Character sheets as the equivalent of plot webs?

[Jeph]

So yeah. Do you remember, back in elementary school, when your fourth grade teacher told you how to start planning a story? You made a little blurb in the center of the page with the main idea, then little other blurbs connected to it by spokes that represented details.

I think this is sort of how I plan a game. However, instead of writing a little web orf blurbs, I design a character sheet. Instead of a little plot summary in the center I have the title at the top, which keeps me focussed and tells me what the game's all about. Somewhere on the sheet I'll have the attributes I'm using (if I'm using them at all), and I might have skills or an equivalent thereof, too, if there aren't too many. Do I have a space for equipment? If I do, I know equipment will be important. How about a place to record how the story's going? A slot for contacts, funds, wounds? I can take a glance at my character sheet and know what my game will be like before I've even typed out an introduction.

I also make a new character sheet when I'm going to do a redesign or makeover of a system. A new face for a new brain, so to speak.

I have a feeling that this is far from the most common way to go about designing a game. In fact, I'd be willing to be that most people only make a serious character sheet after they're completely done with their game. Does anyone else use this sheet-as-map method? Does it even make sense to you? What other methods do you use to plan for a game?

Just some random thoughts,
Jeff S.

[Andrew Martin]

While the blob in the middle with ideas radiating outwards like spokes from a bicycle wheel's axle is much like a an outline:

Code:

* Blob
  * Idea 1
  * Idea 2
  * Idea 3
    *  Derived Idea 1
    *  Derived Idea 2

The important part is that the first description allows one to connect the radiating spokes to form a grid or mesh of ideas. Then realise that sometime it's better to change one's point of view, and pick one of the radiating ideas as one's central point, or even to have no central root but instead deal with a forest of ideas.

[jdagna]

Well... I don't exactly start with a character sheet, but I do see developing the sheet as a very important step.  I start by writing out the basics for the system I'm working on, and then put the sheet together before I start finalizing the system.  In many cases, I've found that knowing what I can put on the sheet (and how) affects what the rules will cover.  

For example, both my vehicle and computer sections rely heavily on using a character sheet to help players visualize what's happening (either with a ship's systems and structure or a computer's programs and network).  In another example, if the rules start requiring more frequently-referenced information than fits on a single character sheet, it's a strong clue that things are getting too complicated.

[M. J. Young]

Oddly, I don't think I'd design a character sheet to early in game design, because I've rarely found a pre-designed character sheet that worked well for me in play. I make my own sheets when the game starts, putting information I expect will be important where it will be accessible; then after a while if we're still playing that game I'll redesign it to be more suitable to how things actually play.

Also, I've got some special considerations I keep in mind for my sheets. First, they're always word processer templates, so I can store them on the computer and keep the character papers on file for printing at need. Second, I try to keep information that's going to change on one page and information that's not going to change on another, to the degree that this is sensible, so I don't have to print up the same stuff every time. Third, I need white space for people to make in-game notes that can be recorded or incorporated after the game.

So I think of a character sheet more like a working document you use to facilitate play, and want to be free to redesign it to meet those needs as the game progresses. I'd never think of building a game around a sheet, because you can't tell where the game is going to go, so you really have no idea what's going to be important on the sheet.

Just my perspective.

--M. J. Young

[Ben Morgan]

I've recently become very enamored of any game system that has a single-page character sheet. Any information that can't fit on one page is extraneous. If the sheet is also visually pleasing, so much the better. Of course, I'm just a bit biased, aren't I? What goes on the sheet is quite dependent on the complexity of the system itself (which is why d20 sheets tend to look like tax forms).

-- Ben

[Daniel Solis]

I've recently become very enamored of any game system that has a single-page character sheet. Any information that can't fit on one page is extraneous. If the sheet is also visually pleasing, so much the better.

I most heartily agree.

I like character sheets that can be scribbled on a restaurant napkin in a drunken stupor and whose aesthetics are an extension of the game's playstyle. Jared Sorensen's known for his neato character sheets for octaNe and especially Inspectres.

Shameless plug: I tried my hand at that sort of "theme" character sheet with PUNK. The PUNK sheet is small enough to fit roughly half a page and formatted so that you can cut off the extraneous paper and fold it into a CD booklet. I'm considering making CD labels part of the sheet too, but I dunno. (The PUNK sheet.)

