My XP has been the opposite of yours: if you have a full list of skills, players will see the total bonus and not understand if they are proficient or not, so you will also need to put an extra column to signal proficiency. I prefer to see a list of only proficient skills, saves, weapons etc. rather than a full 'checklist' which IMXP it makes the whole character sheet more complicated and confusing than it needs to be.
Overall, it depends if the DM wants to deliver a feel that the game is 'open-ended' or 'close-ended'. If you give complete lists, then the players tend to assume they always have to stick with what's on the list, for good or bad. I prefer players to focus on what they're good at i.e. look first and foremost to use what they are proficient with, and let others do what they aren't proficient with themselves, emphasizing the roles of each PC.
I agree with you 100% on what you say here. In fact, in the games I run, the charsheets I gave to my players to use did not have a skill list, but rather did just have a section for "proficiencies" where they wrote in the skills and saves they were proficient in (plus the Prof Bonus right next to it.) So I would definitely go along with you on what you say here for the most part...
...
except that if this was the case, then I don't believe the
formatting that Merric is using for his sheet is the best way to get that across. I don't believe separating the proficient skills and saves under each applicable ability scores gets the idea of "stuff you're good at" across very well, but rather will just cause more confusion. They will see skills under the six abilities and wonder where their other skills are (especially if they see other charsheets that have those skills listed). By the same token, they will only see two of their scores have Saves, and they'll spend more time wondering why they "don't have" the other four, rather than understanding they do have all six, but just that two are higher than the modifier.
It's a minor thing, definitely... but for a con game, reducing as much confusion as possible from the charsheet is what you want to do. Especially when it comes to trying to get new players up to speed that have potentially never seen a character sheet AT ALL before.
So my recommendation would be that *if* you didn't want to have a complete skill list on the charsheet (for just the reasons you suggested, Li Shenron)... then the best way to get that across would be to put all four to eight proficient skills and both proficient saves in their own box called "Proficiencies" with the Prof Bonus right there with it. That way the players can see that it's these few things they are really good at (separate from the abilities themselves) and that each person has their own list of "good stuff".
And this way you can then let the players know "I will be asking for Ability Checks occasionally, and you add your ability modifier for that ability to a d20 roll. You also have this box of things you are really good at, so if you happen to be proficient in the skill I mention that applies to that ability check, you'll find it in your Proficiencies box, and you can add the Prof Bonus to your d20 roll as well."
To me, that seems more comprehensible and less likely to cause questions at the table. But of course, that being said... it's also quite likely that maybe its just my brain that is seeing this format as being easier to comprehend than the other way, and perhaps isn't as universal as I might believe. That'd be a very fair point. So in that regard, all one can do is go with the formatting you'd think will cause the least confusion for players and see how the sheet checks out.
