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The world's most gorgeous character sheet

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Thu, 2010-08-12 10:13

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

The world's most gorgeous character sheet

The Swedish RPG blog Piruett went through the best character sheets, and guess which one came up on top? EP, of course :) http://www.piruett.se/2010/08/12/varldens-nio-snyggaste-rollformular-och... (in Swedish)

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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/ext_userbar.jpg[/img] "People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes." - John Dee

Thu, 2010-08-12 10:41

Thunderwave Thunderwave's picture

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

After having read the blog*, if I understood what was being said, I can agree with him. The creation of a character sheet for an RPG is a lost art form. To often the sheet that comes standard either lacks things that should be there (one I saw lacked a place to record exp!), or crowds the main sheet with too much not needed information. I've noticed a trend the past few years for RPGs to offer a lot of options to the players that, in some cases, includes extra things to keep a track of. Mecha, spells, powers from beyond, supernatural abilities, etc, will sometimes crowd onto the one page base character sheet that the game company offers and it ends up this cluttered mass that I have to use architect's lettering to fill out and still be reasonably readable (honestly, who normally writes in 6pt font?!). Now I've seen some complex sheets and I've seen some too simple sheets. EP has one of the best "By the Designer" sheets out there. It's simple, clean, and presents it all in a way that can be written on and can be found in a hurry. I think more game companies should take cues from Posthuman Studios and some of the independent character sheet makers out there. There are a few names that stick out a lot in that circle of gamers who make their own character sheets and distribute them. They seem to take the challenge of both making the sheet nice looking and having all the information present very seriously and do pretty damn good work. So, in short, bravo Posthuman Studios for making the best out of the box character sheet I've seen in a long long time. * - I say read because I used a translator on the page from Swedish to English and it came out like some kind of Germanic engrish. I -think- I got the jist of what he was saying. -.-

Thu, 2010-08-12 13:39

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

Congratulations, EP! I read the blog and found it very reasonable, although I think in practice the judgement criteria interact unpredictably - several of the most high-ranked sheets broke their criteria, and they admit it. Typically, in order to make good design one needs to know the rules so that one can ignore them well. My personal quibble with the EP sheet is that I have a hard time finding the right secondary attributes like WT and DB. Having layers that can be turned on and off is a sign that this was made in the 21st century.

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Sat, 2010-08-14 16:02

AdamJury

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

Here's an interesting tidbit: I also designed the BESM 3rd Edition sheet, which they gave second place to. :-)

Sat, 2010-08-14 16:04

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

AdamJury wrote:
Here's an interesting tidbit: I also designed the BESM 3rd Edition sheet, which they gave second place to. :-)

Why, its almost as if you do this professionally!

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Mon, 2010-08-16 14:15

urdith

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

CodeBreaker wrote:
AdamJury wrote:
Here's an interesting tidbit: I also designed the BESM 3rd Edition sheet, which they gave second place to. :-)
Why, its almost as if you do this professionally!

Professional level design aesthetics applied to a role-playing product? Shocking! Shocking, I say.

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"The ruins of the unsustainable are the 21st century’s frontier."
— Bruce Sterling

Fri, 2010-08-20 18:18

Thunderwave Thunderwave's picture

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

urdith wrote:
CodeBreaker wrote:
AdamJury wrote:
Here's an interesting tidbit: I also designed the BESM 3rd Edition sheet, which they gave second place to. :-)
Why, its almost as if you do this professionally!
Professional level design aesthetics applied to a role-playing product? Shocking! Shocking, I say.

I started playing RPGs with D+D, you know, when Elf was a class. I've been dealing with crappy designs in RPGs for so long it really, truly is a breath of fresh air to see this done! ^_^

Mon, 2010-08-23 11:11

Kirk Quasar Kirk Quasar's picture

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

Chello! Can someone explain this to Palladium Books, please? :)

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“As a base of operations, you cannot beat a f---ing saloon.” Al Swearengen, Deadwood "Two lessons, my son. First, watch behind you. Second, count your shots - four bullets for one man, that's a waste." Lee Van Cleef, “Death Rides a Horse”

Tue, 2010-08-24 23:12

Sunchaser

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

Or White Wolf? Their sheets are just an embarrassment.

Wed, 2010-08-25 01:27

#10

Decivre

Re: The world's most gorgeous character sheet

Sunchaser wrote:
Or White Wolf? Their sheets are just an embarrassment.

I think their sheets are a symptom of the usually-convoluted rules. I love some White Wolf games (huge fan of Scion and Exalted), but the mechanics get... messy is the most polite word I could fit here. I think that's the rules are a factor in how badly the sheet will be laid out. The more confusing the rules, the more confusing the sheet. The last two editions of D&D, the latest edition of Shadowrun, and Eclipse Phase have decent sheets, because the rules are simpler. One thing I must say, however, is that the single sheet isn't really enough info for the stuff that an EP character might have. I need extra room for more morphs, backup copies, forks I might have running, AIs I might have running beside my muse, and other such things. It's a similar problem to what happened with Shadowrun: while the rules were cleaner and the sheets were better organized, two sides of a sheet are inadequate space for the material. I hope they plan to release an official character folio of some sort in the future, with more pages for more info.

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