# Our First Game -- What some non-RPG fans Learned that they want to share!



## Bodhiwolff (Aug 18, 2008)

Yesterday I ran my first-ever 4th edition game for a bunch of us, as a test-drive for the system to see whether we liked it enough to consider starting a campaign. 

This wasn’t an RPG group. In fact, it wasn’t even an RPG-friendly group, and therein lay my problem.

Some of the players had tons of experience with classic D&D (and were reticent to look at 4E), and one was already playing in a 4E campaign and knew how to play. Some had no RPG experience whatsoever, and my wife hated D&D with a passion because she felt that it was a ridiculously limited rules-set. We had a wide range of tastes and experience, but we wanted to see if 4E would work for us.

So I wanted to give it the best shot possible, but I had my work cut out for me! Not only that, but I had to teach everybody how to play, get everybody up to speed, and also make sure we all had fun doing it!

I took the opportunity to put together every possible trick, change, alteration, and paradigm-shift possible. I had to throw out some of my mental baggage from over 25 years of gaming, and change some of my ways of doing things, but I’m really grateful that I did.

In the end, everybody agreed that the game worked, that we had fun, that the system flowed, and that we’re going to start a campaign. We hit it out of the park. 

So what did we do?

a) No character sheets. Use them only to calculate your numbers, then put them away.

b) I made “Game Mats” with spots for only the calculated adjustments, and put them in clear-plastic report-covers, so that people could write their numbers down with wet-erase marker overtop. Thus, each player had a main page-sized plastic-covered printed laying on the table, designed by me with sections for the various numbers they'd need. (with some modest graphics to make it easy to look at) 

That way the numbers can be adjusted as we progress. Thus, anything with a calculated number (attributes, Defense values, Init/Move, Perception/Insight, Skills) merely has your final calculated modifier listed. Roll a d20, add your modifier, and go to town. 

So if you asked a player what their strength was, they might not know. But if you asked them what they added to strength, they'd look down at their mat, and see that they added +3 ... which is all that is really important anyway!

(and, I did slide the character sheets underneath, 

c) For the three sections that require upkeep and record-keeping, we use tokens/gems. These sections on the "Game Mat" had large boundaries printed off to hold tokens (of various denominations, cobbled together from other games, and/or from game-gems from a dollar store), used for the record-keeping aspects of the game. 

Hit-points are done with two sides to the section – when one half is empty, you’re bloodied. Healing surge tokens have their own section, as do action point tokens. Everybody agreed that this made things much quicker, more fun, and somehow more exciting.

d) For powers, we had power-cards printed off and sleeved, again with boxes for final calculated values (don't just print off cards that show the formulas, but instead use cards that include a final box where you write in your calculated value!). 

Edit:  Link to Grandpa's Power Cards, here on EnWorld
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4351249-post718.html

Don’t be re-calculating everything each and every attack. Instead, look down and know that you roll a d20 and add 8, and then move on. Fast, clean, efficient. 
Even better, because of the power cards, nobody ever had to crack a book during the entire game. Not once, for 6 new players!

e) Each player had a side-sheet, which had a section for short-hand notes (just a few last-minute sentences containing anything which needed noting, like “+2 vs. attacks of opportunity” or “Adds +1 to allies perception within 5 squares”) and their basic attacks. 4 sentences, total! 

The other half of the page has a printed-off, point-form summary of every active form of skill-use, meaning that once again players never had to crack a book to look up a rule. If they wanted to actively use a skill, they could look at their cheat-sheet, and move on.

f) Floating around the table I had a few copies of the page with all of the “conditions” and their effects listed on it. Thus, when somebody became “dazed”, they just grabbed that page and glanced at it, to remind themselves of what the impact was.

g) While they might not technically be “powers”, I included powers for things like Sneak Attack, or Hunter’s Quarry, etc. Anything which you might tap into often. I also made cards for Second Wind (and included the healing value calculated right there in a box) as an encounter card, and thus people knew instantly whether it was tapped or not, and how much to heal.

h) Some foamcore rectangles covered with contact-paper became wet-erasable name placards, each with a magnet behind them to help them stick to a giant initiative-order board. Once the initiative order was set, everybody (and the monsters) went up on the board, but could easily get slid to a new spot in the order, thanks to being on a magnetic rectangle. Even better, because they were large and visible, there was never any question as to who went next, and things sped along easily.

i) My favourite wet-erase vinyl square-grid is worth its weight in gold! Thank you Chessex! However, add a few old game discs with contact paper on them, and these become perfect wet-erasable tokens that you can throw on the board as labelled miniatures. And once again, those coloured gems from the dollar store are priceless as “marked” tokens, etc.

