Character Sheets - Design Strategies

I'm still trying to get my head around Roll20 and wondered if there were any Do's and Don't when it comes to designing character sheets. My game is based on WFRPv1 so characters have a profile made up of attributes like WS (Weapon Skill) and Dex (Dexterity). So that bit's pretty straight forward.   Then they have a variable number of Skills based upon their career history (e.g. A hunter may have say Follow Trail, and/or Silent Move Rural) and some of these skills grant bonuses or penalties to certain tests. And that's really where I'm having doubts about the best strategy for my character sheet design. The game works using 37 x Standard Tests which combine a characters basic profile values on the character sheet with any bonus or penalty values arising from their skills to produce a Success or Failure threshold.  Plus there is the option for the GM to create Improvised Tests to deal with any situations which are not covered. Now I'm not sure how common this approach is in other RPG's, so perhaps this is a silly question.  But I'm wondering whether it is practical, and makes sense, to create a macro for each of the Standard Tests on a Character Sheet.  It would be a lot of work to begin with, but once done it would mean that each test could be rolled simply by clicking on a button. So, for example:  An Evaluation Test would take the characters basic Initiative. add +10 if they have the Evaluate Skill, and +20 if they are Super Numerate. So the macro would either ask the player if their character has these skills or pick the information directly from the character sheet and adjust the roll accordingly. But whilst I can see how (if done correctly) this would make the rolling of tests easier, I'm also aware that setting this up on a Master Character Sheet would involve a lot of work, and I'm not sure if it's worth it because I've never used Roll20 in anger so I don't really know what the benefits and issues would be. I'm just aware that if I make the wrong choice and then a few weeks from now when I've created a whole cast of characters I'm going to find it a real pain to correct. Does anyone have any guidance or experiences to share on this subject?

Hi, i would highly recommend having a test campaign where you can test out other sheets for ideas. Most sheets have rolls on them and often include some pretty sophisticated auto-calculating fields too. I've mainly used Diana's 3.5 sheet which has some really neat features as does the 5e shaped sheet if i recall correctly. All of the html and css for those sheets is available on the  Roll20 github so you can analyse the code to find bits to reuse which saves a lot of time in my experience. As for macros taking time... they save a lot more time then they take. I currently run near to 400 macros in my long term campaign and a well crafted/flexible one can save hours of rules look ups and roll typing for the players. GM's however... well we took the role on, we have to be punished i suppose.

So basically you would support the idea of creating macro's for all the standard tests. I must admit I've looked at the WFRPv2 sheet and that has taken exactly that approach, with a list of macro's for each of the basic skill rolls (V2 uses skill based tests rather than context based tests) although there are slightly fewer of these than in V1.

Create a campaign just for viewing the various sheets. Take a look at their layout and code. See what you like and don't like, then dissect them and figure out how to get yours to do that. I had great success with this method for my custom sheet.

Didz said: So basically you would support the idea of creating macro's for all the standard tests. In essence the more your sheet can do the less you and your players have to do. You'll only need to input the macros into the sheets code once and it will save a lot of time down the line, not to mention the learning curve of writing those macros... a great way to get very familiar with the system quickly!

OldSchoolChris said: Create a campaign just for viewing the various sheets. Take a look at their layout and code. See what you like and don't like, then dissect them and figure out how to get yours to do that. I had great success with this method for my custom sheet. I don't think I can do that without paying for a PRO account. However, it does make sense as the fan-made WFRPv2 character sheet I mentioned earlier could probably be modified quite easily into a V1 version. I'd just need to add in the missing attributes for Leadership and Cool and rename some of the existing ones like Agility.  But after that the existing skills list could be renamed something like 'Standard Test List', or 'Success Checks' and modified accordingly.  Some of the existing skills on the V2 sheet like Charm would not even need changing to become Success Checks, and others like Command would just need editing.  Command would become Leadership, and be based on the Leadership attribute rather than fellowship.

