🚀 go-pugleaf

At precisely Sat, 26 Sep 1998 19:40:24 +0200, in
<360D2708.9494AF42@post1.tele.dk>, Peter Knutsen
<peter.k@post1.tele.dk> wrote:

>I'm designing character sheets for my (free) Multiclass RPG system
>with Microsoft Publisher, and I'm trying to make a sheet that will
>contain all the relevant information on a single page (A4, which is
>approx. 20 cm x 30 cm or 8" x 12").
>  The handwriting of the players must fit onto the lines, of course,
>this is where the problem is, how dense can I make the lines/boxes?
>Since a large part of the sheet is devoted to skill lists (Multiclass
>is skill-based, despite the name) I don't have any absolute
>requirements, but I'd like to have room for as many skills as possible.
>
>Ordinary Danish writing paper has a line distance of 9 mm, my
>parents and my sister has tested a sample page I've made and found
>that 7.5 mm is workable (my sister said either 7.0 or 7.5 mm)
>I've tested 6.5 mm and 7.5 mm, and found 6.5 to be workable, but
>perhaps not if you have to fill out an entire character sheet
>(or worse yet, 20 sheets, for NPC's!)

Quick suggestion.  I've always found that *most* NPCs need far less
detail than PCs.  Make a separate, NPC record sheet, with room for the
important stuff like basic stats and a few important skills.  You
should be able to make the NPC sheet about half the size of a regular
sheet.

I've always been able to get away with writing up dozens of NPCs for
future use and noting just enough info for combat and brief
interaction.  Only important details were necessary, like whether this
blacksmith was capable of working with mithril or stuff like that.
Everything else was left for DIP extrapolation, and if I wanted to
give the NPC a recurring role I'd flesh him out between sessions.



Jonas Whitespore

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Jonas Whitespore wrote:

> Quick suggestion.  I've always found that *most* NPCs need far less
> detail than PCs.  Make a separate, NPC record sheet, with room for the
> important stuff like basic stats and a few important skills.

It depends on the style of game.  If your game focuses on

> combat and brief interaction

then stats and a few skills are fine.  My campaign focuses on personal
interaction.  I don't need stats.  I need name, group affiliations,
important skills, past history, and personality notes.

But my players have a habit of stealing my NPCs to turn them into
PCs -- by speaking up for them and then reaching out a hand for
the character sheet, so I've sometimes had to create stats on the fly.

Getting back to the original question:  I'd say no more than three lines
to an inch for people who don't like to write small for sections that
require words.  Numbers can be written on lines set as close as
six lines to an inch.  And if you're checking off boxes (if the game has
a long list of skills, and you check off which ones the character has),
those can be closer yet.

--Lee Gold

Jonas Whitespore wrote:

[line distance]
 
> Quick suggestion.  I've always found that *most* NPCs need far less
> detail than PCs.  Make a separate, NPC record sheet, with room for the
> important stuff like basic stats and a few important skills.  You
> should be able to make the NPC sheet about half the size of a regular
> sheet.

How do you determine which NPC's are "minor"?
Any minor NPC can end up becoming very important, due to random
factors, provided you desribe him in sufficient detail.
  The Multiclass RPG system makes it easy to describe the skills
of a character in detail.
 
> I've always been able to get away with writing up dozens of NPCs for
> future use and noting just enough info for combat and brief
> interaction.  Only important details were necessary, like whether this

"combat and brief interaction". This sounds a bit like *D&D. Apart
from that, it is a top-down approach when assigning importance
to NPC's. Random events during the game will make "minor" NPC's
important and "major" NPC's unimportant.

> blacksmith was capable of working with mithril or stuff like that.
> Everything else was left for DIP extrapolation, and if I wanted to
> give the NPC a recurring role I'd flesh him out between sessions.

What's DIP?
  I like to think that all NPC's have the potential to become important,
although the Multiclass RPG will, in the next edition, have a mechanic
to describe the overall competence of characters (from normal,
competent, hero-material, demi-god, god (and PC's are not expected to
advance beyound "hero-material"))

> Jonas Whitespore

Thanks for your input anyway!

-- 
Peter Knutsen
The URL to my homepage is:
http://home1.inet.tele.dk/peter.k/

Lee Gold wrote:
> 
> Jonas Whitespore wrote:
> 
> > Quick suggestion.  I've always found that *most* NPCs need far less
> > detail than PCs.  Make a separate, NPC record sheet, with room for the
> > important stuff like basic stats and a few important skills.
> 
> It depends on the style of game.  If your game focuses on
> 
> > combat and brief interaction
> 
> then stats and a few skills are fine.  My campaign focuses on personal
> interaction.  I don't need stats.  I need name, group affiliations,
> important skills, past history, and personality notes.

The current edition of Multiclass only has one stat (and then Hitpoints,
which could be considered a second stat) :-)
  We seem to agree somewhat on how to describe NPC's.

> But my players have a habit of stealing my NPCs to turn them into
> PCs -- by speaking up for them and then reaching out a hand for
> the character sheet, so I've sometimes had to create stats on the fly.

I like to have very secret character sheets. Realism is added if
the other players don't know exactly what is on the sheets of
their comrades.
 
> Getting back to the original question:  I'd say no more than three lines
> to an inch for people who don't like to write small for sections that

ouch, that's 8.5 mm per line!! Usually it will just be a single word
("pickpocket" or "move silently").

> require words.  Numbers can be written on lines set as close as
> six lines to an inch.  And if you're checking off boxes (if the game has
> a long list of skills, and you check off which ones the character has),
> those can be closer yet.

The game does have a *very* long list of skills, around 175. So I'm
not going to make check boxes, as all of these skills has levels
(well, 95% of them, is a rough guess).

 
> --Lee Gold

Bad news, but thanks for the input :-)

-- 
Peter Knutsen
The URL to my homepage is:
http://home1.inet.tele.dk/peter.k/

In article <360D2708.9494AF42@post1.tele.dk>, Peter Knutsen
<peter.k@post1.tele.dk> wrote:

For what it's worth, standard writing paper in this country (Australia) is
ruled at 7mm intervals.

The character sheets I provide for my players have skill slots 5.5mm tall.
Everyone I know can manage that, but I wouldn't want to go any smaller.

-- 
Brett Evill

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