Generic 2-page landscape A4 Character Sheet (comments/crits appreciated)

[allluckyseven]

I was never much of a fan of the standard 4th Ed GURPS charsheet, so recently I decided to make one of my own.

With this one I tried to follow somewhat the look of the standard one, leaving enough room to write things down and in general having things well laid out and organized.
So it's not meant to be visually appealing, it's meant to be practical.

At first I didn't want, but felt the need to use a second page (which should be printed on the back side), and so I tried making the front more roleplaying-related (ads, disads, skills) and the back more combat-oriented.

Please tell me what you think of it, and where it could be improved.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=16h...okpKqj4S-zuKvm

It has layers, btw, so you could swap the b/w logo for the color version.

Also, I'm new. Hi, everyone!

EDIT:
V2 here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pD...M8kLswDFUZKmCd

[Blind Mapmaker]

Welcome to the forum, your secret decoder ring is in the mail.

I like your sheet and I applaud you for thinking outside of the portrait, so to speak. I think I might steal that idea for my own sheets. I use excel mainly for the functionality, so I am probably not going to use your sheet, but I would definitely consider it if I wasn't addicted to spreadsheets.

But for some constructive suggestions: Folks might appreciate a fillable sheet more than print to scribble on. It's got to get feedback for the plain sheet beforehand, though, because those Adobe boxes are fiddly things.

For me languages, CFs, advantages and skills are a bit too short, but I am probably guilty of skill bloat. I would however add a couple of lines from disads to advantages. The latter are more often heavily modified and it's often enough to have a dozen lines for the former.

On both pages your lower margin is quite low. Not sure whether all printers can deal with that.

The second page is mostly fine, though it looks a bit weird with the white space above the name. I can see why you don't want to repeat everything and why you don't want to extend the boxes upwards, but maybe you have another idea of what to do about that. The extra boxes are a nice touch. Weapons seem to be appropriate even for more action-oriented genres.

Generally, I like your use of layers to modify the look and feel. All in all, a fine sheet that only lacks in fillability (is that a word?).

[Gnomasz]

It looks great! I've been toying with the concept myself, but man, your sheet looks so much better than mine! Move and Size Modifier seem more relevant to fight than role-playing to me, but these are also easy to remember, so I wouldn't bother changing it.

I agree with Blind Mapmaker on the proportions between advantages and disadvantages.

I should probably warn you: this narrow armor writeup gets a bit messy with layered armor, but I still prefer it over the standard one. I like how easy to read it is in regard of the important bits -- the DR value on a specific location.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

For me languages, CFs, advantages and skills are a bit too short, but I am probably guilty of skill bloat. I would however add a couple of lines from disads to advantages. The latter are more often heavily modified and it's often enough to have a dozen lines for the former.

I agree with skills and advantages being shorter than I would like, and disadvantages a bit long. Part of that is my play style.

Languages and CF's are really hard because most of the time they either don't show up at all (one each), or they show up as a long list. you could possibly just have people write them in advantages, with a space for the free ones you get for being alive.

[allluckyseven]

Thanks for your input, everyone.

I changed a few things around, following some of your suggestions. It's been really hard trying to fit everything in just 2 pages, while leaving room for people to write in them, as well as organizing stuff in a logical manner (I think I'm doing that, at least).

The first page now contains (again, generally speaking) combat stuff and the second roleplaying stuff. I had to do that because I didn't want people to flip their character sheets too much while in the middle of combat. Although I'm planning to separate weapon and equipment stats into index cards, so people could pass around in case they need to, so I might remove a bunch of stuff later on.

I'm thinking I could have a couple more page 2s, with different heights for the boxes in the first column.

Here's version 2, still not fillable; I might do that once the design is locked.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pD...M8kLswDFUZKmCd

Even though I haven't test printed it yet, I'm confident it will fit inside the boundaries of most A4 printers, as it does fit the margins of my cheap HP.
You may need to print it in a portrait orientation if you're using an A3 printer, however, I don't know.
Some adjustments might have to be made for it to fit into a Letter sized page. Type may get too small to be readable.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

The text is a little small on Letter, but it still works. And I like the format.

[Grayscale]

I like your sheet! I don't know what initially drove you do to it, but I suspect it was something along the lines of "I'd like more info here" and as you said, less page flipping.