Now, it is tempting to say that all of this is merely a different presentation style. It is tempting to say that you aren’t actually changing the way that you’re playing the game. Who cares, right? You could just use a character sheet, like normal! You could just use your old system.

After all ... I'm an old gamer, and I've seen it all before. I've been doing it for years, and you're not really changing anything ...

But hold on …

I put it to you that you are actually significantly impacting the playstyle of the game, the presentation of the table, and the impact of the rules-set on the group of players by allowing it to integrate more smoothly.

In fact, in our little de-briefing after our experiment, I was amazed at how well people had picked up the game without having read any of the books (having only played that one session), -- but the players themselves were absolutely stunned that people played the game *without* such implements!

In fact, it was quite telling that the new players were correcting the veteran player’s mistakes partway through the game, and he owns the books and plays in another campaign! That’s right – the newbies were learning the game better than the guy who was already in a campaign, who came with his own character pre-made, and who understood the rules ahead of time!

So, I think that these little accoutrements might be more than superficial changes.

Thus, because they changed my wife’s hatred of D&D, and smoothed out the learning curve immensely, and it sped up play, and it showed us the holes in a veteran 4E campaigner’s knowledge-base compared with only a few hours for a newbie, I have to say that I am sold on the concept that doing a paradigm-shift on presentation-style and playstyle is a good thing.

Trust me – it isn’t just cosmetic, or superficial. Something pretty significant happened.


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## keterys (Aug 19, 2008)

Cool stuff! Got any pics maybe?


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## grickherder (Aug 19, 2008)

I have been leaving it to the players to organize things like they want. There are just too many times when a player would go "So I rolled a 12, and my.. uhh.. strength bonus.  Half my level, right?  Oh, and proficiency for that weapon is a ... +2.  So that's an ... 18".  So I'm definitely going to be stealing your ideas.

The funny thing is that the people who do this are the ones who are not inclined towards math and arithmetic.  The ones that do find doing arithmetic in their heads quickly have all the final bonuses for everything they can do pre-calculated, but those who struggle with adding up all the modifiers quickly in their head make themselves do it every single time they roll.


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## GWMadMan (Aug 19, 2008)

Great ideas! We already use some of them, but the rest I will be trying out the next time I run 4e.

I also have an interesting group. All are long time gamers with lots of preconceived notions to over come. The biggest one I am seeing so far is that "we don't have all the options we used to", mostly based on the smaller skill list. I think possibly some of your ideas will help to show that to be incorrect.


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## Doctor Futurity (Aug 19, 2008)

Wow...I am impressed at the work you put in to it, to say the least!

One problem I've run in to is the persistence of old memes....players who are very used to 3rd edition spend a fair amount of time making rule calls that are no longer valid, and it's a bit of a game to catch them (him, one guy really) in the middle of some false assumptions.

Still....I'll have to think about how to work out a set up similar to yours....


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## Hjorimir (Aug 19, 2008)

That's fanstaic! Care to upload some PDFs of your sheets?


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## Mistwell (Aug 19, 2008)

Your changes are awesome and I would really like to duplicate them and try them out myself.

That said:


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## Klaus (Aug 20, 2008)

This is the sort of thinking that led to the creation of the 3e BattleBox, and is guiding the 4e BattleBox. To compare RPGs to computers, the rules and system are the software, and what you did here (and what Fiery Dragon aims for with the BattleBoxes) is to provide better hardware, to make your game run faster and smoother.

Kudos!


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## keterys (Aug 20, 2008)

Very much looking forward to seeing what you guys do with the next Battlebox!