Didz said: I don't think I can do that without paying for a PRO account. This is correct sir, but LOOKING doesn't cost anything :) Customized sheets and API scripts are what lure us in, but it is worth it in my opinion. You can create any number of macros and attributes. You just can't design a sheet that allows for input of those attributes other than on the attributes and abilities page. Many people design a page on the bio/information section using cells and colored text. Check this guy's  character sheet out @5:00. He is a free user and did all his work in the bio/info section. You only get a quick glimpse, but he shows more in his other videos. Here is a  video he made about creating an entire 5e character sheet

OldSchoolChris said: Didz said: I don't think I can do that without paying for a PRO account. This is correct sir, but LOOKING doesn't cost anything :) Customized sheets and API scripts are what lure us in, but it is worth it in my opinion. You can create any number of macros and attributes. You just can't design a sheet that allows for input of those attributes other than on the attributes and abilities page. Many people design a page on the bio/information section using cells and colored text. Check this guy's  character sheet out @5:00. He is a free user and did all his work in the bio/info section. You only get a quick glimpse, but he shows more in his other videos. Here is a  video he made about creating an entire 5e character sheet Funnily enough this whole thought process began as a result of watching David's video tutorial, and I did initially begin by producing a basic character sheet layout on the Bio tab of a character. Then I got a bit distracted by looking at the attribute tab.  David seems to warn against going overboard with macro's, so at first i was just scratching my head trying to decide which were worth including.   Then I heard about the existing WFRP character sheets made by fans, and had a look at those.  I found the WFRPv2 one and decided to start another experimental master character sheet using that to see if it would save me any time. That's really as far as I got because as I said at the start of this thread WFRPv2 character sheet has quite a range of macro's built into it that cover the basic skills tests required by the WFRPv2 rules, and that made me question which way to go. So, I actually have two Master Character Sheets at the moment.  One that is partially complete and based upon David's video, and another that is using the WFRPv2 character sheet as a template. WFRP Character Sheet (using the Bio Tab)   And the one I've been experimenting with based on the V2 character Sheet

Is there a resource for those of us without extensive coding knowledge on how to create a custom character sheet?  I'm looking at running a Hero System 6th edition game and would love to bust out a character sheet for it, but... am daunted by how to begin.

Venter L. said: Is there a resource for those of us without extensive coding knowledge on how to create a custom character sheet?  I'm looking at running a Hero System 6th edition game and would love to bust out a character sheet for it, but... am daunted by how to begin. As other's have mentioned, start by looking at existing sheets. Then have a look at the html and css.  If you don't have a clue what html and css is, you need to go through some tutorials online( codeacademy.com ) and/or buy a  book on basic web page design.  Read thru the  Character Sheet wiki on character sheets and read the post  CSS Wizardry as well ask lots of questions on the  Character Sheet forum .  Start by modifying an existing sheet and go from there.  It's lot's of fun and you get to design a sheet exactly to your own parameters.  Cheers

As Vince said the best way to learn is by tinkering with code, learn what it does and how to break/fix it. Online tutorials definitely help with that. Using the various help threads listed in the character sheet forum as well as a fair bit of sledgehammer like coding I managed to throw a couple of very basic but functional sheets together within a few days. Once you have that start point it is easy enough to continue to work on your sheet to add new features. Just look at the Pathfinder and D&D 5e Shaped sheets... the functionality they continue to add is astounding. The one key bit of advice i would give is to not rely on the preview pane, I always have a game loaded up that is using the custom sheet so that i can refresh and view it as it would be seen in game.

There are a LOT of intricacies and limitations about roll20 sheets. They are not easy to make work as you'd like. I, too, would recommend not using the preview pane for the most part. I'd be happy discuss any issues encountered as figuring out why stuff is done a certain way can be difficult to understand.

Ziechael said: The one key bit of advice i would give is to not rely on the preview pane, I always have a game loaded up that is using the custom sheet so that i can refresh and view it as it would be seen in game. This one bit of advice will save you more "WTF???" mental explosions than anything else. I have had the preview pane work successfully for me on a change/resave of a page once in a blue moon. (not often enough to even tell you how often)

Preview pane.  What's that?  Is that the blank grey third tab in the campaign settings...  lol

If her a Pro user,  working in dev server helps. At least the preview pane breaks less for me there

Coal Powered Puppet said: If her a Pro user,  working in dev server helps. At least the preview pane breaks less for me there Good to know. Will try that! Because on the prod server, the preview pane almost never works (CSS never applied).