How are you dealing with stuff like # of torches someone has? I'm currently using card sleeves and magic marker on the sleeve. The cards remain in pristine condition but it's a bit of a pain.
I'm curious what else people have tried?
Well, I'm doing the card sleeves and washable markers for the cards. My players each have a colored square metal tin to keep item and NPC cards in (I also use the Face Cards from GameMastery).
For basic items like number of torches, I leave it to the character sheet. Some items just cant be tracked with item cards (and tracking them with pencil on character sheets is just easier!). I leave the cards for primarily magical items (especially one-use magic items, players always seem to ignore/forget about them when they're on character sheets).
Just keep the card next to you, and when they find the item, write it on the back then and there.
Hope this helps!
We've usually just tried to write in pencil on the back and then erase, although the treatment on the cards doesn't make the writing show up very well. Card sleeves is probably better if you take the time to buy them and insert them all in.