Evolution Across Iterations

Pathbuilder spoiled me with its beautiful layout and user-friendly interface when my partner and I were still using Pathfinder 2e as the vehicle for telling our story. The opportunity never arose for me to experiment with switching between three characters during a session using it, but it was a godsend for keeping track of Efial's/Cael's growing complexity as they leveled up.

I, uh, I seem to really enjoy creating mechanically complex characters. If I had to guess, it stimulates the part of my mind that enjoys sinking its teeth into the puzzle of, "How do I make what I want work?"

And that question, my friends, is what led me to start designing version 1 of my character play mats for our transition to Daggheart.

I appreciate all of the digital character sheets and builders out there that try to simplify character sheet fluff into well-organized templates. Unfortunately, most of the current digital builders only have core rulebook options available without the ability to either create customized material such as homebrew classes or implement material from the Void, which is official playtest material for Daggerheart..

Fed up by the clunkiness of juggling 3 digital character sheets while keeping track of cards, I started asking myself, "If I were to create a system that worked for me, how would I go about it? I'm not experienced enough with programming to build a site or digital framework easily from scratch. How can I balance 3 characters side-by-side? Where can I draw inspiration for the framework I want?"

It was about that moment I looked over to the bookshelf in our living room and saw the Descent box on the bottom shelf. RPG mixed with board game elements. Not only did it include minis and props, it contained small character mats with all of the relevant information one needs to play laid out on both sides.

That was my answer.

I tore into the box to find the character cards, grabbing tokens and pieces as I went, and then I sat at my kotatsu table to study them.

"What are you doing...?" my partner asked me as I bent over these pieces.

"Studying."

Compact with necessary information only. The symbols help draw the player's attention, and the layout flows from one section to another. Elegant, functional, and leaves room for the artistic expression of the character image in the background, which I love. Heart for health makes sense--that's a pretty universal symbol--and so does the sweat drop for Stress accumulation in Daggerheart. Using this and the official character sheet as models, I created my first iteration of the character mat.

It's not nearly as pretty, is it?

It wasn't meant to be. Even though I carefully measured each box to make sure all my lines were straight, I could tell that this wouldn't be the final piece. It's still too busy and, quite frankly, boring. I was just creating another character sheet, just slightly more compact and fewer interesting pieces. I spent much more time on it than I should have, since it became my glorified test page for designing the evasion symbol I would use in later iterations.

Version two, as you can see, is already much cleaner, showing the skeletal backbone of the final version. I traced around glass beads to create the Hope tracker at the bottom of the page, using it as a natural page break for the Hope ability, "No Mercy" below it. I moved closer to how the shield looks on the official Daggherheart character sheet, placing the Health and Stress trackers right beside it.

The Evasion symbol I decided upon for this page, the swirling arrow, felt...fine but generic. Much like the joy I discover when capturing the perfect word for a scene's description, I wanted that same feeling to translate over to the image I chose. This iteration of the character sheet was necessary for me to realize, "The arrow is nice, it's functional, but it can do a better job."

My major win though was the ribbon for denoting the damage thresholds. I love the way it flows from left to right, drawing the eye along from Minor to Severe, reminding the player that they might have shields to spend on blocking incoming damage, which I track with tokens. It continues to draw the eye along to the end, displaying the max Stress that player's character has, which I also tracked with tokens. The HP listed within the heart is the player's max HP, and I've been using the Descent tracker to measure current:

Yeah, I also put the max HP on a sticky note and stuck it to the tracker. I like my redundancy systems, what can I say?

No need to futz with erasing or marking everything during sessions. Just place a token, remove a token, or slide the tracker, and you have an elegant system that keeps the flow of the game going.

The boxes were an eyesore though. Plain old boring boxes that make your eyes wanna cross. What could I cut to reduce input overload?

Starting a third version, I swapped from portrait mode to landscape mode, moving closer to the final aesthetic. I didn't think the ability scores needed such huge boxes, so I shrank them and moved them up to the top. No need to go searching your character sheet for your Agility score. It's right there in plain view next to the character's name and pronouns.

I made a conscious decision to leave Class and Domains off of this personal version of my design, because I'm using custom combinations in place of the official ones. For example, since I ported Cael over from Pathfinder 2e and I wanted to keep continuity level, I had to borrow some abilities from Sorcerer and Wizard alongside Bard. Technically you can only multi-class once, but we bent the rules to fit our hybrid version of the game. If we were starting fresh? I would probably try to stick within the official framework.

To that end, the inclusion of Traumas was also an agreed-upon decision. If Experiences are the player's way of adding bonuses to rolls by spending Hope, then Traumas are the GM's way of creating stakes via the Fear meta-currency when a character faces...well, trauma.

Still though, the boxes...and the arrow...and the level/proficiency section. I was a step closer to creating a working draft for testing, but this version wasn't good enough for my tastes, not yet.

Evasion...evasion.... What image fits well for evasion?

I went to the Purpose AI with my question, and after some follow-up questions on its end (do you want something simple or complex?), it listed out a few possible examples, one of which was...

...a feather.

I took it a step further. I pulled up some example images of simple feather designs, and then I played with melding it into the shape of an arrow as well.

