[Rant] BRP Character Sheets

[Merak Gren]

A bit of a rant this but please bear with me. I am hopeless at doing charactersheets. I haven't got the time, I don't get the dimensions right. I don't get layout right.

Not having the right Charactersheet is what puts me off running BRP. Everytime I have an idea and think, "Cool, BRP could do that easy" I then come unstuck at the charactersheet. I'm really fed up with this let down.

You'd think that with this attitude, I'd be grateful for all the character sheets available in the down load section.

So am I?

Well, yes and no. Some are very good at doing what they do, .but, and this is the issue for me, it doesn't do what I want them to do.

What do I mean by this? Well. For example, if I wanted to play a gritty Sci-fi game with specific skills, I don't want to find skills like Ride on it.

I also want to be able to have / decide on things like general hit points v location hit points. Insanity points. Skill bonuses etc. In short, I want to make these decisions, and not have to rely on someone elses design decisions. If I don't want half a page of powers, I don't need to have it.

I know that it is easy to customise Excel charactersheets, but they end up too 'square'. That is, lots of right angles and straight lines and a touch too busy.

I do not have any desktop publishing tools either, so have to do with Open Office, Excel or Word.

What I want is a totally flexible and customisable character sheet template. PDF's are out.

Imagine something in Excel, with a questionnaire regarding options for BRP that then runs a macro that populates the charactersheet.

Something I could add graphics to if I wanted a snazzy header, or a background image.

Is this just me, or do you also feel that there is a real need for something like this?

I am dissapointed in Chaosium in not coming up with either a book full of charactersheets for the most popular combination of options and genre's or an application that can design them according to your settings.

Maybe its just me wanting it too look just right, but I do think a good looking character sheet that is designed with the genre and game in mind will help get the players in the right mood for the game.

[rust]

Well, since the players are the ones who have to like their character sheets and to work with

them, I usually leave it to the players to design whatever they want. I only give them the ne-

cessary informations about the campaign, and they usually come up with something nice crea-

ted with, for example, Open Office and Paint Net.

[Lord Shag]

you can do it with ms word merak you just have to have the patience to work out its limitations. download my starship control sheet print it and see if you like it. that was made with word.

[Thalaba]

I put an Excel character sheet in the downloads some time ago. It's definitely specific to our campaign, but serves as an example of what can be done. It's definitely 'square' since it's printed on an 8.5"x11" piece of paper, but then I've never seen a character sheet that wasn't. One of the criticisms of it was that it wasn't crowded enough (though for me that's a feature).

Personally, I wouldn't buy a book of published character sheets because I doubt it would contain exactly what I was looking for in a sheet. I'm too much a DIY GM - which is part of what attracts me to BRP in the first place, I suppose.

Merak, it might help if you could post here a sample sheet from another game that illustrates what you're looking for - then maybe someone will tell you how to make one quickly (if possible), or maybe even make it for you.

[Merak Gren]

I put an Excel character sheet in the downloads some time ago. It's definitely specific to our campaign, but serves as an example of what can be done. It's definitely 'square' since it's printed on an 8.5"x11" piece of paper, but then I've never seen a character sheet that wasn't. One of the criticisms of it was that it wasn't crowded enough (though for me that's a feature).

Personally, I wouldn't buy a book of published character sheets because I doubt it would contain exactly what I was looking for in a sheet. I'm too much a DIY GM - which is part of what attracts me to BRP in the first place, I suppose.

Merak, it might help if you could post here a sample sheet from another game that illustrates what you're looking for - then maybe someone will tell you how to make one quickly (if possible), or maybe even make it for you.

I can't seem to do it on my blackberry, but I'll attach one I've seen done for Mongoose Conan in word. I consider it to be nicely done but just thinking of sizing all those tables gives me a headache.

[Merak Gren]

Well, since the players are the ones who have to like their character sheets and to work with

them, I usually leave it to the players to design whatever they want. I only give them the ne-

cessary informations about the campaign, and they usually come up with something nice crea-

ted with, for example, Open Office and Paint Net.

I want to have some custom charactersheets for a BRP game at a con. I want to both emphasize BRP's flexibility as well as sell the game better than its original system. A generic charactersheet is just going to look pants.

As a player, and GM, I have never seen anyone do their own charactersheets other than for cons.

[rust]

As a player, and GM, I have never seen anyone do their own charactersheets other than for cons.

Well, since Chaosium does not publish character sheets in German, and since I insist that I am

responsible for the setting only while the players are responsible for their characters, they had

no choice but to design their own character sheets.

[Merak Gren]

Well, since Chaosium does not publish character sheets in German, and since I insist that I am

responsible for the setting only while the players are responsible for their characters, they had

no choice but to design their own character sheets.

Ahh. Necessity, the mother of invention. Unfortnately, no such covenant exists withing my group.

[tedopon]

They're just character sheets. I make the ones for all the games I run, and they are all very minimal, blocky and bland. As long as they have spots for people to write their information in, that's all I care. The way I see it, a boring homemade sheet is better than A) a commercially available one that has a bunch of stuff I don't need/use and a piece of notebook paper with random chicken scratches on it.

[Merak Gren]

If successful, there should be an attachment of a Mongoose Conan Word charactersheet for a fan made demo scenario called "And the snow will run with the blood of your enemies" or something like that.

I do like the spacing, the black headers and how it looks. I just wish I could do something like this, without spending a month agonizing over every measurement.

eregerth..doc

[Thalaba]

Hmmm. It doesn't open well in Open Office, but to me, that sheet looks pretty square with lots of right angles and straight lines and "a touch too busy", which is exactly what you said you don't like.