And some pics from Bodhiwolff. *taps foot*


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 20, 2008)

Okay ... where is a nice free hosting site so I can post some pictures/files?

I don't have a digital camera handy, but at the very least I could upload some PDFs of the mats and documents, right?  (Office can save as PDF, I'm pretty sure ...)


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## FireLance (Aug 20, 2008)

Klaus said:


> This is the sort of thinking that led to the creation of the 3e BattleBox, and is guiding the 4e BattleBox. To compare RPGs to computers, the rules and system are the software, and what you did here (and what Fiery Dragon aims for with the BattleBoxes) is to provide better hardware, to make your game run faster and smoother.



Actually, I think it's more to do with the user interface than the hardware, as it makes it easier for the player to make sense of and understand what is going on in the game. I do many of the same things myself. One refinement that I've done for hit points is to use tokens of different colours (I use white and red poker chips). When I'm down to red chips only, everyone at the table can see that I'm bloodied.


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## Whimsical (Aug 20, 2008)

Bodhiwolff said:


> Okay ... where is a nice free hosting site so I can post some pictures/files?



Chances are that your internet provider has already provided you with a space to upload files as part of your account. Check it out.


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## Bagpuss (Aug 20, 2008)

The only issue with this I see is at high levels were the number of hit points a character has might mean introducing some sort of graded token system, IE: dark red gems 10 points, light red 1 point. Otherwise your sheet will be lost under a mound of gems.


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## Bagpuss (Aug 20, 2008)

Bodhiwolff said:


> Okay ... where is a nice free hosting site so I can post some pictures/files?




Flicker or Photobucket do what you want.


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## Bagpuss (Aug 20, 2008)

Klaus said:


> This is the sort of thinking that led to the creation of the 3e BattleBox, and is guiding the 4e BattleBox. To compare RPGs to computers, the rules and system are the software, and what you did here (and what Fiery Dragon aims for with the BattleBoxes) is to provide better hardware, to make your game run faster and smoother.
> 
> Kudos!




Surely the rules are the Code and stuff like this is the GUI?


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## DanmarLOK (Aug 20, 2008)

As a suggestion for hit points, use poker chips split in half white and red?   Player always removes white ones first, when he's 'in the red' he's bloodied.  And they stack pretty easily.  And players have fun fondling them for some reason.


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## Prestidigitalis (Aug 20, 2008)

Those are all great ideas, but there is one thing that concerns me.

The markers that you put under the miniatures, whether they be poker chips or cardboard, or whatever: isn't it a pain to keep having to pick up the miniature, put down a new marker, remove an old one, etc.?

I have a mental image of the miniatures falling like dominos because of trying to add/remove markers from under a miniature in the middle of a crowd.

I can't help thinking that it would be easier to put something on TOP of the miniature.

Obviously, I haven't played with this method yet -- am I inventing a problem that doesn't exist?


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## Mistwell (Aug 20, 2008)

Bodhiwolff said:


> Okay ... where is a nice free hosting site so I can post some pictures/files?
> 
> I don't have a digital camera handy, but at the very least I could upload some PDFs of the mats and documents, right?  (Office can save as PDF, I'm pretty sure ...)




How about right here?  Post a message, click the Manage Attachments button below your message, and attach it.  EnWorld accepts PDFs.


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## Mistwell (Aug 20, 2008)

I wonder, is there any reason to not make "power cards" for your trained skills? They are typically at-will standard actions (though some are not standard actions), there are rules for what you can do with them and the general DCs you need to hit, they increase with level, they pretty much fit most of the pattern for all other powers.

I think if my Ranger had at-will power cards for "Twin Strike", "Nimble Strike", "Acrobatic Stunt", "Athletic Movement", and "Sneaky Movement" I would be more inclined to use Acrobatics, Athletics, and Sneak than I am right now.

Similarly, the character with a lot of trained charisma skills might have a "Communication" card, and the guy with the knowledge skills might have a "Knowledge" card.

Providing "power cards" for activities you can already technically do but which is normally on a part of your character sheet that is not often referenced during encounters is likely to encourage those activities.


