Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
I take them all the time. Often, when doing the prep work I need to check out stuff, but most importantly in a player can't make it to the game, someone else will run the character.
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Do you keep your Players' character sheets?
- Thread starter Bullgrit
- Start date
john112364
First Post
This would be my answer too. It's really a matter of personal choice. However, if they take them home I request a copy for reference and emergency use. My group is too small to do without a player, so if that player can't make it, the PC becomes an NPC under my control.
Nytmare
David Jose
In general, and up until fairly recently, everyone in my gaming group held on to their own sheets. The only instances where that didn't happen was in college where we had random floating RPGs where decision as to what we were going to play would be made after a random group had assembled and we saw what options we had open to us. It was a lot easier to keep the 20 possible Feng Shui or Paranoia characters all in the same place tucked into the game master's book or game folder.
At that point, especially for D&D, the only reason why a DM would want to or would insist on holding onto the character sheets would be because they didn't trust the players not to cheat and change things on their sheet, or they wanted to "check" the players' math and adjust and edit things themselves.
Now, and granted the antagonistic relationship between players and DM has been removed (at least amidst the people I play with), we play at my house, and all the sheets stay here in the game room.
On top of that, all the characters are made in the Character Builder, so there's no need to double check other people's math.
People forget stuff. Yes, the character sheet is one of the most important things they're going to need to play, but that almost guarantees that someone will forget to bring theirs. If everything stays in the room we're going to play in, you never have to worry about things not being there when it's time to play.
I take on the responsibility to update the physical character sheets myself and it's hard to do that if I don't have all the players notes and scribbles from their old sheets with me. My game is very... not prop heavy, but production value heavy. I used to do a binder for each player with their character sheet on the outside, and all the technical info and handouts they might need inside (spell write ups, history, calendars, NPC lists, and basically anything they might need to open up a book to go look up). Now I do character cards in Excel and the information from that sheet is tied directly into the suite of DM tools I use.
Updating, printing, and cutting the cards out when the group levels up takes a couple of hours at the very least, and if I have to wait for the character sheets to show up before I start, that's less time that we have to play.
It's not a trust or a control issue, it just makes things easier for us, and gives us the opportunity to focus all of our actual game time on gaming.
At that point, especially for D&D, the only reason why a DM would want to or would insist on holding onto the character sheets would be because they didn't trust the players not to cheat and change things on their sheet, or they wanted to "check" the players' math and adjust and edit things themselves.
Now, and granted the antagonistic relationship between players and DM has been removed (at least amidst the people I play with), we play at my house, and all the sheets stay here in the game room.
On top of that, all the characters are made in the Character Builder, so there's no need to double check other people's math.
People forget stuff. Yes, the character sheet is one of the most important things they're going to need to play, but that almost guarantees that someone will forget to bring theirs. If everything stays in the room we're going to play in, you never have to worry about things not being there when it's time to play.
I take on the responsibility to update the physical character sheets myself and it's hard to do that if I don't have all the players notes and scribbles from their old sheets with me. My game is very... not prop heavy, but production value heavy. I used to do a binder for each player with their character sheet on the outside, and all the technical info and handouts they might need inside (spell write ups, history, calendars, NPC lists, and basically anything they might need to open up a book to go look up). Now I do character cards in Excel and the information from that sheet is tied directly into the suite of DM tools I use.
Updating, printing, and cutting the cards out when the group levels up takes a couple of hours at the very least, and if I have to wait for the character sheets to show up before I start, that's less time that we have to play.
It's not a trust or a control issue, it just makes things easier for us, and gives us the opportunity to focus all of our actual game time on gaming.
