DIY Character Sheets

[Layec]

For those of you who make your own character sheets, what programs do you use? What fonts?

[Chaot]

Mostly, my players and I just use pencil and paper. No preprinted sheets.

When I do make custom sheets it's either in Publisher or Photoshop. I used to use Wordperfect long ago.

As to fonts. I used to have the Elric! font. That was fun for Young Kingdom games. I dearly wish that it hadn't passed in a hard drive crash.

[SDLeary]

InDesign. Scribus should be a good choice too, and its free.

SDLeary

[Thalaba]

I use Open Office Calc (MS Excel) 'cause I like my sheets to do the math for me. That way if my STR changes during the game, I don't have to recalculate my Damage Bonus, ENC, and skill category bonuses all over again. As for fonts, I change them up all the time, depending on the mood I want the sheet to convey.

[Chaot]

Ah, I guess I should add that I've had players use Excel before a couple of times, but there's rarely a laptop present at our games.

[rust]

For those of you who make your own character sheets, what programs do you use? What fonts?

Most of the players use Open Office to create the character sheets, and sometimes Paint.NET

to "spice them up" with backgrounds, illustrations and thelike. They use different fonts for their

character sheets, but our "standard" for the "official" material for our settings and campaigns

is Georgia.

[threedeesix]

I'm an Excel user myself. Like Thalaba said, I like my sheets to do the math for me. I even have an NPC sheet that will fit 4 identical NPCs on one page. Little characters sheets that calculate their hit points per location, hit points, damage bonus, skill base with characteristic modifier, etc. I had to write up over 30 NPCs for last Saturday's game and it was a breeze.

I use them for initiative/combat purposes, so only have combat related skills on them. I also have one filled out for each player character and arrange them in initiative order at the beginning of each combat. When I get to the bottom the rounds over. They work great.

Here is a PDF (non-fillable) set I did for the giants they fought.

Edit: Oh, and for fonts I use what ever fits the genre best. I use the fonts from Classic Fantasy for that, for Star Wars I use one of the various Star Wars fonts, etc.

Rod

Initiative_Sheets_Hill Giants_1-4.pdf

Edited April 23, 2010 by threedeesix

[soltakss]

I use Excel as it is really easy to line things up and we can calculate bonuses etc using formulae.

Each of my players have customised their sheets slightly, so every one is different.

We use basic fonts for text (Arial is the normal one, I think) but Gloranthan Runes use the old RQ Runes font, whatever that's called. Since I found out, from this forum I think, that Excel allows you to mix fonts in individual cells, I tend to put a Rune and its description in the same cell, to save space.

[Chaot]

I have to admit, this topic kind of fascinates me. I started thinking about it after the Character Sheet Rant thread.

Back in the stone age I remember using the xerox, scissors and glue stick at the local library to create custom character sheets. I remember writing things up in ASCII. I remember rolling my eyes at packaged character sheets for sale. Largely, character sheets have been a guideline in my games for the player to scribble down the pertinent information. It's largely still how I work.

At the beginning of a game, the player is presented with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. Their given a guide on what information needs to be recorded. Unless there's something very specific designed for, character sheets are usually a growth out of the generation session and are usually unique to the character/player.

I guess I never realized that people put so much stock or time into character sheets.

[Narl]

Does anyone have sheets they would be willing to post in editable formats?

Most I've dug up are in pdf, but the native formats would help everyone out in making custom sheet.

[rust]

Most I've dug up are in pdf, but the native formats would help everyone out in making custom sheet.

When I want to edit something published as a PDF, I usually just copy it with Open Office and

can then work with it as I please. The only problem are tables and thelike, which have to be

re-formatted, but it is usually still less effort than working from scratch.

[Layec]

I have to admit, this topic kind of fascinates me. I started thinking about it after the Character Sheet Rant thread.

Back in the stone age I remember using the xerox, scissors and glue stick at the local library to create custom character sheets. I remember writing things up in ASCII. I remember rolling my eyes at packaged character sheets for sale. Largely, character sheets have been a guideline in my games for the player to scribble down the pertinent information. It's largely still how I work.

At the beginning of a game, the player is presented with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. Their given a guide on what information needs to be recorded. Unless there's something very specific designed for, character sheets are usually a growth out of the generation session and are usually unique to the character/player.

I guess I never realized that people put so much stock or time into character sheets.

I remember doing the same thing with some of the Mad Irishman's sheets so I could get away with only using two sheets and still have all the information I wanted. Oh lord, I can barely read my own writing most of the time, so a blank piece of paper with handwritten information would be an endless source of frustration for me. And eyestrain.

I wanted to make my own character sheet because I've added a few houserules to my BRP game that change some decently major things, the changes I'd have to make to a stock character sheet would have made them confusing. So I thought about creating my own. I just ran into a roadblock with spacing and fonts. But Excel sheets, especially some that I've found on the net since Thalaba's post, are really nice, and I think I'm just going to use them.

