52 Pages Tutorial Character Sheet

One of my first old school things to get attention was the Old School Players character sheet which had all the rules for rolling up a character on it. Last weekend I was getting some new players started and thought it would be a good idea to work up an overlay for the existing 52 Pages sheet that would kind of simulate this experience. It ended up as three pieces of paper that you would cut various sized holes in, with instructions for filling in the parts of the sheet that were visible through the holes at he time.

This was clever but proved a little unwieldy in practice; I probably should have made the overlays a different color than the sheet. Anyway, this gave me the idea to just go back to the old ways and produce a character sheet with the instructions on it. After some simplifications and "ask the GM" handwaving I managed to fit things onto two sides of a piece of paper (European A4, so North Americans may want to do some resizing).

Blogger is being funny about updating the links section on the right so here is the link to the shared doc. Enjoy!

One-Nerd Character Sheets

A game that's appealing to new and nontraditional players need not have simple rules, just a referee who's willing to take on the burden of dealing with the rules ... at least that's what I argued a few weeks ago.

I want to get specific now about ways  to tackle an issue I have special awareness of. For the past 15 years or so I've been teaching statistics and methods at the undergraduate and masters' level to psychology students. A lot of them are smart, but just have an unease or outright dislike when it comes to numbers. This is often a gender issue, but not always. Of course, to use statistics I have to deal with numbers, but try to soften the blow by using concepts and figures more than equations in teaching.

My question is, how many people like this have frozen over when they see a form to be filled in with numbers, numbers, numbers?

This resemblance can't help.

And how many would be more at ease playing a game that rewards their talents of verbal expression, imagination, logical thinking, problem solving - while only having to deal with six one-digit numbers, a hit point score, and their money and experience totals?

Here's the current character sheet I use for my games (click these to enlarge).

Now here it is split up into two: a basic player's sheet stripped of most of the statistics and numbers, and a basic referee roster where they all go.

 For extra simplicity, I suggest flipping the bonus and score areas of the ability scores, so that the 3-18 roll goes in the little dash to the right, and the bonus/penalty/0 goes into the big box on the left.

The "good at" and "not so good at" boxes are there for the player to make notes on the DM's summing up of their skills.

Most of my current players are avid roleplayers who are comfortable with the numbers and sums. Some of them would even feel uncomfortable without being able to look and see exactly what their character numbers do. But if I ever have a chance to run games for non-gamers - kids or grownups - I'll give this approach a shot.

Putting Two Great Encumbrance Ideas Together

The first great idea, of course, is James Raggi's Lamentations encumbrance: heavy items are written in a separate list, and encumbrance can just be figured out as the count of that list. By "heavy" I take it to mean objects longer than about two feet, or heavier than 4-5 pounds or so.

The second, which you might not have seen, is Rotten Pulp's visually interesting location-based encumbrance, by Matt Rundle and Jack Mcnamee. Their logic is solid: in fiction, adventuring characters never think about their total load like eighteen-wheelers at a weighing station. Instead, the drama revolves around backpacks, sacks and belts; individual carrying items that can be pilfered, damaged, or dropped in a hurry.

Realistically, too, so much of packing depends on a good distribution around the body. If you pile too much onto your back or your hips, you're not going to move as effectively as if you've packed in a more even way. So shouldn't it make sense that it's the location rather than the whole body that can get overloaded?

 Here's what I came up with as a combination of the two ideas. You have a list divided into three sites: backpack, torso harness, and waist belt. Half of the lines in each list are "overload"; any item placed on them will reduce your move by 3. Dwarves and strong people get free items. Bad things can happen to items outside the backpack - they'll have a chance to break on body criticals or if you fall down, and can be pickpocketed - but things inside the backpack need a full combat round to retrieve.

Armor worn can be thought of as an extra area, with leather being part of the free zone, chain giving -3 and plate giving -6.

Smaller and lighter items are non-encumbering, but it makes sense to also have separate areas for backpack, pouches and purses that are handier to get to, and items secreted on the person, in blouses, boots and so on (these take a round to get out as well.)

Loads should be listed out assuming the character is carrying nothing in the hands. If carrying a shield or weapon makes a difference, this should be noted. If not carrying any useful tool or weapon, the hands can also be used as an extra space that can carry up to 4 weights without losing movement, or 8 weights with an additional -3 move.

(Incidentally, I changed "Encumbrance" to "Heavy Items" as the title for the list and system - it's more understandable to normal folk and leaves behind the baggage, so to speak, of old encumbrance systems detailed down to the copper piece.)