Character Sheets

[Auren]

What do you like to see in a character sheet? What impresses you in a character sheet? Do you like tabs or no tabs? How fancy do you like the style of character sheets?


I'm looking to make a template shop for character sheets and want to know what people look for most, or what style is popular.

 

[DemonKitten]

I like to see a lot of detail in a character sheet and unique touches


Something unique or being well organized. I also love when people add extra things


I like Tabs the most. They are well organized though they sometimes screw up coding when editing.


I wish we could go more fancy with them because I love when people add specific colors to their characters and make different fonts. I like them pretty fancy.

 

[JayTee]

I prefer simplicity to the extreme, with very few bells and whistles to get in the way of reading. For example:


Name:


Age:


Sex:


Race:


Appearance (No more than ten sentences)


This tells me everything I need to know about what your character looks like.


Afterwords, everything should be compressed in two to three sections, and those sections should further be compressed behind spoiler tags for easy navigation.

Spoiler

THIS IS MOSTLY OPTIONAL, AS CHARACTERS ARE NOT STATIC THINGS AND SHOULD CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE RP






WORDS AND STUFF GO HERE BECUSE WORDS ARE NEEDED TO COMMUNICATE THE INTENTION AND IDEA BEHIND THE CHARACTER






IF YOUR RP HAS POWERS N' SHIZ


 
Oh, also, none of those sections should be more than three paragraphs. You're writing a character sheet for other people to read and for yourself to refer too, not a goddamned novel.

 

[Hunnyhelp]

I HATE THE PERSONALITY QUESTION


That's what I have to say, I also like when they are centered and colored... But that BBcode way of organizing it, makes me feel intimated...

 

[tsundere]

I actually really like to have a personality question. It doesn't have to be super detailed, and characters should still change over the course of the RP, but I like to have a general idea on what the character is like. Plus, when I design characters of my own, the personality is by far the most important part, and it helps me to establish it if I write it out.

 

[Hunnyhelp]

I actually really like to have a personality question. It doesn't have to be super detailed, and characters should still change over the course of the RP, but I like to have a general idea on what the character is like. Plus, when I design characters of my own, the personality is by far the most important part, and it helps me to establish it if I write it out.

I rarely see, but like questions of how you would respond instead of personality... I believe that adding italics throughout the character sheet on the character's thoughts shows the personality better also.

 

[DemonKitten]

I like personalities in detail because it keeps in track how you should respond to certain people. Besides, most people keep their personality if they are above 17. Also, if they have flaws then it shows things that they would work on in the roleplay

 

[Vengeance Spirit]

I like personalities, but you have to update your bio. If your bio doesn't change after a long RP, yer doing something wrong. The point of personalities on bio is to stop people who randomly change or in some RPs, everyone chooses the same personality(Cool guy, not many friends. Quiet. Protects friends. Yet in RP, is none of these)


 
Personally, I've found myself drifting from tabs to more of a header theme.

 

[Atom]

For certain characters I enjoy compression through tabs. For others I enjoy a background and simple border style with their image framed and centered at the top, just below the name.


It all depends honestly.

 

[Auren]

Hm.. So a good mix of simple and fancy seems to be wanted?

 

[Vengeance Spirit]

Also, very personally, I like a character who's personality was shaped a bit by their backstory but that's just me.

 

[Mad Prince of Sanity]

All-in-All, I am a bit of both. While I lack knowledge of coding enough to making a very fancy and organized-seeming 'sheet'. I do believe compressing more extrapolated areas, or small crucial details you want to make sure get attention, are compressed into their own tabs or spoilers. I have recently become a bit iffy on the personality question, as I notice more and more roleplayers who whether intentionally or not, make conflicting personality choices. Such as saying they are an introvert, yet are also brash and outspoken. Introvert =/= Brash or outspoken. Largely I feel there are a lot of reasons for this, but the mostly likely I would think, is a way for someone to fill multiple social roles with their character and then have the info on their bio to back the sudden personality shift. While I feel shifts in attitude can be done spectacularly. Changing the way your character acts simply to mesh better with the characters you start out with, or heck, even the characters your own is stuck with the entire way through the roleplay. I often tell people, who give me little 'warnings' OOC along the lines of "Hey? You know that will REALLY bother my character right?" I always respond with "Yeah and? I roleplay PEOPLE, no one is perfect, and no-one will get along with everyone."


*Clears throat* Anyways, there is my 2 cents on the subject.