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 22, 2008)

Well, it took me a bit, but I managed to find a .pdf converter and a digital camera.

Here are some shots of the components I was talking about, and a .pdf of the game mat.  Forgive the graphics quality -- I may revisit the game mat and make a nicer version now that everybody has confirmed that they do indeed wish to start a campaign.


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 22, 2008)

And a shot showing the skills-side of the side-sheet, normally hidden under the game-mat.  You only slide it out when you're trying to do something with an active skill use, and need to look up the rules.


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## Mistwell (Aug 22, 2008)

Wow Bodhiwolff.  Now that I see your player's mat, it's even more awesome than you described.

I'd buy that kit!


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 22, 2008)

Heck, it is yours for free!  (I put it on as an attachment, in a pdf form, along with the side-mat/skills-sheet that slides underneath).

I'm just hoping that somebody with more skill than I have makes one that is prettier!

The real hero is Grandpa and his wonderful Power Card set, all here from EnWorld.  Bless Grandpa's Power Cards.  They made my game!


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## jeffh (Aug 22, 2008)

(Makes Thievery check)


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## Shabe (Aug 22, 2008)

Prestidigitalis said:


> Those are all great ideas, but there is one thing that concerns me.
> 
> The markers that you put under the miniatures, whether they be poker chips or cardboard, or whatever: isn't it a pain to keep having to pick up the miniature, put down a new marker, remove an old one, etc.?
> 
> ...




Well we use bright red squares under the monster for bloodied conditions and upturned beer bottle cap for cloud of daggers , its a little fussy but not really a problem for me as a dm as when i say the blow connects with the creature taking a chunk of flesh off it / causing it to bleed from its fresh wound / making it start to ooze presumingly vital fluids my players are jumping at the counters to put them under the monster, especially the tieflings. 
For the curses and marks and stuff we use coloured paperclips alas there are only so many colours so we use the aforementioned things to track other things on the field. 
I think pipe cleaners cut and bent into hoops would be better as they don't mark minatures, are easier to bend and adjust and come in more colours.


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## amysrevenge (Aug 22, 2008)

grickherder said:


> The funny thing is that the people who do this are the ones who are not inclined towards math and arithmetic.  The ones that do find doing arithmetic in their heads quickly have all the final bonuses for everything they can do pre-calculated, but those who struggle with adding up all the modifiers quickly in their head make themselves do it every single time they roll.




This.

Seen it sooo many times.  I only play at clubs and conventions, so I see a great many gamers, and it is almost universally true.  Folks who could handle doing the arithmetic from scratch every time are the ones who have it pre-calculated, and folks who can't don't.


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## Goblyns Hoard (Aug 22, 2008)

EDIT - NEW VERSION ON PAGE 2


Bodhiwolff - I love your idea.  And in exchange for allowing all of us to steal it from you I thought I'd have a go at doing it up a bit.  I rearranged the components a bit hope you like it.

If anyone has any suggestions for improvements let me know.  Not going to promise anything but will certainly consider doing variations.  Fonts and background image should be easy to change.


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 22, 2008)

Goblyn's Hoard, that is beautiful stuff!

Making it look like a rolled-up parchment was inspired!  Very slick!

I'm loathe to make suggestions after you made such a beautiful product -- but refinement makes for a better end-product, and if I throw in some ideas, maybe other people will throw in theirs too.

I'm assuming that where there are two boxes, the one box is for a +/- sign, and the other box is for a number?  (I realized that my prototype wound up with some oddballs where you would have an inked-in minus sign next to a pre-typed plus sign, which was very strange indeed!

I wonder if it is possible to make the sign boxes smaller than the numeral boxes?  It doesn't seem like they'd need as much room as a number would?  But then again, maybe I'm wrong.

I also found that it was important to have a (faded/watermarked/light-coloured) box inside the hitpoint boxes (and other boxes), to put the actual value in, as a reference point.   Once people got going with throwing tokens in and out, they'd forget what their max was, so they'd have to refer back to the sheet to grab their max number of tokens.

