Player's Character Sheet

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I ask that players provide me an updated sheet when their characters gain a level so I can keep abreast of abilities, though I don't maintain the sheet *for* them -- it's their character. I look over them then for errors, to greater or lesser amounts depending upon the player (and compare to previous sheets, since I've seen some suspicious increases in stats on the occasional sheet). Some sheets get a cursory scan, some get a microscope depending on their past history of "errors".

Ironically, we have a YahooGroup for the campaign, and a couple of players post their character stats there -- which generally prompts correction from the rest of the group.

I've found that while most player errors can be randomly in favor or against the character, the character sheets that I'm forced to give the full proctological treatment to have had all the errors in the character's favor, with generally multiple "errors" per sheet. Funny, isn't it?

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I don't usually go over the players character sheets. Hell, I think one of my players doesn't even have a character sheet...

That's not entirely true. I get updated sheets everytime they level up, but that's about it. Mostly so I can copy important stuff over to the iniative cards I use, and have quick access to their saves and skills. We're all good friends, and I trust them. One guy is very concientious about posting an updated sheet on the Yahoo Group we use after every session, one is a new player that I met up with to halp him level up when needed, one keeps his sheet updated but doesn't post it, and the last guy has a sheet that he sometimes brings but has a notebook with all the important stuff written down on multiple pages (It's all good, Matt! )

We play for fun. These guys are my friends, and we play to hang out every other week for a few hours and have some sort of a shared story. I'm not going to be picky about the character sheets. I have enough trouble keeping my own notes and campaign stuff together in an easily accessed fashion, so I'm not going to police them as well. If they want to fudge a little bit, so what? As long as they are having fun and nobody is offended. I can always fudge a bit on my side of the screen too...

 

[DragonLancer]

I'd feel ... weird ... in any campaign where the DM decided that he needed to keep my character sheet for any reason.

I mean, it's mine. I printed it, I filled it in, I keep it updated between sessions. If he wanted a copy for some Byzantine reason, I'd probably just send him the Excel file I use to build my characters.

It's weird to see how little trust there is between players and DMs ...

For me its not a trust issue. I trust my players all the way. I keep them to ensure they aren't forgotten (something that used to happen a hell of a lot when this group first got together about 15 year ago) and as I said, I like to have them so I can compare them to what I have planned.

 

[Quickbeam]

In each of my two groups I help one player with their character sheets. I'm DM in one group and a player in the other, but in both cases this is done as a courtesy and not a monitoring device.

Like others have mentioned herein, I really don't have the time or inclination to babysit my friends' character sheets. When we come across an error, it's presumed to be an honest mistake (especially since they overlook benefits as often as they provide them in our groups) which is corrected and we all move on. Hopefully each of your groups will come to have that level of trust and game awareness going forward.

 

[Xath]

After a while, I find that my math will get skewed in places; especially if I level up more than once in a short period of time. So once in a while, I rewrite my character sheet and recalculate all of my math.

Most of the time I've shorted myself instead of the other way around. I once got to 17th level and realized that I would have had to roll ones for 10 levels to have the hitpoints that my character had. I also short myself on skill points quite often.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I'd feel ... weird ... in any campaign where the DM decided that he needed to keep my character sheet for any reason.

Me, too.

I neither fiddle with my character during play except when levelling or shopping, nor am I incapable of doing math.

I do provide a copy at the beginning of the game, and have occasionally had one requested when another player was suspected of being less than honest. But otherwise, yeah, that's annoying.

Brad

 

[billd91]

I'd feel ... weird ... in any campaign where the DM decided that he needed to keep my character sheet for any reason.

I mean, it's mine. I printed it, I filled it in, I keep it updated between sessions. If he wanted a copy for some Byzantine reason, I'd probably just send him the Excel file I use to build my characters.

It's weird to see how little trust there is between players and DMs ...

It's not always a qustion of trust. I just want to be up to date on what the PCs can do as I plan adventures out in the future. The medium I use to keep track of them happens to calculate things out, which provides another level of error-checking.
Like I said, most error correction I've seen actually ends up in the PC's favor.

I might turn this on its head and wonder why a player would have issues with turning his character sheet in to the DM. What is that player hiding from the DM?
It may be your character sheet, but the DM has the right to see all of the character details on it so what's the problem?

 

[ThirdWizard]

It's weird to see how little trust there is between players and DMs ...

I keep it so the PC can still be run when the player misses. So, if Billy Joe Bob misses a session, we can still run his character John son of Rick and not be in a bind without a character sheet.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I like to use DMGenie and all sorts of software for upkeep of pretty much all of my games. Some of my players initially didn't quite "like" the idea of it ... they were welcome to keep their own sheet, but after watching everybody else recieve a brand new, crisp, clear, easily-read laser-printed sheet every level ... everybody seems to like it.

I actually ended up keeping all the sheets for all the games I ran or were run at my place. I had half a dozen manilla folders tacked to the wall near the gaming table with the day and game printed on them that I stored the sheets in. That way we never lost sheets and when I printed out new sheets we threw the old ones away so there was no confusion.

The OCD freak in me really liked that. DMGenie keeps everything nicely in synch, so I can roll secret rolls without problems, can check scores without giving anything away, track HP so I know how the combat is running, etc.

Even for games like d20Modern, I use Excel based sheets and keep them saved on my laptop that I run games from. I print out a new sheet for everybody when they level up.

--fje

 

[shaylon]

I would help them go over a sheet if they asked but in general I trust them to know how to make a character. If something is wrong and it comes out in the game then we fix it. No big deal.

-Shay