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What I learned from Boardgames: The hidden power of the character sheet
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<blockquote data-quote="slobster" data-source="post: 6020040" data-attributes="member: 6693711"><p>It's an interesting thought.</p><p></p><p>I think there are a few criteria that you'd want a sheet-dependent mechanic to fulfill. The mechanic should track something that changes over the course of a single session (even round to round). If it lasts over the course of several sessions, you might as well write it down. The number of tokens you can accidentally jostle should be kept to a minimum. It should be a mechanic that involves several defined and separate states, perhaps along a continuum, to take advantage of the spatial layout that you are working with.</p><p></p><p>Off the top of my head I can't think of an existing mechanic that fulfills these criteria well, so I'll make up a new one!</p><p></p><p>Let's say that we had a game, like D&D, that had HP. If you go to negative hp you are unconscious and have to make death saves, and if you fail 3 death saves you die for good. Let's further say that at after failing each death save you suffer some penalty, so it's good to keep track of how many have happened.</p><p></p><p>At the very top of your sheet you could have four boxes on the character sheet border. The first reads "Healthy : No Penalties". The second reads "1 Failed Death Save : -2 to physical skill checks". The next reads "2 Failed Death Saves : -3 to physical skill checks, -1 to attack rolls", and so on. You could even leave another box or two empty in case feats or character classes increase the number of death saves a character can take.</p><p></p><p>To track this mechanic, you take a paper clip and attach it to your sheet so that it is within the "Healthy" box. If you fail a death save, you move the paper clip over to the "1 Failed Save" box. And so on.</p><p></p><p>The benefit of the paper clip over tokens should be obvious; it's harder to dislodge!</p><p></p><p>You could adapt a mechanic like this to other uses. A class like the current playtest sorcerer, where every time you use a class ability you "drift" along a continuum into some other state involving some kind of transformation. You could use it for the 4E disease track (though that happens rarely enough that you might not track it directly on your sheet). You could use it to track something like the fighter's combat superiority dice, especially if that number fluctuates up and down over the course of an encounter instead of just refreshing fully every round (maybe psionic power points?).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="slobster, post: 6020040, member: 6693711"] It's an interesting thought. I think there are a few criteria that you'd want a sheet-dependent mechanic to fulfill. The mechanic should track something that changes over the course of a single session (even round to round). If it lasts over the course of several sessions, you might as well write it down. The number of tokens you can accidentally jostle should be kept to a minimum. It should be a mechanic that involves several defined and separate states, perhaps along a continuum, to take advantage of the spatial layout that you are working with. Off the top of my head I can't think of an existing mechanic that fulfills these criteria well, so I'll make up a new one! Let's say that we had a game, like D&D, that had HP. If you go to negative hp you are unconscious and have to make death saves, and if you fail 3 death saves you die for good. Let's further say that at after failing each death save you suffer some penalty, so it's good to keep track of how many have happened. At the very top of your sheet you could have four boxes on the character sheet border. The first reads "Healthy : No Penalties". The second reads "1 Failed Death Save : -2 to physical skill checks". The next reads "2 Failed Death Saves : -3 to physical skill checks, -1 to attack rolls", and so on. You could even leave another box or two empty in case feats or character classes increase the number of death saves a character can take. To track this mechanic, you take a paper clip and attach it to your sheet so that it is within the "Healthy" box. If you fail a death save, you move the paper clip over to the "1 Failed Save" box. And so on. The benefit of the paper clip over tokens should be obvious; it's harder to dislodge! You could adapt a mechanic like this to other uses. A class like the current playtest sorcerer, where every time you use a class ability you "drift" along a continuum into some other state involving some kind of transformation. You could use it for the 4E disease track (though that happens rarely enough that you might not track it directly on your sheet). You could use it to track something like the fighter's combat superiority dice, especially if that number fluctuates up and down over the course of an encounter instead of just refreshing fully every round (maybe psionic power points?). [/QUOTE]
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