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<blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8730437" data-attributes="member: 93670">I think that the character sheet shares more than a little bit of the blame for that sort of behavior. Even using a fillable pdf and setting the &quot;features &amp; traits&quot; field to scroll or the font size to mice type will quickly result in usability issues.&nbsp;Players wind up trying to fit in something that is both uselessly dense with features and pointlessly vague on mechanics.There's all kinds of stuff backing up how we can handle about seven plus or minus three&nbsp; things in memory but&nbsp; if more than that is chunked&nbsp; into things we learn as a chunk that goes up. By design 5e thwarts the ability to remember or document chunkable abilities thanks to everything being a one off edge case.&nbsp; That design choice makes it easy to seem simple when there is no initial crunch &amp; initial jargon to learn, but that endless pile of simplicity comes with a cost of working against how memory works.Class design takes that hurdle a step further when it comes to the character sheet making up for it.&nbsp; None of the classes is on a matching schedule of where they get bread &amp; butter abilities vrs ribbons and dead levels or even number of things gained at level x&nbsp; to provide some structure. so you wind up with a less than useful character sheet.&nbsp; Worse still is that because everything is a one off crunch &amp; jargon free one off you can only do it with thirteen different truly excessive sheets.&nbsp; More better more purple does it but then you have a sheet bordering on pdf based apps for each class before you can start using the sheet to start doing the heavy lifting of chunking unique one off abilities. With a class for each sheet a player needs to use some of the mental workspace just to handle the class specific monolithic sheet if they don't exclusively play one class.Postit notes and register printout receipts are simple while a spreadsheet or database is more complex.&nbsp; That only goes so far thoue since a disorganized jumbled pile of unrelated receipts &amp; Postit notes can be orders of magnitude more complex &amp; less useful than a nicely formatted spreadsheet or database.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="tetrasodium, post: 8730437, member: 93670"] I think that the character sheet shares more than a little bit of the blame for that sort of behavior. Even using a fillable pdf and setting the "features & traits" field to scroll or the font size to mice type will quickly result in usability issues. Players wind up trying to fit in something that is both uselessly dense with features and pointlessly vague on mechanics. There's all kinds of stuff backing up how we can handle about seven plus or minus three things in memory but if more than that is chunked into things we learn as a chunk that goes up. By design 5e thwarts the ability to remember or document chunkable abilities thanks to everything being a one off edge case. That design choice makes it easy to seem simple when there is no initial crunch & initial jargon to learn, but that endless pile of simplicity comes with a cost of working against how memory works. Class design takes that hurdle a step further when it comes to the character sheet making up for it. None of the classes is on a matching schedule of where they get bread & butter abilities vrs ribbons and dead levels or even number of things gained at level x to provide some structure. so you wind up with a less than useful character sheet. Worse still is that because everything is a one off crunch & jargon free one off you can only do it with thirteen different truly excessive sheets. More better more purple does it but then you have a sheet bordering on pdf based apps for each class before you can start using the sheet to start doing the heavy lifting of chunking unique one off abilities. With a class for each sheet a player needs to use some of the mental workspace just to handle the class specific monolithic sheet if they don't exclusively play one class. Postit notes and register printout receipts are simple while a spreadsheet or database is more complex. That only goes so far thoue since a disorganized jumbled pile of unrelated receipts & Postit notes can be orders of magnitude more complex & less useful than a nicely formatted spreadsheet or database. [/QUOTE]

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