Character Sheet Contest Finalists

[Jeff Carlsen]

I wish there was a way to reduce the need for lines on a sheet. Even the sheets that get creative with the first page, seem to just present the second as a great big lined piece of paper.

I also notice there's no Basic/Standard/Advanced breakdown between sheets. So, is it official that WOTC is leaving that breakdown behind? Or are they going to redo the winner's sheet into simpler versions? Because all of them look about as complex as they ever have.

Lines may not be attractive, but they are essential. The primary purpose of a character sheet is as a place to write down and access character information.

As for the Basic/Standard/Advanced breakdown, the contest was specifically for the current packet, but only the ability scores, class, race, armor class, and hit points were required. If you're mostly seeing designs for the full packet, that's on the sheet designer's shoulders.

 

[Jester David]

I am saddened by the lack of landscape options.

 

[Sunseeker]

Interesting. How would you replace them? A blank section with no writing guidance or grey and white bars? I agree that the lines do not look good.

I don't know. I had hoped they would simply be unnecssary. Personally, the sheets look identical(minus some styling) to 3.X sheets, which does not bode well for my desire for DDN to be more a 3.X clone.

Lines may not be attractive, but they are essential. The primary purpose of a character sheet is as a place to write down and access character information.

Except that's never actually worked with those little boxes before. Feats, class skills, features, racial abilities always take up more space than those few lines offer. At best it's just an index where you can reference the book and page the actual text is on. For people who don't have perfect memories of these things, a page full of lines is useless.

 

[MortalPlague]

The sheet looks nice but in terms of being functional, specifically for D&D Next, it's not all that good.

The one biggest complaint I have is the size and placement of both the AC and Hit Point sections - the two things that usually see the most use out of anything are split up and marginalized.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Klaus]

Some are interesting, some remind me of stuff I did in the tail days of 2e and dawn of 3e.

The one with radial design got really complicated real quick.

I couldn't post my design because the contest was for US and Canada only, though. Maybe later on (after I adjust it when the next packet comes out).

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Some are interesting, some remind me of stuff I did in the tail days of 2e and dawn of 3e.

The one with radial design got really complicated real quick.

I couldn't post my design because the contest was for US and Canada only, though. Maybe later on (after I adjust it when the next packet comes out).

That was my feeling of the radial one. I think the concept is worth further exploration, though.

Also, you should share your design here. It's all in good fun, anyway.

 

[DMSamuel]

I guess for me the biggest problem is simply that the sheets are boring. They aren't inspiring to me on any level. At the same time, they don't present the things I care about the most (the things I will access the most) in an easy-to-utilize way. I know this contest was "just for fun" but I would rather start with a blank piece of graph paper than use any of those.

What happened to creativity?

 

[Klaus]

That was my feeling of the radial one. I think the concept is worth further exploration, though.

Also, you should share your design here. It's all in good fun, anyway.

I'll probably will, after the next packet. I'm also thinking of making them landscape (like the ones I did for Fiery Dragon's BattleBox in 3e and 4e), because landscape sheets take up less space on the table.

 

[Melkor]

I am not a huge fan of any of the sheets, but I probably like Steven Grindeland's design the best of all the options.

Not a fan of Brian Morgen's design, and really not a fan of the "different for the sake of being different" trend I have seen in a lot of the responses
to the art and game design of D&DNext. I feel like a lot of people just choose options because they are different that anything that resembles a
previous version of D&D in any way.