GURPS-O-SCOPIC (A One-Page Character Sheet for new players)

GURPS-O-SCOPIC (pronounced like microscopic) stands for GURPS On Simplified Character sheets Oriented toward Players just Introduced to the Canon.

Canon in this case meaning, “a collection or list of sacred books.” Sacred books meaning… GURPS books!

Here is the sheet:

About the Font

If you want to use the handwriting font that I used, you’ll need to grab the font Dreaming Outloud Sans Regular. However you could also use any handwriting font, or any font that you like. By using this font and the color blue I was just trying to separate the character-specific content from the names and rules on the sheet.

Now for some discussion!

Why You Shouldn’t Use The Default GURPS Character Sheet

(At least, not with new players.)

The character sheet that is standard for GURPS was designed to help you calculate a character. It has columns of numbers that you can add/subtract, sections for subtotals, etc. It is intended as a worksheet.

But these days, I use software to create characters, not a worksheet and a pencil. It seems like the purpose of the character sheet has changed, and what I need is actually a reference sheet to be used during the game.

New players need a simple reference explaining their character even more than I do, and if they are using pregen characters they don’t need a character creation worksheet.

A few other things bother me about the standard sheet. It’s often said that GURPS is a modular system and no single game employs all the rules. But the default character sheet gives real estate to things that aren’t very commonly used in my games. It does try to do all things for all GMs on one page! Which is kind of anti-GURPS in my thinking, if you believe GURPS to be modular.

For a new player, the GURPS character sheet just looks like a terrifying wall of monochromatic small print, conveying to them that the system is over-complicated.

Even if we granted that all of the information on the standard sheet needs to be there (and we don’t grant that on this blog!), I have found it is frustrating to help new players look up the information they need–even with my help–because the graphic design of the standard sheet is questionable. Headings don’t jump out, important things are intermingled with unimportant things. Try getting a number from a new player by saying, “It’s on the upper-left.” It doesn’t help them much because there is so much stuff on the upper-left!

The esteemed and generous people who have come up with game aids to address some of these problems typically think of rules and characters as separate things. You have a “character sheet” that gives your values for traits… that as a new player you don’t understand. These traits are explained, but that’s on a separate “cheat sheet” of rules (or on “combat cards,” or a “player’s screen,” or in the rule books themselves). But for a new player wouldn’t it be even more helpful if some explanations were given ADJACENT TO the values they are looking up? I know there isn’t room for very much explanation, but just a little bit could be in there.

Some people have put the character creation rules (e.g., for 7-minute GURPS character creation) on the same page as the character sheet. That’s interesting, but if you are handing someone a pregen character they don’t care about the character creation rules.

What This Sheet Tries To Do Better

So, inspired by Mook’s extra-simplified GURPS Character Sheets on Game Geekery, this is an attempt at a new character sheet which has the following goals:

• Calculations on the character sheet that are not referred to during the game should just be omitted. For instance, a custom talent you create to make a set of skills cheaper–let’s just list the skills. If you don’t use the encumbrance table, let’s not have it. Or how about basic speed? Or the subtotal box?
• Languages and Cultural Familiarities don’t usually come up during one-shot games. If they do come up, let’s put them under skills.
• Combat Box: Let’s list things that your character can do during combat in a separate “combat box” if that makes sense. In other words, even if it is a skill or technique, if it’s combat, let’s list it under combat. The combat box should help you find the stuff you need when you are fighting. (The normal GURPS character sheet kind of does this anyway when it lists your skill level next to your weapons, but let’s push this idea farther.) We want to help people figure out where to look in the heat of battle.
• Point totals for all features should be omitted. Even though they are an important clue as to how important/unimportant the GURPS rule system thinks each feature is (and this helps people learn the rules), players don’t have to learn these rules during their first game, and this adds a lot of scary text. So let’s just defer learning about point costs until later.
• I used Microsoft Word rather than a PDF so that the GM can edit all parts of the sheet, dumping sections that don’t apply to their games, and making other sections bigger/smaller as needed.
• Let’s keep this bad boy to one page only so that the rules cheat sheet (I use the GURPSicle) can be on the back.
• The graphic design should help you look things up. Assuming you have access to a color printer, let’s use color to differentiate values and rules. In case you don’t have a color printer, let’s use fonts. And we can add icons so that the GM can verbally ask you to look for the “little explosion” or “treasure chest on the right” and this will speed up game play. We can even cross reference the character sheet with the rules cheat sheet by using the same icons.

We’re going to try these new sheets out and see how it goes! I will post our example sheets here both in GCA format and GURPS-O-SCOPIC format.

Fingers crossed!

(Image coda: The GURPS Character Sheet, used with permission via the SJ Games Online Policy for the purposes of this review.)