s a great idea, do you happen to have a photo of the setup?
At our table, no. We don’t take photos during our games at home. - And due to lockdown restrictions the last session at an actual gaming table has been in February last year, else I could take some photos at the next session, but that will be - as in the last months - an online session using Roll20.
Just came across this post. This is what we use for our games. Vigor and Resolve are Green and Blue. Each player starts with a full pool of their Vigor and Resolve. As they suffer Despair or Fatigue, beads are removed from the player pool. For Harms and Trauma it’s Red and Yellow. Pink is for treated Harms. I also have coins on the table for Fortune, Momentum, and Doom. It’s a lot of fun throwing around coins and beads on the table while playing.
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That is similar to our table setup, though I don’t have such nice bowls. And I use poker chips instead of coins.
I like using glass beads as you can see at one glance at the table how everyone is doing. And it gives a haptic element to the game.