I need a response from Roll20 about this. Why are you limiting character sheets to one per system? Example here is Harnmaster 3. There was a sheet there and someone wanted to do a V2 of it, and where told that there could "be only one". This makes no sense. I have been using the previous sheet for years and now have macros etc that do not work as the new sheet has changed field names etc. There are many systems with multiple sheets.
Most of the multiples are either for variants of the system (ex: Darker Dungeons for 5e), or grandfathered sheets from before the policy was implemented. If a case can be made for showing the current one to be broken, you can try an appeal. But mostly, it's likely an attempt to keep the system from being flooded with confusing minor variations.
I'll see if I can direct an authoritative answer this way.
keithcurtis said:
Most of the multiples are either for variants of the system (ex: Darker Dungeons for 5e), or grandfathered sheets from before the policy was implemented. If a case can be made for showing the current one to be broken, you can try an appeal. But mostly, it's likely an attempt to keep the system from being flooded with confusing minor variations.
I'll see if I can direct an authoritative answer this way.
In this case the sheet is not broken, per se. But it includes homebrew stuff from his own game world and is not the "generic" sheet that was there before.
Don't get me wrong - it is not a bad sheet - in fact it is better in most ways - but I am now stuck with over a hundred NPCs with token macros that no longer work without spending hours changing field names in my macros. When I created my NPCs I used a template and each token has anywhere from 5-10 macros associated with it. That is a lot of re-coding.
PS - just checked - all my PC tokens are now broken as well with this new sheet.
Hi Brian,
I don't believe roll20 is as strict as they once were on 1 sheet per system.
As a pro user, you "could" change to a custom game and use an older version of the sheet.
You might post in the current Harnmaster3 sheet thread. https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/10189325/harnmaster3-big-sheet-update#post-10369119
Maybe you can strike up a conversation with the current sheet author and address some of the issues you are experiencing...
Brian said:
I need a response from Roll20 about this. Why are you limiting character sheets to one per system? Example here is Harnmaster 3. There was a sheet there and someone wanted to do a V2 of it, and where told that there could "be only one". This makes no sense. I have been using the previous sheet for years and now have macros etc that do not work as the new sheet has changed field names etc. There are many systems with multiple sheets.
There seems to be some confusion over whether roll20 allows additional sheets when one exists already (I know I'm confused, because roll20 has given contradictory information!).
But originally there was no rule about this, and so people made lots of sheets, including multiple sheets for the same system. Then later roll20 instituted a very hard rule that a system could only have one Official sheet, and one Community sheet. This only applied to new sheets being made - all the existing sheets were left alone, because people might be using them.
So at this stage, no one could create a new sheet for a game, if a sheet already existed.
Later on, roll20 changed the rule again: they said that games could have more than one sheet, but only if the new sheet provided enough value - it needed to be different enough to the old sheet to justify it, for example. Someone taking one sheet, copying it, and adding some extra stuff would likely be rejected: they'd be asked why they couldnt simply add those features to the existing sheet. But if someone made a completely different sheet, with a different layout, and had different benefits to using it, it would likely be allowed.
There's some evidence that this stance may have been reverted to the one sheet per system.
So, I'd ask whoever wanted to do the V2 of the sheet if they couldnt simply add the features they wanted to the existing sheet (though such features would need to be useful to as many people as possible, not their own custom house rules).
Hey Folks,
Wanted to chime in here, with a couple of points:
Brian; I'm very sorry that your hard work was undone by this update to the sheet. This is an unfortunate, but inherent, risk of the ecosystem that supports Roll20 character sheets. Any update to any sheet can (and often does) have unintended side effects. I hope that you and the sheet author will be able to work out some resolution to your problem that doesn't undermine your hours of work.
The second point is to try and clarify the policy around duplicate sheet submissions.
The rule is simple: there will ideally be a single character sheet in the repository for any given game. And we allow a duplicate sheet if it is created and maintained by the Publisher of the game in question. However, like any simple rule, there are some grey areas around what constitutes a "game". i.e. Should we allow different sheets for each edition of D&D? Should we allow different sheets for each implementation of a given system (Vampire, Changeling, Mage, etc.)? Should we allow different sheets for each setting of games like FATE or Savage Worlds?
Some of these seem pretty obvious, some of them less so. So, as with any system with significant grey area that has multiple people making on the spot calls, we're sometimes going to be inconsistent or get them wrong. Sometimes we're going to miss the fact that there is already a sheet in the repository, because it's named something we're not expecting.
All of that to say that yes, it's an imperfect system, but we're trying our hardest :)