Cinco: Character Sheet

Taking a break from my home game because real life has gotten a little crazy (later edit: unrelated to the election results!). What better time to blog about tabletop games than when you're not actually playing them? Harharhar! I wanted to share the character sheet I've been using for my game, explain how/why it is the way it is, and reflect on how it's been going.

My goal with the sheet was to make it very easy to explain to newcomers, and also immediately intuitive for anyone who's ever previously come into contact with D&D. There's three major sections: the concept section on the top-left where you describe your character and come up with a mini backstory (with a beginning, middle, and not-end); the mechanical part on the top-right where you interface with your character through numbers (honk-shoo); and your character's items on the bottom (represented by cards that you illustrate yourself because it's fun). I guess I'll just go in order.

The concept section is very engrossing. If you give people color pencils and an hour, they'll go a second hour over just illustrating their character and decorating the entire sheet to match. Newcomers feel somewhat overwhelmed by being asked to come up with a concept, which I think is very normal for D&D, but if you give them a world stage to inhabit and ask them to describe themes or aesthetics they like, eventually they get wrapped up into their own imagination and you have to actively pull them away! On the other hand, this section is anathema to "gamers" (derogatory) and helps you clock off the bat who's going to have difficulty playing a character-centric game. This is avoidable if you play with people you know but, you know, it's helpful to know what to expect if you don't already know. In any case, I think having random tables would help prompt uncertain players' imagination. I have them on hand, but unfortunately I tend to forgo them in favor of collective brainstorming. Should consider doing/having both on the table. Wouldn't hurt!

I'm very happy with the statistics and aspects sections. Counting discrete hits instead of hit points seems more transparent so that players have a better idea of how screwed they are, and is less annoying than rolling dice and subtracting hit points. The graphical component, using hearts instead of just numbers, also seems more intuitive (and fun) as a matter of UX! Aspects were something I've floated on here for a while, and I ended up switching from individual (user-defined) skills to general (user-defined) aspects which encompass backgrounds, professions, and so on. Some players had difficulty initially, but it seemed to help when I phrased it like describing your character using nouns rather than adjectives. For example, if your character is quick or strong or whatever, why are they? Gamers (derogatory) had difficulty in particular because they sought to optimize their character for specific contexts like combat, and they were impatient to associate their character's abilities with a specific reason for why they have them. Anyway, the change was worth it overall for a more flexible and imaginative interface between players and their characters.

Everyone has fun with item cards! Basically, you stick the character sheet in a laminated sleeve, put double-sided tape over each of the slots, and then stick your cards in the "Readied" or "Equipped" sections depending on whether you want to use the item in combat. People get really into illustrating cards that I give them. It's a great "distraction" that engages their imagination and makes the game feel even more tactile. Initially, I was worried about inventory management being too prominent and annoying, but that's not a problem if you restrict inventory to things that matter the most (and hand-wave the rest). Shout-out to Mausritter since I first arranged this section based on the idea that you could simplify its inventory system by reducing the equipped section from four rectangles with differently sized large items, to three rectangles with a standard size for large items. That's pretty in the weeds, though.

In general, I'm really happy with how this has turned out! It's basically vulgar D&D as opposed to indie auteur D&D, and it works great for the style of game I like to play and run (character-centric hijinks and thematic exploration). I figure I'll write about another dimension of my game once a week, while my brain recovers. I think the character sheet is the most involved, though, so everything else is going to be pretty short.