As far as the plot web, I have the feeling it can give a fairly decent summarization of the character. Have a concept like "detective" at the center, the "detective-y things" he can do in the next branch. Then the third and smallest branch would be specialized applications of the detective-y things. A task resolution could somehow take into account every relevant "junction" on the character web as bonus.

[M. J. Young]

I've recently become very enamored of any game system that has a single-page character sheet. Any information that can't fit on one page is extraneous.

I know that's popular, but I'm really not in tune with it at all.

I like character sheets that grow with the character. I think a character sheet should reflect the history of the character to date, and continue to expand that history as the character moves forward into the future.

Of course, I hate one-shot games, because I always want to know what is going to happen to the character next. (That's too strong--I don't hate them, I just always feel like it's not the end of the story. "And they lived happily ever after" doesn't even work in fairy tales, for me.) So it's natural that if I want the character's life to continue to grow, be fleshed out, and move on into new things, I'll also want the character sheet to expand with him.

This view is seldom voiced by gamers; I'm sure I'm not alone in it, though.

--M. J. Young

[iago]

I've recently become very enamored of any game system that has a single-page character sheet. Any information that can't fit on one page is extraneous.

I know that's popular, but I'm really not in tune with it at all.

I like character sheets that grow with the character. I think a character sheet should reflect the history of the character to date, and continue to expand that history as the character moves forward into the future.

Interestingly enough, Fate character sheets fit on a single sheet easily, and they reflect the history of the character to date (since character creation and advancement is based on a timeline concept; sheet information accretes).

The "single sheet character" and "character sheets that grow with the character" desires are not mutually exclusive.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

With respect, Ben, I think the one-page issue is going a little off the track for this thread.

Jeph, are you familiar with the character sheets for the following games?

1. Sorcerer - you can download the sheet from the Sorcerer site, as well as check out the advice on the site for how to use the second page, which to my knowledge is unique in role-playing games.

2. Violence Future - this is supposed to be available as a PDF now, at the Unfortunate Destinies site but I haven't checked recently. The character sheet includes a developing web of relationships with NPCs, and the web operates as a crucial resolution mechanic in a number of ways.

Best,
Ron

[Nathaniel]

1. Sorcerer - you can download the sheet from the Sorcerer site, as well as check out the advice on the site for how to use the second page, which to my knowledge is unique in role-playing games.

That certainly is interesting. I wonder, do you think you could provide us with a copy of what that character sheet would look like filled out (especially the 2nd page)?  I suppose anyone could just scan their character and post the picture.  I'd definitely appreciate it.

Nathaniel

[Nathaniel]

I don't mean to be a jerk by posting twice in a row, but is there someone out there that could provide me with a completed Sorcerer character sheet?  With all the information filled in for your character?

Nathan

[Windthin]

I've designed a few character sheets before... aesthetics are enjoyable, I agree, but I always seek functionality as well, entwined with them.  I cannot see creating a character sheet without a system, a setting in mind.  These two just seem to me as if they would strongly influence the inevitable shape of the sheet, just as play-testing may change it, bring things to the fore on larger sheets, send others to the rear, call for expansion or subtraction.  To my mind, it is putting the cart before the horse... on a steep hill.  Just sort of goes careening off by itself, with no real connection to the driving factors.  It might be a fun experiment... but I could not see doing this on a regular basis.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Nathaniel,

I'm still out on vacation, with limited web access and no access at all to my stuff ... so I'll get back to you on the sheet thing. Also, there are several filled-in character sheets, front & back, in Chapter 3 of Sex & Sorcery.

Best,
Ron

[David Chunn]

Until the last few months, all the games I designed were very traditional but streamlined simulationist games.  So about a third or halfway through design, I would make rough draft a character sheet so I could see my ideas and action and see what I had missed.  Inevitably, I would put one of the standard rpg sections on the character sheet and realize I didn't have rules for that stuff yet.

Now, it's not as useful for design as it used to be, yet I'm still glued to seeing it in action.  It helps me picture how play is going to work, and while I'm designing it serves as a sort of shorthand of what I've done and still need to do.  I figure the most important aspects of a game are on the first page, the rest back those up.

So now I tend to delete and add whole sections and make sweeping revisions to the sheet as I go.  (I guess I like making character sheets.)  I just can't break free, and that's been something of a challenge in thinking outside the box, or rather off the sheet.

[Mike Holmes]

Huh, that's a pretty cool addition to the structured design idea. You know, where you picture a session of play. Later, when you've gotten more figured out, go back to the session and imagine what the players would be using the character sheet for. Hmmm...

Mike