 

[Vengeance Spirit]

[QUOTE="Mad Prince of Sanity]All-in-All, I am a bit of both. While I lack knowledge of coding enough to making a very fancy and organized-seeming 'sheet'. I do believe compressing more extrapolated areas, or small crucial details you want to make sure get attention, are compressed into their own tabs or spoilers. I have recently become a bit iffy on the personality question, as I notice more and more roleplayers who whether intentionally or not, make conflicting personality choices. Such as saying they are an introvert, yet are also brash and outspoken. Introvert =/= Brash or outspoken. Largely I feel there are a lot of reasons for this, but the mostly likely I would think, is a way for someone to fill multiple social roles with their character and then have the info on their bio to back the sudden personality shift. While I feel shifts in attitude can be done spectacularly. Changing the way your character acts simply to mesh better with the characters you start out with, or heck, even the characters your own is stuck with the entire way through the roleplay. I often tell people, who give me little 'warnings' OOC along the lines of "Hey? You know that will REALLY bother my character right?" I always respond with "Yeah and? I roleplay PEOPLE, no one is perfect, and no-one will get along with everyone."
*Clears throat* Anyways, there is my 2 cents on the subject.

[/QUOTE]
Very true, also. People try and make the "likable" character more than anything. The stereotypical protagonist, one that's flaws are excusable. I've rarely seen characters with major flaws or problems, when in real life humans do have problems and such.

 

[Broken-Angel]

Uhm... JT kind of covered what I look for and ask for people to fill out. Although I do like to add like a brief history/backstory. And whereas I like having a small description of their personality, I also like to see it come out in the rp. Yea this is a short answer but, I haven't had much sleep so. yea lol

 

[Ire]

As mentioned by Vengeance, I also enjoy those whose personality is formed around the character's history, since that's how actual people do form. Someone who grows up in a poor, run-down household compared to a mansion will have different personalities and different worldviews.


I like combining personality with the background of a character in a character sheet, because the actions of a character within their history can reveal their traits. If you want an example of what I mean, my character Lotharaine Grimwald (link in my signature) is my favorite kind of format.

 

[Bone2pick]

I prefer tabs. The first tab being standard introductory info like name, age, race, class/archetype, ect. Other tabs usually include character history (I prefer 5+ paragraphs), gear/abilities, writing sample, and other (for an NPC list and useful notes). Tabs are just a nice way of organizing a lot of character detail imo.

 

[AlexSilverX]

Personally, what matters to me is that things be properly ordered.


For example, the order in the case of these three particular things should be;


Height:


Weight:


Appearance:


Why? Because if Height and Weight are put after appearance, I might've included it in the appearance section. Now I have to go back, erase that part of the appearance section, and put it back where appropriate. Yes, it takes 3-5 seconds. But those are 3-5 seconds I could spend thinking up a good back story, writing up a post in another RP, or yelling at my roommate's cat for shedding freaking everywhere.


It's a minor pet peeve, but avoiding it brings me great joy.


I also enjoy when a bio includes an "other" section, at the end.


That way, if something I want to add is not in there, I can add it up. For example, the specific brand of alcohol my character prefers, or the fact they're blind out of their right eye, which hand they write with, or - and I'm just shelling out examples here - how many hits of LSD they have on an average day. I could put in a youtube video which is the character's "theme song" which adds a bit of depth, or I could put in another which could be a "voice sample".


Those are the things I enjoy in a profile, overall.

 

[BigHippo8]

Don't even get me started.


It desiccates the flavor out of character discovery, and instead highlights their flaw, strength, history, appearance, etc.


I mean respect to those who like this, but I find Roleplay to be reading a book, and similar to character discovery, self discovery.

 

[Circus]

I like to see outlined characters, ones that are well developed but can be developed further. Give me the highlights and cliffnotes and let your character shine in the RP. I've seen a lot of detailed character sheets but fall flat in the RP. I think there's an issue with emphasis on CS's rather than RP ability, but that's my opinion. I think people tend to drive themselves into a corner with detailed bios and personalities.


But I like to see how much someone has thought about a character that gives them flare. A writing sample is nice too.

 

[call me rae]

Mostly I look for effort really. I mean you can have the prettiest looking thing this side of a professional graphic shop and if you fill it with two sentences of information than it's just crap.


As for asthetics :


I like the basics - name, age, gender, occupation/species, appearance.


