Stephen Radney-MacFarland has a new Dungeon article up that discusses game aids and tools that can aid a 4e game of Dungeons and Dragons. The article discusses some of the 4e conditions such as Combat Advantage, Bloodied, and the new Marked condition.

Marked is a new condition that defenders and some soldier monsters can apply to their enemies. By itself, it gives a penalty to your target if it attacks anyone but you, which helps defenders and soldiers fulfill their role on the battle grid. Often, though, there are other effects that serve as riders on the marked condition. For instance the paladin’s divine challenge—that class’s signature marking ability—does some amount of radiant damage once a turn when the target of divine challenge attacks someone other than the paladin who marked him. Of course, the fighter (the other Player’s Handbook defender) features a different effect, dissuading her mark from taking the battle elsewhere. Oh, and this is really important to remember—a creature can be marked by only one opponent at a time and new marks supersede old marks.

The article also goes on to discuss how you can use condition cards and power cards as a convenient tool to avoid page flipping at the game table. If you’re the DM and a player is afflicted with a condition, hand out a card that they can lay down in front of their character sheet with all the relevant rules text. When the condition no longer affects them, have them hand the card back. Likewise, using cards to track your powers makes it easier to reference in play so you don’t have to constantly flip your book open to remind yourself of what they do.