how do i add a character sheet?

I join my friends game, go to journal, and nothing, there's nothing there. what do i do?

The GM has to create a character for you and give you control over it.

in the wiki it says you can go to journal and hit add, is that a lie?

That is correct, if you're a gm.

okay so fairly obvious question..... why can't players just create their own characters?

Probably the Dev's erring on the side of caution. In public games where you might not know the other players very well, if at all, there could be some issues with players freely creating characters. Players with access to the Character Vault can create players in their own Game and transfer them in if the GM has turned it on in the Game. Pro subscriber GMs also have access to several scripts that can allow players to create characters for themselves.  Allowing players to create their own characters does sound like a good idea, if it can be disabled by default and selectively enabled by GMs. That would be a great suggestion for the suggestions and ideas forum. 

There is a script available at the pro level which allows players to create their own characters. Again, the GM would have to implement the ability for their campaign.

+1

Evon W. said: okay so fairly obvious question..... why can't players just create their own characters? Just so there's no confusion, the GM just has to create the journal entry for the character and then give you permission to see and edit it. Once they give you edit permission on that character, you have the ability to do anything else, like changing the name or filling in the character sheet. It's kind of like going to an in-person game at a friend's house, and the GM hands you a blank sheet when you arrive.

keithcurtis said: There is a script available at the pro level which allows players to create their own characters. Again, the GM would have to implement the ability for their campaign. where would my GM find these scripts.

I can't find the post about it in the forums (yet), but this script appears to let players generate a sheet themselves: <a href="https://github.com/Roll20/roll20-api-scripts/blob/master/Charsheet/1.2/charsheet.js" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Roll20/roll20-api-scripts/blob/master/Charsheet/1.2/charsheet.js</a>