Is the healing-surge token space and Action Point token space large enough?  The action point one only has to hold a few tokens, but the Healing Surge one has to hold quite a few.  On the other and, the healing value is written on the power cards for the Second Wind, so you could consider saving some space there.

But again, these are just refinement suggestions, because I really, really appreciate what you did.

Just beautiful stuff!

Parchment!


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 22, 2008)

One more thing ... while advanced players know how to exchange one action for another, in the beginning the little arrows did actually help the newbies figure out which type of action could be exchanged for which.

Would it be possible to put in some arrows between your own "Standard Action" / "Move Action" / "Minor Action" boxes?  I mean, unobtrusive, and still in keeping with your own style, of course!


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 23, 2008)

Here is a copy of the Primer I'd e-mailed my friends.

It relies heavily on the "Shadowfell" module quickstart rules -- and by "relies heavily" I mean "I re-typed it and added about 5 percent new material".  I added those bits which I figured the players would need, but weren't included in the quickstart rules.

So the writing style is almost pure WOTC, and not my own.  

Some people might find such a thing useful for new players.  Much easier than asking them to read the entire rulebook.

It is titled "Learn to play D&D in 8 pages of 12 pont font" (really it is 8 1/2 pages) ... so you know exactly what you're getting into!


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## Goblyns Hoard (Aug 23, 2008)

Bodhiwolff

Always willing to listen to the suggestions#

On the boxes - for stats I was thinking of actually putting in both stat and modifier.  I know this is a change from your base design but didn't think it would take up much room, and some people might like to see it.  For skills I was intending one box to be the mod and the other to be a 'trained' marker.  Some skills have actions that only people trained in them can do, so I thought that would be a useful addition.

I hadn't realised what the little boxes inside the HP boxes was actually for - but it definitely makes sense to have a max indicator so people don't get over enthusiastic about healing.  I'll add that.

As to the sizes of other bixes - I haven't yet had a chance to play 4E (first trial run tonight) so didn't appreciate the need for space in some areas.  I'll try and incr4ease the surge box size, maybe rearrange things to make more space for it.

Any more suggestions will always be listened to.  Afterall we're refining a tool here, so if anyone starts using this and thinks of anything ese they need on it then let me know.


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## Goblyns Hoard (Aug 23, 2008)

Version 2


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 23, 2008)

I really like it!

(edited to remove a silly queston that was right there in front of my eyes).

I think it is a thing of beauty!


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## Thasmodious (Aug 23, 2008)

I do not use the term 'dude' lightly, but dude, this is quite nice.  You're approach is great, as is your wisdom in taking it and thanks for sharing all of this.  I've stolen your game mat and my players will love it, even while one won't use power cards, as he insists that power cards are too M:tG.  

I looked around to find Grandpa's power cards, but I just found threads where people talked about them, could you throw up a link to those as well and complete my new game kit?


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 23, 2008)

Grandpa's Cards

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4351249&postcount=718

Full-disclosure -- originally these were the cards I'd wanted to use, but I was using the Power Point files and foolishly didn't read the Acrobat File note about printing.  Thus, I thought you could only print one card per page, and agonized over this for days, eventually giving up on them.

I then went with another set.  One which was good, and similar, but which I didn't like quite as much (and that is why they look different in the pictures)

Recently I came back to Grandpa's Cards, though, and they are better than ever!  He has skill cards, cards for inventory items, every single additional rule and condition ... just ... everything!  

And he explains, use the acrobat set.  The powerpont set is for editing your own (yay!) but the acrobat set is for printing, complete with instructions for printing up individual cards, specific cards in specific ranges, etc.

So you could ...

print up your Feats, your Aligment description, your Racial characteristics, every item in your inventory (mundane and arcane), all of your Rituals, and then have a "skill deck" which you draw out whenever you need to use a skill, and even a "combat deck" with the special finicky rules for combat actions like Bull Rush, etc.

Everything is there!

Or, you can just print off your powers, of course.


