Thursday, October 23, 2008

Two quick thoughts on char sheets and conventions

1) Over the years I've noticed that most players want to take the character sheet home with them as a momento of the game. I think I'm going to start putting the name of the game, the event, and the con on all pregens, as well as the date and location of the con.

2) No con/demo charsheet should ever be blank on the back. Don't make the character write-up longer than necessary, just put something cool on the other side. A map, an illo, some useful game charts, a manifesto, just something. Don't waste that space. At a con I once found a charsheet for QAGS, the Quick Ass Game System, that had the chargen rules and pretty much the entire system on the back. That was rad.

4 comments:

  1. That is pretty cool, and you make a good point. I've been unwilling to put any character information on the back of character sheets for a while now, because when you have pencil writing on both sides, it rubs off on things, gets smudged, makes little ridges on the opposite side from the pressure of the pencil, and does other things that makes an anal person like me upset.

    So that's a bunch of wasted space. Putting the game rules there - if you can fit them - is ideal, but I like your other suggestions, too.

    Lately I've also become quite enamored of tent-style character sheets, with the character portrait and name on one side (facing the other players) and character info on the other. It makes character identification easier at the table, especially when someone is playing a character of the opposite sex or of another race/species...

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  2. What I usually put on the back is summaries of character knowledge and outlooks, in particular:

    (1) The names of the other characters in the event, and what the PC thinks/knows about them.
    (2) A quick summary of whatever the PC knows about the location the aventure takes place in, and
    (3) Other character knowledge, usually seeded with at least one useful in-game tidbit that the others don't have, so that everyone has some background info they can pipe into the session in-character.

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  3. A really good hint there, Jeff. I like it. Next time I run Icar at a con, I will take both those points in hand.

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  4. Ajax Talbot3:10 PM

    I invite my players to take the QAGS characters with them and to come by the company website and hand out.

    For me, the character sheet is a calling card that screams "YOU FRAKKING HAD FUN! REMEMBER!?"

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