Its definitely a Good Thing to add your own customer character sheets to a game, it can make all the difference. For starters, they look better generally, they can have all the information on you need and none of it that you don’t… flavour text, bits of rules, things specific to each character, images, the list goes on.
For (Savage) Hawkmoon at Tentacles last year I did the A5 booklet thing that Baz demonstrated in his post not so long ago. This gave me a chance to make the character sheet look pretty, included all the relevant character rules, generic rules and tips, plus a secret background on the inside.
Change the font and switch to A4 and you’ve got something evocative for the pulpy Cthulhu I ran at Conception. I tried to style it vaguely like a newspaper front page. Regrettably I think this was the best bit about my game, but the character sheets worked really well. Adding a quote and appropriate image really works, and there’s everything on there you need, with simple, but effective styling. I think anyway.
If you really want to get fancy, for Delta Green I scanned in some manilla envelopes, then robbed images off t’interweb and added “polaroids”, coffee stains on the paperwork, layered levels at jaunty angles and all kinds of shizzle, and before you know it I’ve got a set of individual, but similarly themed sheets that immediately make an impact and get people into the mood.
Stock game company sheets are often filled with useless boxes, calculations that you don’t need for con games, not enough space where you need it and too much when you don’t, frequently a key area or stat is lacking a place to put it, etc ad nauseum. So why settle for less? Put a bit of time into making your own custom sheets and you’ll get a lot more from it.
For (Savage) Hawkmoon at Tentacles last year I did the A5 booklet thing that Baz demonstrated in his post not so long ago. This gave me a chance to make the character sheet look pretty, included all the relevant character rules, generic rules and tips, plus a secret background on the inside.
Change the font and switch to A4 and you’ve got something evocative for the pulpy Cthulhu I ran at Conception. I tried to style it vaguely like a newspaper front page. Regrettably I think this was the best bit about my game, but the character sheets worked really well. Adding a quote and appropriate image really works, and there’s everything on there you need, with simple, but effective styling. I think anyway.
If you really want to get fancy, for Delta Green I scanned in some manilla envelopes, then robbed images off t’interweb and added “polaroids”, coffee stains on the paperwork, layered levels at jaunty angles and all kinds of shizzle, and before you know it I’ve got a set of individual, but similarly themed sheets that immediately make an impact and get people into the mood.
Stock game company sheets are often filled with useless boxes, calculations that you don’t need for con games, not enough space where you need it and too much when you don’t, frequently a key area or stat is lacking a place to put it, etc ad nauseum. So why settle for less? Put a bit of time into making your own custom sheets and you’ll get a lot more from it.
The Smart Party 
This is certainly what I have tried to do with my character sheets for my games.
I have gone through my sheets and updated them just recently to make them not only easier to read and find information but to add genre flavour too.
So my Supernatural character sheets look like police reports with mug shot, my Dad’s Army char sheets look like MoD profile reports and my Serenity/Firefly/Alien Resurrection ones look like the computer screen report out of the film.
This also ties in with my props that I use in game, especially ones that help with NPCs.