But setting that aside, if you like that sheet you could definitely do something like that in Excel, with drop down menus and probably even a questionnaire.

Thing is, I'm pretty sure you'd have to customize for each game if you wanted to change the skill list and use different options. But I'm sure you'd have to do that with desktop publishing software, too. I still think Excel is your best bet.

I'll attach our Excel made character sheet (well, now it's an open office Calc sheet), maybe you can compare. It doesn't have any graphics, but they can certainly be added. It's also for a modified RQ3 game, so would have to be modified for BRP. I think that once it was tailored for BRP, it would probably only take a half an hour or so to modify it for each particular game after that. You would first build the sheet with all the options, then simply delete the things you don't need and rearrange the rest in a pleasing fashion.

Amelizar Charshee.pdf

[threedeesix]

If successful, there should be an attachment of a Mongoose Conan Word charactersheet for a fan made demo scenario called "And the snow will run with the blood of your enemies" or something like that.

I do like the spacing, the black headers and how it looks. I just wish I could do something like this, without spending a month agonizing over every measurement.

That's not really all that different than the sheet I did for Classic Fantasy using excel. Theirs is still busy, maybe even more so, and blocky. Of course, my group and I have been using a variation of the one I use for so long maybe it just looks more natural to me.

Anyway here is mine...

New Sheet v8..pdf

[tedopon]

http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=327&act=down

Wow, you guys make pretty ones. If you want an example of a really blocky, bland sheet, click the above link.

[threedeesix]

http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=327&act=down

Wow, you guys make pretty ones. If you want an example of a really blocky, bland sheet, click the above link.

But even that's nicely laid out and functional. I think the problem is that there is not, nor will there ever be a perfect character sheet. What's perfect for one person may be completely unusable to another. Especially when dealing with a universal system like BRP.

What Merak Gren and the rest of us need to do is befriend The Mad Irishman over at http://www.mad-irishman.net/index.html

He does tons of character sheets for many different systems and he uses layers that can be selected or turned off. The link of for one of them that he did for COC. The layers are selected from the list at the left of the sheet. Play around with it and you'll see what I mean. Something like that, that could turn on Hit Locations and turn off Major Wound Level and vice versa for example would be awesome. Skills list based on time period etc.

Edit: This is the blurb about his COC sheet: "Got to play some CoC lately, and what started as a simple fix of a typo on my (very old) 3.0 sheet became a total overhaul. Probably my most ambitious use of layers so far at around 100, this file requires Acrobat 6 or later but allows you to customize your sheet and play anything from Delta Green to CoC Dark Ages."

Edit, Edit: OK, I just e-mailed him with a request to do a BRP sheet. I'll keep you all informed.

Anyway, check it out. He does sheets for some long out of print games as well. Great stuff.

Edited April 11, 2010 by threedeesix

[icebrand]

Here are my contributions:

- A BRP Sheet for RQ/Ancient/Classic Fantasy game LINK

- A variant of the above with crazy graphics (i was testing layouts, i don't really like it) LINK *NOTE* Despite the info i think it prints on Legal (not A4) paper

I can send you the originals (.PSD) if you like/want to mess around with the template

[pansophy]

Here's my one I did for a Post Apo World. It's still generic but has put in some PA Art.

And I cannot understand why PDF's are out of date?!

PA Sheet

I think you should point out what you want to have changed to the char-sheet you like most, contact the author and maybe he or someone else can help you? Just saying "it is not what I want to see" is a one way road...

Edited July 2, 2010 by pansophy

[icebrand]

Here's my one I did for a Post Apo World. It's still generic but has put in some PA Art.

Sir, your character sheet is FREAKING AWESOME!

You should REALLY make a fantasy version of it!!!

[pansophy]

Sir, your character sheet is FREAKING AWESOME!

You should REALLY make a fantasy version of it!!!

LOL Thanks. If you have some Fantasy Art I should put in, please send me the links. I will see what I can do then.

[icebrand]

LOL Thanks. If you have some Fantasy Art I should put in, please send me the links. I will see what I can do then.

LOL :D

Seriously, i don't have a clue; maybe some ancient parchment

Or some stone tablets

http://hashemartworks.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/tablet1_front.jpg <- pic is huge

Or stuff like that, but truth be told it's quite hard to find appropriate images!

[pansophy]

I will see what I can do. The parchment ting is a nice idea, the runes as well. It is difficult to do a sheet without knowing the actual world it plays in. So it has to be "generic fantasy", which is not easy to do.

[icebrand]

I will see what I can do. The parchment ting is a nice idea, the runes as well. It is difficult to do a sheet without knowing the actual world it plays in. So it has to be "generic fantasy", which is not easy to do.

Actually, mine is for Glorantha! I just said generic fantasy cause i thought it would be more useful for the community as whole!

[icebrand]

BRP / RQ sheet V2!

http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=350

[trechriron]

http://www.nbos.com/products/charsheet/charsheet.htm

Check this out. Character Sheet creation software from NBOS!

Once I have finished the GM screen, I will take requests and do a similar "poll" and see if I can't come up with a new shiny character sheet. I have also started hacking the Hero Lab software for BRP (from the C0C files). We could come up with a custom sheet in PDF using layers. Not sure how to do the layout-by-choice thing, but I will investigate, I am sure some programming magic out there could accomplish it. I will jump back in here and start asking for input once the GM screen is ready for review.