Not meaning to steal your thread (just commenting): I tried making a custom sheet myself, and while quite happy with the amount and type of info it has (being superior to the official in those regards, IMO), your design quality is much more "professional" than mine:

Custom Sheet
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EF...L8dVl6fRkKFgVG

NPC Sheet
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IU...WG6-EJcwRj8eRr

[trechriron]

Originally Posted by Exallted

...your design quality is much more "professional" than mine: ...

I disagree. These are snazzy!

[allluckyseven]

Originally Posted by Exallted

I like your sheet! I don't know what initially drove you do to it, but I suspect it was something along the lines of "I'd like more info here" and as you said, less page flipping.

Not meaning to steal your thread (just commenting): I tried making a custom sheet myself, and while quite happy with the amount and type of info it has (being superior to the official in those regards, IMO), your design quality is much more "professional" than mine:

Custom Sheet
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EF...L8dVl6fRkKFgVG

NPC Sheet
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IU...WG6-EJcwRj8eRr

It was not the amount of info... I think mine has about the same amount as the standard sheet -- with the exception of one little table and a few instructions to help beginning players, though that was inspired by the 3rd edition sheet.

It was mainly that the top half of the standard sheet looks too disorganized and cluttered, which makes the sheet -- and thus, the game itself -- seem too complicated. My first reaction upon seeing it when I bought the book was saying "Well, this looks like a mess." I don't want my players to feel that way.

So by separating things into "sections" or "zones", grouping, aligning everything whenever I could and leaving a good amount of room for someone to write on it, I thought even if it still looked pretty plain, it would end up helping players have a more pleasant experience.

There's still too much stuff in it, for my tastes anyway, but it's really hard to remove stuff and still have a very generic-and-universal character sheet. In my latest revision I actually removed the Points Summary, because it's not the kind of information that players need to keep referring to. It's not essential.
Now it occurs me that I could remove some lines from the Skills and Ads/Disads columns and add back in something else that is very important: White space.

Your sheets look pretty neat. Good idea with using the icons. It's something I'd like to use too.
If you want some constructive criticism, I'd say that you should try and be consistent with both your fonts and the decorations you use.
Think on hierarchy and function when choosing fonts, font sizes, font weights, etc. and if you have the same type of information to display (for instance, tables) format them always the same way.
On decorations, the curved part of every box should be the same size everywhere.
You should also try to print your sheet and see if on paper everything "reads" well (i.e.: not just the text, but the icons too).

[Grayscale]

Originally Posted by trechriron

I disagree. These are snazzy!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by allluckyseven

It was not the amount of info... I think mine has about the same amount as the standard sheet -- with the exception of one little table and a few instructions to help beginning players, though that was inspired by the 3rd edition sheet.

It was mainly that the top half of the standard sheet looks too disorganized and cluttered, which makes the sheet -- and thus, the game itself -- seem too complicated. My first reaction upon seeing it when I bought the book was saying "Well, this looks like a mess." I don't want my players to feel that way.

So by separating things into "sections" or "zones", grouping, aligning everything whenever I could and leaving a good amount of room for someone to write on it, I thought even if it still looked pretty plain, it would end up helping players have a more pleasant experience.

There's still too much stuff in it, for my tastes anyway, but it's really hard to remove stuff and still have a very generic-and-universal character sheet. In my latest revision I actually removed the Points Summary, because it's not the kind of information that players need to keep referring to. It's not essential.
Now it occurs me that I could remove some lines from the Skills and Ads/Disads columns and add back in something else that is very important: White space.

Your sheets look pretty neat. Good idea with using the icons. It's something I'd like to use too.
If you want some constructive criticism, I'd say that you should try and be consistent with both your fonts and the decorations you use.
Think on hierarchy and function when choosing fonts, font sizes, font weights, etc. and if you have the same type of information to display (for instance, tables) format them always the same way.
On decorations, the curved part of every box should be the same size everywhere.
You should also try to print your sheet and see if on paper everything "reads" well (i.e.: not just the text, but the icons too).

Thanks for the feedback! You're right, they should be more consistent across the board (icon sizes, fonts, etc). Part of the problem I suspect is my lack of skill and that I've done this in PowerPoint, of all things (the curved parts, for instance, I couldn't match them). I'll revisit it at some point in the future (I switched to online atm) and will keep your advice in mind.