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## RigaMortus2 (Aug 23, 2008)

Nice work and all, but my preference is to see all the calculations, not just the end results.  I like to know I've added everything correctly.  For example, what happens when your Fighter or Paladin tries to perform an Acrobatic or Athletic skill?  Is the Armor Check penalty already factored into it?  What about the AC penalty for shields?  How does the new player know that if they drop their heavy shield, they get +2 to the Acrobatics check?  Is the DM supposed to remind them of this?

Even some of the pre-gen characters that were "dumbed down" (the ones from D&D Experience) had errors in their calculations.

Anyway, just a difference of oppinion.  Good work none the less!


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## Storminator (Aug 23, 2008)

RigaMortus2 said:


> Nice work and all, but my preference is to see all the calculations, not just the end results.  I like to know I've added everything correctly.  For example, what happens when your Fighter or Paladin tries to perform an Acrobatic or Athletic skill?  Is the Armor Check penalty already factored into it?  What about the AC penalty for shields?  How does the new player know that if they drop their heavy shield, they get +2 to the Acrobatics check?  Is the DM supposed to remind them of this?
> 
> Even some of the pre-gen characters that were "dumbed down" (the ones from D&D Experience) had errors in their calculations.
> 
> Anyway, just a difference of oppinion.  Good work none the less!




I find that when you have all the numbers for calculations, you end up actually using about one quarter of the numbers on your sheet. For a casual player that didn't make the sheet originally, that means everything is hard to find when you need it.

I've gone to this approach for my own sheets.

PS


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 23, 2008)

RigaMortus2 said:


> Nice work and all, but my preference is to see all the calculations, not just the end results. I like to know I've added everything correctly. For example, what happens when your Fighter or Paladin tries to perform an Acrobatic or Athletic skill? Is the Armor Check penalty already factored into it? What about the AC penalty for shields? How does the new player know that if they drop their heavy shield, they get +2 to the Acrobatics check? Is the DM supposed to remind them of this?
> 
> Even some of the pre-gen characters that were "dumbed down" (the ones from D&D Experience) had errors in their calculations.
> 
> Anyway, just a difference of oppinion. Good work none the less!




This is one of the "sacred cows" I had to kill for myself.

This is my own personal preference.  This is the way I roll.  This is the way my brain works, the way my preferences run, and the way that makes me comfortable, the way I figure that is the best possible solution for the largest number of situations.

And it would've been completely wrong.

I never would've learned what I dd had I not changed my approach.  I'm glad I did.

Now, we still have our complete character sheets tucked in behind the game mat, underneath inside the Report Cover.  We can haul 'em out if we need 'em.

But frankly, we don't need 'em.

They rank up there with the Player's Handbook when compared to the Power Cards.  You can haul it out when you need it, and it is nice to have at the table, but in 90 percent of the situations it just sits there, and in those other 10 percent of the situations it is might even be wasting more time than it is worth to crack it out (especially when there are other options available)

I'm glad I changed my old approach for this group.  I learned some interesting things.


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## Smart (Aug 24, 2008)

Thanks for sharing this with us. I found my way to Grandpa's Cards through this thread, which are amazing!

By the way - love your use of Arkham Horror tokens!


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## porter235 (Aug 25, 2008)

Sweet baby Jebus, these are awesome! 4e combat + player's mat + grandpa's cards = good chance I'll get my boardgame geeks playing D&D. This will simply all of the fiddly bits, present something that seems safe and familiar, and allow us to concentrate on having fun! Thanks a ton!


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## Ds Da Man (Aug 25, 2008)

Bump because of goodness!


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## Stalker0 (Aug 25, 2008)

Bodhiwolff said:


> Grandpa's Cards
> 
> http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4351249&postcount=718




Great work, but are these legal? You have just given me every feat, power and paragon path in the phb. I can't see how that could be allowed under the GSL.


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## porter235 (Aug 25, 2008)

*My first go*

Here is my first go at creating a 4e Playmat, obviously inspired by BodhiWolff's work. 

Includes a few extras, death savings throw, trained column for skills, keep track if you have used your action point and second wind in this encounter, and your healing surge value.

 I still have to add some icons into the little black circles, that will tie the playmat into the look of grandpa's cards. I will upload a pdf once it is complete.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.


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## