Goodman Games

Linked below is a character sheet I've made in tribute to the DCC's and their 1e vibe.

Back when I started playing D&D (pre-AD&D) someone in my circle of friends got a photocopy of semi-professional, home-brewed character sheet. It had been designed with D&D in mind, but also made to fit for other FRPGs, so some of the entries on the sheet were unfamiliar and, frankly, stretched out games to incorporate things like 'next of kin' and 'morale'....

We all ran off copies, guys lost their 'original' copies and borrowed someone else's to make more copies and so on, unitl the sheets became almost illegible from being a dozen or so generations down from even our multi-generational 'original'.

But we played pretty heavily in those days, probably multiple times a week, so I spent a lot of time with those character sheets. When AD&D came out, well, the published sheets were on orange paper, making photocopies nearly unusable since they came out very dark. Oh, and they cost money. So we kept using the home-brew sheets. The only other sheet I can recall seeing much was, yes, you guessed it, standard-ruled binder paper.

Last year, I discovered a box that contained a bunch of old gaming papers, including about five or six of my characters, and a few blank copies of those well-worn sheets. The feeling I felt in finding those was much the same as what I felt when I first found the DCCs. So, it seemed like something had to be done to put these things together.

Well, I started on it, and then drifted away from it for awhile. I started back up this past summer, and then the 4e announcement came along, and I just thought what was the point.... it is designed for 3.5, so the shelf life seemed to make the gesture futile.

But, then I thought 'what the hells' -- I'll still do it. I've used drafts of the thing for my own characters, and liked the layout. Maybe one or two of you who have been kind enough to read this far might find them useful, too.

Anyway, enough ramble. Here it is.

http://www.twrfcreative.com/DCCCS-photocopy.pdf (This file is a bit shy of 1MB)

Who knows if there won't be a 4e version later this year...? If you have any interest in such, let me know....

Love it! Very old-school feeling. I love the zipatone illustration at the top; you don't see much of that anymore. Did you use Photoshop or some other graphics program to "age" it, or is it really an old photocopy that you scanned?

Thanks for the compliment.

It's an all-new sheet made using InDesign. It's based on the one I mention above, but with some significant alterations to make it (a) include 3e stuff, and (b) usable (I think the old one had like ten lines for spells, a tiny box for magic items, etc.). I created a 'clean' pdf, then brought that into Photoshop to apply many layers of 'degeneration'. I love zipatone, and the three variations used were 'hand-made' in Photoshop, too. (Had to play around with that for a bit until I hit upon the right 'screen' sizes.)

I had to stop myself with the copy machine artifacts, though, since to get it to where I could've gotten it, would have made it basically unusable.

Wish I could've made the illustration larger, but 3e asks for a lot of numbers. 'Nuff said.

I guess if you're asking about the source of the 'texture', I must've hit the right level of versimilitude. And, thanks for the chance to use a word like 'versimilitude'!

If anyone -- anyone at all -- finds it useful for them personally, I can think of nothing better than printing one copy and heading down to Kinkos for the rest. Actually, your local library might engender more 'old-school' feeling....

Heh! Back in the day, to make copies of our blank character sheets we had to go to the Dillon's supermarket in the next town over.

Very cool sheet, by the way!

:Note - the following must be said in an "old man" voice

Hell...back in the day, we would keep one character sheet until it was as tattered and worn as the Dead Sea Scrolls. There would be holes in the paper from eraser marks.

I have fond memories of the Armory characters sheets. Hmm...I wonder if I have some of those buried somewhere...

that is a totally cool sheet

I like your style for that sheet

That is seven degrees of awesome. "Next of kin." :twisted Sending this into home play this weekend!

//H :

Cool Character sheet! Nice old-school feel. Way back in high school I took a graphic arts class. It had a printing press and we made a small magazine for local businesses. All the money we made went towards the supplies for class. We got to do whatever projects we wanted with the surplus money. I can remeber making plates for Paranoia, Star Wars, D&D, etc. I ran off hundres of each before we ran out of supplies. I gave free character sheets to all my friends. Some of the Paranoia forms were in several different colors. I wonder if these plates were used by others after I left. I know the odds are long but, if anyone from Clay High in South Bend, IN ever used any of these send me a reply.

So.

Page views have tripped over the '400' mark. That feels nice.

Has anybody actually used the thing? Anyone swept back to 1979? If you were, say 'hi' to me if you see me...

Thanks for the encouragement, fellas!

I'm using these sheets for one of the DCC sneak previews I'm running at Genghis Con this weekend. Does that count?

I think my Ego just increased by '1'!

I'm sure you have more pressing matters to attend to than propping up my ego, but what did they make of them...?

They LOVED them. There was one younger player who studied it for a while and noted that there were a lot of "house rules" built into the character. I assured him that this wasn't the case.

When 4E hits we'll need you to make new ones.

//H

Soooooooo, are we gonna see some awesome old school character sheets any time soon................

Heh heh, you sound slightly interested...

I have a very rough draft that was done last year. It needs road-testing before I can refine it into fan-produced gold. Since my group was non-plussed by 4e, I haven't worked on it since we stopped. I will be at DunDraCon in less than two weeks (actually, part of my mind is already there) and expect to get into at least one 4e game where I can test the thing in use.

Once again, I'm aiming for a single-sided sheet that will work for all characters, because that is my personal preference. And I'm sure I'll trick it out with a vintage-style spot illustration or two and plenty of faux-age seasoning, as before.

PM me an e-mail addy if you'd like to do some road testing for me...

A single sided sheet for 4th Edition?

Is there something wrong with that? The rough draft was working fine for me while we were trying out 4e...

I think one sheet would be fine. I hardly use anything on the second sheet in 4E. It ends up full of adventure notes and doodles. I really enjoyed your 3.5 sheet and I'm looking forward to this new one.