Rpg Design Notes 3 - Character Sheet Test

If you ever write a tabletop rpg do a character sheet test as early as possible.

I decided to do make a test character sheet and walk through my character creation process to see how it would go. I got out some graph paper, marked off half inch margins, and penciled in blocks for what I thought was essential information. So far so good.

Then I started to walk through character creation. I quickly realized my process wasn't practical. The analytical part of my brain wanted to write down every detail showing where all the bonuses to all the things and where they came from. In the past as a player and gm I've been frustrated not knowing if any given block on a character sheet had all the bonuses added to it or not. I wanted to fix that by just writing it all down but when I did it was too much information for the space. The character sheet either becomes too long or ends up looking more like a worksheet not to mention the hand cramp from writing all the stuff. None of which are what I want.

The ideal goal of my sheet is simple readability with the essential information for play. How do I fully get there? I'm not 100% sure yet. I have come up with a partial solution to my desire to document versus space available, to add small bubbles next to the attribute blocks to show if they have been modified.

Here is a possible example of what I'm thinking.

I'm saving my test as a visual reference while I'm writing. It's already helped me see where a few things I'd intended to have as separate blocks were redundant and confusing. While I understand why many systems use multi-page character sheets, I'm trying to avoid it if at all possible.

I think continuing to revise my character sheet as I write my rules will help me focus on what details are essential and eliminate those that aren't, ultimately saving me time and frustration than if I'd waited till later.