Alternative way to use Pages and tracking resources.

Having DM'ed on Roll20 for several years now, one of the things I sometimes run up against is the fact that resource and inventory management can be difficult for players, simply because of the sheer amount of different things that can accumulate as the campaign progresses. I understand that just giving them less stuff might be the more straightforward solution, but I don't want to limit the players like that. Seeing other posts about inventory management suddenly gave me an idea. What makes it difficult for players to remember all the resources they have, is partially because you have to look in different places to find what you have. So what if I made the resources visible on the page, outside of the sheets and handouts? It works like this: Rather than making a separate Page for each map, battle map, or Scene shot I want to show the players, I just use a limited amount. The basic version can just use 1 page, where you put all the resources in the top 4-10 "rows" of the page, or the first few "columns" of the page. These resources (like potions, magic items or even certain features) can be represented with a token the players can control. You turn on the nameplate of the token, and use the three Token Bars to keep track of how many uses are left or other such attributes. You could even use Tooltip to give a simple reminder of what it does. I would still make use of Handouts so that detailed explanations for items and such can always be looked up. Any battle map or scene you want to show you can prepared outside of the viewing area (thanks Jumpgate for that new feature), and dragged into view when needed, along with tokens you can prepare beforehand. If a map is larger than the previous one, you can easily adjust the page size to make it fit. And because the "Inventory" of the players is either in the first few rows or columns, changing the page size isn't going to make the content suddenly be on the middle of the page. A more advanced version could make use of up to 4 pages, for example: World Map, Combat, Exploration, Roleplay. This way, you could even put the resources that are only useful in combat, exploration or roleplay, visible on the respective page. This would prevent cluttering when you inevitably end up with many items. On a Roleplay page, you could even place tokens to represent Journals, notes, etc. which the players might have picked up (and gotten a Handout for), which could be a nice reminder for them.   TLDR : Put tokens in the first few rows/columns that represent items/consumables/resources, and use the same page for basically everything in your game, just replacing the maps you show by dragging them in and out of view of the players, and changing the page size when needed.

Not sure what character sheet you are using, but most of them should have a resource section (if the game system has some sort of resources to manage); e.g. the 2014 5e sheet has resources at the top right, under the Connection stuff. The issue I see with this idea is that a lot of battle maps are quite a bit larger than most folks will have displayed on their screen at once (e.g. a dungeon usually has a single map for it); this means that instead of opening their character sheet to find resources, now they have to pan across the map to find their resources, leaving the view of what's going on in the battle.

I use a method like the one in the OP for my HeroQuest game on Roll20. Tracking equipment, spell cards, body/mind points, on the margins of the Page around the map area. A variation on the idea in the OP --- you (the GM) can simply COPY-Paste the column-rows of Reserources to a New Page. You don't necessarily need to keep changing-out the Map on the edge of the pre-existing Resources column. You can do the opposite. Keep making new Map Pages, and always remember to leave enough room on the Margins to copy-paste the column of Rescoures. Same idea just inverted the process, thus freeing you to have unlimited Map Pages and not need to delete the map section. 

Scott C. said: Not sure what character sheet you are using, but most of them should have a resource section (if the game system has some sort of resources to manage); e.g. the 2014 5e sheet has resources at the top right, under the Connection stuff. The issue I see with this idea is that a lot of battle maps are quite a bit larger than most folks will have displayed on their screen at once (e.g. a dungeon usually has a single map for it); this means that instead of opening their character sheet to find resources, now they have to pan across the map to find their resources, leaving the view of what's going on in the battle. I am using the 2014 5e character sheet. If you are referring to the Class Resources where you can track things like features and arrows, and even have them reset with rests, then I am aware, same with spell slots and such. What I'm mostly referring to is all the potions, scrolls, and other magic items they have, which my players (at least) often seem to forget about. The tiny letters and lack of real customization for the inventory part of the character sheet is partially why started looking for other options. When they got a bag of holding, this obviously became an even bigger problem, which is why I started using a google sheet to track most of that stuff, as it allowed for filters and sorting.  You bring up a good point with the issue of having to move across the map to get to the resources again. There definitely are limitations, but players currently struggle with having to go through their character sheet, the handouts, and the google sheet to see all their options, which is why I thought it would be nice to have a single place where they can find quick reminders for everything. 

Gold said: I use a method like the one in the OP for my HeroQuest game on Roll20. Tracking equipment, spell cards, body/mind points, on the margins of the Page around the map area. A variation on the idea in the OP --- you (the GM) can simply COPY-Paste the column-rows of Reserources to a New Page. You don't necessarily need to keep changing-out the Map on the edge of the pre-existing Resources column. You can do the opposite. Keep making new Map Pages, and always remember to leave enough room on the Margins to copy-paste the column of Rescoures. Same idea just inverted the process, thus freeing you to have unlimited Map Pages and not need to delete the map section.  Your variation is works well as well, although I do think it depends on the kind of maps one uses. There are times where I have the players switch between the same 3 pages, so constantly having to copy paste between them would be less practical. I suppose you can make a combination of these two methods, based on your needs as a GM.