A year or so ago there was a discussion about making a System-agnostic sheet for people to have a better option when their system wasnt supported on roll20, or for people who didnt want all the bells and whistles of a full character sheet. That project fell through, but now seems a good time to revive it.
I've started working on a sheet to give GMs the ability to quickly set up a rudimentary character sheet. It has a number of "modules" for different aspects of a character (things like stats, skills, powers, etc) and you can choose which ones are in play within a given game.
The goal is simplicity, so you wont get something as powerful or pretty as sheets made by roll20 staff, but you'll get something quite a bit more flexible and powerful than using the Attributes and Abilities tab.
Here's a view of the Equipment page, the one tab I've completed so far.
Notice there are two sections: at the left, are the tabs - click these to go to any section. Dont pay too much heed to their current labels. This is a proof of concept and they will change before I'm finished. On the left, the larger section is the equipment pane. It is a fairly simple place to put carried equipment, and you have different types of coinage, and subtotals of what is carried in different containers.
But these seem hard-coded to a particular system - and we dont want those. So, lets go to the Settings tab.
This looks pretty barren right now. That will change. But the important bit is the Show Design button. After clicking it, we get that section on the right. That will show configuration details for whichever pane is active. Since we are in Settings, it shows configuration for the whole sheet. We have a list of section names, and checkboxes. Here we can choose which tabs are in use in a game.
To illustrate, I've unchecked the Powers, Conditions, and Resources tabs, and so they have vanished from the tablist at the left. They wont be accessible.
Also, you can change the visible name of each tab. Though don't get too excited here: each tab still does a certain type of thing so you cant change a Stats tab to act like an Equipment tab. But in some games, Skills might be called Moves, or Powers might be Spells, Traits might be Stunts or Perks, and so on. So you can give the correct title for your game.
But lets get back to the Equipment tab, with the Settings pane now visible at the right.
Notice we have two repeating sections, one for Coin Name, and Container Types.
In Coins we can set the names of the currency types, set how much they are worth, and how many coins you get per unit weight (typically a pound). The sheet automatically takes this into account when calculating total value and encumbrance.
In Container types, you can create different types of container, and set whether things in that container count less towards your total encumbrance. (This is why the total weight isnt a simple sim of the weights in containers) The Purse Container is where the weight of your money is added.
Lets add a Portable Hole to containers, and Platinum Pieces to the money.
Notice how they have been added to the central pane. You can also change their names, and they'll be updated automatically. So here we have an equipment list that will work for any system that uses equipment.
Now, imagine using techniques like this to change details on other panes- like what attributes or skills exist in a game.
You wouldnt want to do that for every character. My vision with this sheet is that the GM would go through each pane, and set the sheet up how they need it for their game, then use that prepared sheet as a template. Copy it and assign to players whenever a new character sheet is needed. That way you only have to set up a sheet once, for a given game.
I have ideas how to handle various things like stats, skills, special abilities, advantages, disadvantages, and so on in a system-agnostic way, but they do present challenges. The goal is not to replace existing sheets - it will be rudimentary by the standards of dedicated sheet. But it'll give GMs a simple framework they can customize to whatever their system needs. In some cases, it might just give a set of boxes for you to enter information, and to enter your own macros to roll things but that is still an improvement over the Attributes & Abilities tab.
Anyway, I thought I'd give a sneak peak at my next big project, and see if this is a thing people think would be worth doing.