Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets
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@Raistlin said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
Would you avoid a game if it used PDF character sheets instead of a coded chargen/web-based character creation system?
No, as long as the staff on that game had control of the database of PDF sheets and were alerted if anyone was to update their sheet outside of what was allowed by the rules of the game.
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@MisterBoring Yeah, I think staff being able to lock the PDFs down would be a must. I think that also adds to the consideration, having to submit the PDF to staff in some way(such as email). It’s an added step that is more complicated than just creating a character via the web portal.
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@Raistlin said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
So I’m curious: would PDF sheets be a dealbreaker for you, or would it not really matter as long as the game itself was solid?
Nope. A lot of the games I played had that as the method, especially the Kushiel games. The only downside is that everyone can see your stats, so, if you’re trying to keep that hidden, coded stats it has to be.
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@Ominous said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
The only downside is that everyone can see your stats, so, if you’re trying to keep that hidden, coded stats it has to be.
At this point, it should be pretty simple for the staff of a game to create a Google Drive folder or something equivalent to hold the PDFs in a fashion that each character’s sheet can only be accessed by the player of the character and the staff of the game.
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RE: Hidden Sheets
I’ve never done it, but I don’t think it’d be that hard to make the character sheet tab on the Ares web portal visible only to the character and staff.
That said, I’m also a fan of transparency with character stats. Too many bad experiences with the “OOC Masquerade” from WoD games.
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@Raistlin said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
That said, I’m also a fan of transparency with character stats. Too many bad experiences with the “OOC Masquerade” from WoD games.
Me too, but I understand some people enjoy that Masq stuff, so having the PDFs kept somewhere away from prying eyes would be ideal in that regard. If no Masq, then just have them somewhere that staff can easily see when players are updating the important bits of the sheet. If a character in a fantasy game suddenly has 18 Strength when they had 7 the week prior, staff need to notice that stuff. And yes, I’ve had a few poor experiences in games where the players kept their own sheets privately.
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@MisterBoring said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
At this point, it should be pretty simple for the staff of a game to create a Google Drive folder or something equivalent to hold the PDFs in a fashion that each character’s sheet can only be accessed by the player of the character and the staff of the game.
Everyone has to be able to see the stats if you’re just doing pdfs; otherwise, how do they know you’re rolling right? “Yes, I totally have five dots in every attribute and skill. You can’t see the pdf, but it’s totally there.”
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@Ominous said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
@MisterBoring said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
At this point, it should be pretty simple for the staff of a game to create a Google Drive folder or something equivalent to hold the PDFs in a fashion that each character’s sheet can only be accessed by the player of the character and the staff of the game.
Everyone has to be able to see the stats if you’re just doing pdfs; otherwise, how do they know you’re rolling right? “Yes, I totally have five dots in every attribute and skill. You can’t see the pdf, but it’s totally there.”
At this point in the hobby, if I don’t trust the other players on the game I’m on, I’m unlikely to give it much importance. Like, are we not past lying about stats? FFS.
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@Coin said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
@Ominous said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
@MisterBoring said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
At this point, it should be pretty simple for the staff of a game to create a Google Drive folder or something equivalent to hold the PDFs in a fashion that each character’s sheet can only be accessed by the player of the character and the staff of the game.
Everyone has to be able to see the stats if you’re just doing pdfs; otherwise, how do they know you’re rolling right? “Yes, I totally have five dots in every attribute and skill. You can’t see the pdf, but it’s totally there.”
At this point in the hobby, if I don’t trust the other players on the game I’m on, I’m unlikely to give it much importance. Like, are we not past lying about stats? FFS.
Exactly. You manipulate or rely on corrupt staff to give you the stats you want. This isn’t third grade.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
I’ll be honest. If my sheet is hidden from others, I’m probably not going to use the numbers on it. Not because I am intentionally trying to cheat, but because I’m lazy and don’t want to put in the effort to look up the actual number. I’ll just use a number that’s roughly in the same ballpark, unless I know someone can call out my lazy ass. (Psssst, don’t tell my players I do this at the table as a GM. Though, they probably have guessed that considering that I seem to remember all those numbers so well without consulting my notes.)
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@Pavel said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
@Coin said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
@Ominous said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
@MisterBoring said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:
At this point, it should be pretty simple for the staff of a game to create a Google Drive folder or something equivalent to hold the PDFs in a fashion that each character’s sheet can only be accessed by the player of the character and the staff of the game.
Everyone has to be able to see the stats if you’re just doing pdfs; otherwise, how do they know you’re rolling right? “Yes, I totally have five dots in every attribute and skill. You can’t see the pdf, but it’s totally there.”
At this point in the hobby, if I don’t trust the other players on the game I’m on, I’m unlikely to give it much importance. Like, are we not past lying about stats? FFS.
Exactly. You manipulate or rely on corrupt staff to give you the stats you want. This isn’t third grade.
Well, you’d know.
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To me coded sheets and in-game systems are primarily a convenience, especially for more complex systems.
If I have an in-game sheet and a reasonably well-coded dice roller I don’t have to remember or look up what my Dexterity + Lockpicking skill is in order to roll against it, I can just type “+roll Dexterity + Lockpicking” and away we go. It’s just easier.
You might say that it’s not that big a deal to just keep a tab open with your PDF character sheet, alt-tab over to it, look up the stats, alt-tab back, and then roll against them, and you’re right: it’s not really a big deal. It’s especially not a big deal for rules-lite systems or narrative-heavy systems when either I’m not going to be rolling a lot of dice or there aren’t a lot of stats to remember in the first place. But there’re certainly game systems where I’d look askance at doing entirely without.
Of course I’m sure it’s possible to put something in place that’s capable of reading a character’s stats from a PDF document and interpreting them in-game in exactly the same way that in-game sheets work, but – and please understand that I say this as someone whose brain has been permanently warped by MUSH code – that would be a much more difficult project to me than just writing up the in-game systems needed to do it. I’d rather write the in-game systems and something to dump in-game sheets to human-readable text files that get uploaded to the game’s web server than mess around with PDFs.
I do also enjoy a degree of OOC mystery, especially in less-narrativist games, but I can always choose to just not look at other people’s sheets even if they’re publicly available. And there are some game types – comic-book games, for instance – where open sheets seem like a benefit and I’d be happy to have them. It makes sense for characters who’ve been members of the same superteam for a while to have a good grasp on one another’s capabilities in a way that it doesn’t make sense for a newcome to know what powers each member of the secretive vampire coven has.
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I’m not here to do homework.
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@Juniper Unless it’s a creative writing assignment.
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Yes, I would avoid a game with PDF sheets, because I am tired of dealing with them at work.
At least put it in an excel sheet or something so you can run some formulas in there.
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A few years ago I was so desperate to run an ares CoD game for my pals that I went the google sheets route. I think I had it so they’d be locked or versioned or something.
Then coder pal went ahead and coded an entire CoD plugin so I ended up pivoting away from this idea. It would’ve been a lot of work managing everything like this, but hey, it’s possible! The sheets were styled from some free resources, then altered so that they handled the formulas.