A biography section ( personality is optional and I usually shove it in with bio )


Special Skills ( this can be hobbies, talents, magical abilities, whatever is needed for the specific roleplay )


I do like the idea of having like a strength and weakness section too but that could be optional.


Really that's about it.


I think tabs are the simplest.


If you want to make it fancy maybe put it in a table with like the basics just being in their own subheader section with the nitty gritty


bio/personality/skills being under tabs?

 

[Jaye]

I go for formatting and readability overall.


For instance, it's a pet peeve of mine whenever the titles (Name: Age: etc) aren't in bold tags. I think a CS shouldn't be longer than my screen in tall - if I can navigate a CS without scrolling my screen down then I'm annoyed. (The exception is for things like personality or backstory - they can be longer than the screen but they need an option to be compressed. Like in Spoiler tags).


I like casual-dressy (as I call it). Titles bolded, Headings large and maybe italiced or a different font, but not too much of anything.


Hope that all made sense.

 

[Pariah Stark]

When it comes to a character sheet, I want to be able to find the information I'm looking for immediately. Sometimes, simplicity causes a sheet to look gaudy in my opinion. A bunch of bold fields with simple answers isn't aesthetic appealing to me and makes scrolling through sheets a bore.


Now, I do love depth, but at the same time, if there's an immensely long history, I WANT A SUMMARY OF IT SOMEWHERE. I will read the whole thing, sure, but if I have to dig through 32 paragraphs in the middle of 58 to find one piece of relevant knowledge because someone wrote me a novel, I'm probably going to be just as irked if someone had a two sentence background.


As for personalities, I enjoy them. I believe personalities and histories go hand-in-hand and I really, really think that if you can't write out a character personality properly, you probably haven't thought the character through enough. I know a lot of writers are "gardeners" as George R. R. Martin once said in an interview; they plant a seed and want to see where it goes. So, having a detailed personality might not necessarily fit their preferences. But, for plotting purposes and pushing a story forward, having a general idea of how a character might react or interact in general in a situation is so useful that skipping personality is just plain a detriment.


50% of a character sheet should be the necessary information; 45% should be the information a player users to truly personalize them and make them unique and dynamic. That last 5% is just showing off, whether it's literary talent or coding skills.

 

[Slifer]

I like when people put nothing but physical attributes. I don't enjoy when people require a back story and/or a biography of the character. Isn't the whole point of interacting with people to eventually learn who they are? What's the point when you already know lol.

 

[Pariah Stark]

@Lethal Interaction is the key difference between singular writing and roleplaying, sure, but roleplaying to eventually learn whom or what a character is doesn't necessarily encompass all of roleplay. Many GM's prefer to actually know everything about a character for the sake of making sure they fit into the world he or she has created. There is a lot of information and potential inconsistencies within a proper character history. Because of that, there does exist a need in many, many settings to have them straightened out to avoid plotholes or conflicts. This isn't true all of the time. There is an abundance of variation between roleplays and GM's and in some scenarios in which a roleplay itself is character-centric and has the potential to expand and be rewritten, you can introduce yourself with no backstory. However, in my opinion, having no history, personality, list of abilities, etc. is easily a detriment to a roleplay. I've seen it backfire plenty of times. A roleplayer will bring to light part of their history that a GM doesn't like or some unused, unknown talent, and a GM simply states they don't see that working, fitting or being applicable. The roleplayer might rewrite part of their character, but that rewrite might cause problems. What if they acted prior on the assumption they 'could' do something they couldn't? That's a fundamental and unexplained change. Maybe it goes off without a hitch? Maybe the roleplayer gets ticked off and leaves the RP in general.


The point is that while history, as well as personality and abilities, tend to be the parts of a character sheet many more individualistic, character-driven roleplayers resent, they are healthy and really represent a level of communication with the GM. Think of it this way: while a roleplayer plays as a character, a GM basically plays as the rest of the world and represents that world more often than not. While one might believe giving away information openly diminishes interaction, if it causes conflict with the world and GM for any reason, then it's actually becoming a larger detriment to interaction.


Again, this isn't universal, but there are significantly fewer roleplaying scenarios in which having a history that is completely unknown to everyone (including the GM) works out as a benefit. A simple solution here would simply be to, as a roleplayer, not read the other character sheets aside from maybe their name and physical appearance. That's always an option. But, there is definitely a purpose in communicating pertinent character information with a GM. They are the central authority of their worlds.

 

[Slifer]

Ahh that makes a lot of sense. Didn't think of it like that.