Thanks for the discussion, everyone. It's been very helpful and enlightening.

[wbcreighton]

When I want to edit something published as a PDF, I usually just copy it with Open Office and

can then work with it as I please. The only problem are tables and thelike, which have to be

re-formatted, but it is usually still less effort than working from scratch.

I'm not very familiar with OO. How do you "copy it" and then work on it ?

[rust]

I'm not very familiar with OO. How do you "copy it" and then work on it ?

Just like the normal "copy & paste" with a PDF: I open the PDF with Adobe Reader, mark the

entire page with the mouse and click on "Copy", then open Open Office and click on "Paste",

and there it is, as a normal Open Office text I can edit.

However, as mentioned, tables and thelike lose the formatting and have to be re-formatted

afterwards - unless one is as lazy as I am, and just cuts them out with the Snipping Tool as

pictures and inserts them into the text after altering them with Paint.NET if necessary.

[Thalaba]

Does anyone have sheets they would be willing to post in editable formats?

Most I've dug up are in pdf, but the native formats would help everyone out in making custom sheet.

One of mine is in the downloads section already: http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=202

It won't be to everyone's taste, and it's more RQ3 than BRP, but it will show you some of the things you can do with Excel or open Office.

[Al.]

Does anyone have sheets they would be willing to post in editable formats?

More in the spirit of the request than the word is the following http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=333

It is rather dull and workmanlike rather than a thing of beauty

And like all of my stuff has been houseruled to death

But it may be of some use

Al

[Merak Gren]

Well after much frustration, I present the first draft of my BRP Jorune Character sheet.

This sheet is designed for an Earth Colony era game. Hence no isho skills.

There may be some errors in formatting or editing I have not ironed out yet.

Once I have this finalised, I'll upload it in the download area.

BRP Jorune CS v1.pdf

[threedeesix]

Very nice. Makes me want to play it. That's the sign of a nice sheet.

Rod

[Charles Green]

Indeed, the Jorune sheet looks very nice.

[Verderer]

I guess one of the annoying things about BRP is that since you can choose so many optional rules, very few character sheets are exactly what you want. So you end up making your own, because none of the available ones contain all the things you need or want (unless you're playing a 'vanilla' game). That's certainly my case. I use regular word for making the sheet, don't need any calculations, so Excel isn't necessary.

[Merak Gren]

Very nice. Makes me want to play it. That's the sign of a nice sheet.

Rod

Thanks guys. Its intended for a Con game, so I want to keep it simple. There will be another sheet with a character description, goals and inventory.

Due to the somewhat unusual nature of Jorune (as well as the nice artwork) I'm toying with the idea of having separate cut out pieces for weapons with a brief description of how they work and do. For example I need to model a Field Ram.

With a bit of luck, I will get a few more converts both to BRP and Skyrealms of Jorune.

[ClawCarver]

With a bit of luck, I will get a few more converts both to BRP and Skyrealms of Jorune.

Amen to that, and good luck with the con game, Damon.

My own stumbling progress towards a playable BRP Jorune conversion continues in tortuous, two-steps-forward-one-step-back fashion. Meanwhile, I've been rereading old progs of 2000AD. Anyone who recognises the name Claw Carver will be familiar with the premise of the classic Pat Mills strip "Flesh", but for those who missed it:

In the 23rd century, humankind has pretty much wiped out animal life and lives on synthesised food. Time travel technology, however, enables ruthless food combines like Trans-Time Corp to send men (who, naturally, dress and act like 19th-century cowboys) back to the Mesozoic era, to hunt and kill the huge herds of styracosaurs, alamosaurs, etc., and beam their copious flesh back up the line to feed the salivating 23rd-century public.

Savagely satirical (like all of Mills's work), "Flesh" portrays humans as arrogant, ignorant, venal and destructive. When the ravenous tyrannosaurs and deinonychuses (not to mention giant spiders!) come to settle their score with the humans, it's hard not to cheer. Anyway, I thought I'd write an adventure or two. Cowboys vs dinosaurs: what's not to like? I'm not sure a long-term campaign would be feasible - I confidently expect the casualty rate to be high.

Here's the character sheet I put together yesterday evening using Open Office Calc. The font is Comic Sans, and I used mostly caps in a vague attempt at replicating the hand-lettered look of a 1970s British comic. I hope at the very least it raises a smile somewhere.

Flesh CS.pdf

Edited May 11, 2010 by ClawCarver

[threedeesix]

Nice sheet... and now I have do dig out all my old 2000 AD.

Rod

[ClawCarver]

Nice sheet... and now I have do dig out all my old 2000 AD.

Rod

Ta very much. I wish you joy in your digging. Splundig Vur Thrigg!

Alan