Not only that, but after putting the Ability Scores in their respective boxes, I asked myself, "How can I make this more interesting?" After some fiddling around, I landed on those hanging banners. The "nail" above them becomes a natural part of the design. Any time the player levels up and chooses to increase 2 of their Ability Scores, they just fill in the nail to represent the two they chose. Once they reach a new Tier, the filled in circles get erased.

The experiences and Traumas become the ribbons like one might receive for finishing a race in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. The threshold ribbon, no longer flowing up and framing the Evasion, Shield, HP, and Stress, folds down to hug the "Bonds" box that my partner and I borrowed from Fabula Ultima as a relationship dynamic.

It was at this point, I decided to cut the Class Features box entirely. Class Features felt like it should be a card anyway--that it isn't continues to baffle me to the point where I still mix up the Class Feature abilities with the Class Foundation, Specialization, and Mastery cards that do exist.

Instead of the convex circle for level and proficiency, I decided to go for a more concave design. It made me chuckle after I drew it the first time, reminding me of those paper fortune tellers we used to make and play with as kids.

Everything about this design was beginning to lock into place. I needed to move the Ability Score banners over a smidge and tighten the space between the shield and other symbols, but I knew I was onto something with this iteration. I wasn't quite happy with the feather design yet, but it was all proceeding smoothly.

Okay, maybe not as smoothly as I'd thought. Out of curiosity, I decided to shift the location of the Ability Score banners to create more room for the other stats, but yeah, no, no dice. Not only did the space further down become more cramped, too much space opened between the shield, heart, and sweat drop. Plus, I lost the ability to include the Experiences and Traumas section.

So, no. No, this would not do. As much as I loved including a box for a character portrait, it was just not meant to be.

So, I drew it all again, Ability Scores in their original location at the top, Experiences and Traumas on the left side, and all the symbols in the right along with the Bonds box. The Hope tracker separates the Hope Ability from the rest of the page, easy to ignore until needed, and the feather + arrow combination for Evasion finally pulled itself together.

The name/pronoun, Bonds, and Hope Feature boxes are still rather plain and boring, but I didn't need it designed perfectly before our next session. I just needed it functional.

Boxes filled, shield segments appropriately shaded, symbols noted for all 3 characters. It all looks good on paper, it all seems functional, but the only way to tell would be to test it out in real time.

Honestly, the cards created more problems than the character mats. Score 1 point for mat implementation, but the card layout? Yeah, that needs work.

The glass beads fit in the Hope tracker beautifully. Shield tokens, which I borrowed from Descent piled on top of the shield just fine. Sweat to represent Stress fit on the side no problem. To keep it all straight in my head, I would remove a token whenever I used the Shield to block attacks or whenever I performed an action that required Stress. It took away from the cognitive load, "Wait, am I adding or removing Stress?"

My partner also enjoyed using the mats for his 2 PCs, and now that we know they work, I can scan the master template into my computer and begin work adjusting some of the other details.

The cards though? The layout of the whole structure?

That's going to niggle at me until I find a format that works, because right now, the placement of those cards fails to meet my standards. Some of the cards require tokens placed atop them as well, so rearranging the space is not just about aesthetic but utility as well.

The less I have to worry about the layout, the more steadily I can flow between the characters.

Other Notable Accomplishments:

• 1st week using my "Intelligent Change" 13-week journal, and I've already hacked it to pieces to fit my needs instead of what it perceives to be my needs. This is telling me that I need to either use a quarterly/yearly planner that isn't so structured or develop one of my own

  • Example: It wants me to set an "Intention for the day" but that's like asking me to tell the future. I'm not going to set up that sort of expectation for myself. So, to compromise, I turned it into a "1-Word Reflection of the Day".

  • I do better with reflecting than predicting. Iterate, reflect, adapt, and reiterate.

• Transcript notes have been a journey. The potential to catch up remains, but there are walls that exist with Purpose that I need to adapt workarounds for. I've oddly learned something about myself from trying to solve the hiccups that have occurred though. I enjoy the type of problem solving and puzzling I've had to do to make it work.

  • Transcript data overloads the system if too much is sent at once, so I tried chunking, but even chunking can lead to overload. I have a whole document for the triggers, pattern recognition, recovery protocol, and compiled hypotheses I've collected.

  • Turns out brushing up against these sorts of boundaries and then trying to work within them while simultaneously pushing them stimulates my mind in a way I never anticipated.

• Made cards for character abilities and class features that didn't already have released cards for Daggerheart, whether that be because it's Void content still or making weapon/equipment cards

• Transcribed session 122.1 & .4

• Broke through my pull-up plateau and have managed to do 8 pull-ups now with the green band instead of being stuck at 6 like I had been. Progress!

• I've been successfully losing weight again--took longer than I would have liked for that snowball to start rolling, but I'm satisfied that it's working for now

Real Talk:

• What kind of preexisting systems do you hack for your own usage?

  • I love working within constraints and then making those constraints work for me.

• From where do you draw a good portion of your inspiration?

  • Books, movies, television, games, art, music, nature, board games...the list goes on and on and on.

  • What's the medium that surprised you most with idea generation?

    • For me, it was Descent.

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Mura & Qiri