Improving the GCA5 GURPS 4e Official Character Sheet

[johndallman]

Now that I've made all the fonts Black Arial, 10 point except for the "Included" and "Contains" notes, which are 8 point, I can actually look at it on-screen.

Bugs:

• The example character I'm using (Armin has a copy) has six quirks (due to a failed Fright Check). The "Disadvantages and Quirks" block on page 1 gets just the first of those quirks, but the last disadvantage is highlighted and so is the first quirk.

Suggestions:

• When there is far too much stuff to fit on the first page, don't try to get a bit of everything on there, it's confusing. Instead, put the singular stuff about the character on the first page: basic stats, encumbrance/move/dodge, portrait, TL, status, etc.
• Then put stuff on page 1 that will fit entirely on there: perks, quirks, cultural familiarities and languages often will.
• Then do Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills, all of which are potentially lengthy. Have just one of them breaking over any given page boundary.
• Postpone the weapons, Speed/Range, and so on until you've got past everything that costs points. That makes the page with them a natural place for the point summary.
• Then start the equipment and once that's all printed, the load-outs.

The basic idea is to have logic that produces a standard character sheet layout for characters simple enough to fit onto it, but expands in a friendlier manner for characters who won't.