#RPGaday topic 26: Coolest character sheet

[Michael Cule]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I do character sheets in Word. PM me with an e-mail and I'll send you a couple of samples. Of course GCA won't output in that format and you'll have to transcribe. . . .

Bill Stoddard

That's very kind but I do need the computing power to check everything and that's what GCA does for me.

It's just that if it were the dream product I have in my imagination it would allow me to easily change the output to something I can use more easily at the table.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Parody

My current favorite character sheets are the ones that come from Hero Lab. Great for speeding up character creation, and the sheets work well now that I'm used to them. As always, there's things I'd like to tweak, but they work well enough.

Yes, I find Hero Lab to be very useful in-play. I wish that GCA had more features (or really any) that supported in-play tracking.

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

I appreciate the character sheets that GCA produces for GURPS but I don't actually like them and would do them differently myself if the goddamn programme actually had a user's manual that taught me how to do this.

Have you tried using the Phoenix sheet and messing around with the character sheet options? It's pretty versatile.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yes, I find Hero Lab to be very useful in-play. I wish that GCA had more features (or really any) that supported in-play tracking.

I have friends who have used HL in-play. I'm just starting to try it out now that I have a Windows machine that's portable and reasonably useful to use with it.

I'd like to see an Android and/or Windows version of their iPad app but it might be a while.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

Honestly, I view a really cool looking character sheet with alarm. As with VICTORIANA which had a sheet with lots of bells and whistles and a steampunk theme, I tend to think 'Do they really need all this stuff?'

I tend to be the same way. For example, the default character sheet for the newish RPG Numenera is very pretty and somewhat evocative, but it's also cluttered and takes a while for you to learn where everything is.

On my Twitter feed, my vote for this was the Marvel Universe RPG's sheet. No, not the "FASERIP" game, nor the new version; I'm talking about the diceless MURPG from 2003. It was a two-page sheet that laid out a grid of your powers and skills; that grid doubled as the way to allocate your energy tokens each turn. It was very clear and worked rather well.

[sjard]

I'm having a problem remembering most that I've used. I'm probably somewhere in the middle.
I don't like super simple character sheets, it needs to have everything I am going to use.
I prefer 2 page sheets, more can be good or bad.
A bit of decoration is not a bad thing, provided it doesn't get too heavy. It helps me remember where things are.

GURPS 4e is good, mostly due to familiarity.
Savage Worlds (printer friendly version) is a bit too simple. As is Exalted 2e.

Some of the ones that have as little to them as some Savage Worlds sheets, or Rules Cyclopedia and earlier era D&D), but make that space small and filled with decoration are just annoying.

Somewhere, I have a Pathfinder multipage (I think it averages about 4 or 6 pages) sheet that looks very nice, most of the needed stuff is on the first two pages, the rest are just character extras. They look quite nice though.

For some of the d20 3.5 rules stuff, I far prefer the D&D 3.5 in book sheet to the rather ugly d20 Star Wars Revised record sheet.

[derendel]

I avoid commercial character sheets these days. I like to make my own. nothing fancy just the needed information customized for the current set of house rules.

I guess my favorite character sheets have been for Apocalypse World. Everything in one place from stats & gear to advancements and moves. Nice and simple.

[johndallman]

There are some very pretty In Nomine character sheets around in PDF form. IN is a game simple enough that a sheet can be both attractive and functional. For GURPS or D&D, there's just too much information for that to work.