I’ve been thinking of character sheets the past couple of days, after eyeballing all of the abilities/skills that actually appear in TSR systems and what my paraclone and bespoke systems have laid out. There’s a whole lotta info to put on those sheets! Lots of items to be available to reference, even avoiding any sort of easy buttons to circumvent challenges.
I realized that the common approach of reporting attribute scores was kind silly a long time ago. Those scores aren’t really referenced often in play, at least in editions where attribute checks aren’t a thing. They’ve always taken up a lot of space on the page, too, despite a relative lack of use.
I’ve sketched out sheets before that placed the attributes in the lower right of the page–the tail end of a single page sheet. Those sheets were just as useful as any other, if not more so because the info at the top of the page was all referenced far more often.
So, when thinking about sketching out sheets for the systems underway, I have to wonder if the attributes should even appear on the sheets. I’ve reduced the importance of attributes in each system to remove the luck of the roll from being a major character advantage in play. Good attributes do still provide bonuses, just in a more restrained manner.
Those bonuses appear in other sections of the sheet, though, alongside the abilities to which they apply, and those grouped with similar abilities. I don’t reckon I need to actually list the attributes on the character sheet for reference; that something may change an attribute and that could have follow-on effects is the only reason to include them. So a small box listing them seems adequate.
The other major reason for pondering character sheets involves what to present in prime placement? By that, I break down placement on the page by importance: the top third is more important than the middle third which is more important than the bottom third. The left most part of those tiers is more important than the middle which is more important than the right side. As we read from left to right and top to bottom, what gets placed first in that scheme is most important.
So, what’s most important in these systems? At this point, I’m leaning to the general adventuring abilities being most important in terms of needing reference. Sure, in the middle of a fight, a player will need to reference what fighting abilities the character possesses; the same sort of thing applies for other specialized activities. Far more often, I think, the player will need to refer to information about how the character performs with everyman abilities–is the character more or less likely to be surprised or surprise others? Notice oddities in stone work that can indicate a secret door? How capable at lifting a portcullis that clanged down to block the way?
It think it far better to have the abilities listed on the sheet grouped by activity to make referencing easier, so having those abilities listed top left makes the most sense to me. I’m still working out how the rest of the page real estate should be allocated. Class abilities in the next plot? Then abilities in the other aspects/pillars of play? Or each aspect/pillar gets a plotted space with all the basics and the class abilities then get recorded? I can see advantages to each approach.