What happens when a character sheet is missing?

[Legildur]

Not that everyone would subscribe to this option, but we send our E-Tools files the night before we are due to play to the house of the guy we are playing at (always the same house as we have a good collection of Dwarven Forge material, which would be awkward to lug around).

Not only does that mean we have a version of the character sheet (possibly one session old though) in case something goes missing, but it also helps with the situation where a player can't make it for some last minute reason. At least we have the character sheet we cn print out so that they don't miss out on experience points (and we have a volunteer trap-disarmer

I guess you could always send it as an attachment to a web-based e-mail site so that you could download it from anywhere with Net access...

 

[Thanee]

So, about an hour till game and the character sheet and all the notes is gone. You've no idea where it is or what happened to it. What do you do?

Play from memory.

Or recreate from memory.

Bye
Thanee

 

[shilsen]

Play from memory.

Or recreate from memory.

Bye
Thanee

What he said. Give me 15 minutes and I'd be able to recreate a character sheet pretty closely. As a DM, there have been a couple times where a player lost/misplaced a character sheet and I eyeballed it during the game. Every time, when we checked later, I was very close to on the dot with the numbers.

 

[MonsterMash]

In the game I gm I keep all the character sheets at the end of the session, in the game I play we have to email copies/post them onto campaign site regularly.

 

[JoeBlank]

Dang, nice thread necromancy.

Similar to Legildur, my 3.5 DM requires an updated copy of our character sheet before each session, sent via email. So if it is lost we can just bring up our email and print a new one.

For diaglo's OD&D game my character sheet is handwritten, but I have posted the important details on the group's website and could play from that info.

 

[JoeGKushner]

we leave a regularly updated copy wiht our d.m.

as for your actual situ, figure it our beats you can, explain, start breathing again after the d.m. quits yelling

This is the method I prefer.

In a Midnight game I was playing in, I lost my character but as the GM is using point buy and I'm playing a simple fighter, I was able to recreate the giest of my character in like ten minutes. A spellcaster like a wizard or sorcer, especially if using spells and abilities from third party resources though...

 

[SelcSilverhand]

This comes up quite a bit in my games. Usually I tell the player to recreate it from memory using game notes from the previous session to help remember spell selections and other abilities.

For months now I've been pushing them to post their character sheets on the message board we use for our game but none of them have gotten around to it yet. If they'd each post it there we'd always have character sheets available if someone doesn't show up so I can NPC their character.

The other option is for the DM to hang on to all the sheets for that campaign since without them there won't be a game. I didn't care for this method since you'll end up using game time everytime the PC's level up.

 

[diaglo]

i print out a new copy before each session. if i didn't have the current one, i'd dig out one of the old ones and make up stuff from memory to fill in any differences.

if i'd lost all of the sheets. i'd claim my PC decided he didn't want to adventure anymore and wandered off or retired.

then i'd make up a new one.

 

[Mystery Man]

My players either have a copy of etools and send me a copy or use the program on my tablet pc during the game. I always have a sheet handy in case they forget theirs.

 

[ForceUser]

So, about an hour till game and the character sheet and all the notes is gone. You've no idea where it is or what happened to it. What do you do?

I prevent the situation from occurring by keeping my character sheet and notes in a Word document on my PC, which I also email to my DM each time I significantly update the character. If I'm at someone else's house and I don't have my sheet, I log into my email account, download, and print.

Also, when I'm DMing, I insist that my players email me their character sheets each time they level, and I keep stat blocks of all the PCs on 3X5 cards--if someone has to miss a session, fails to show, or forgets their character sheet, I am prepared.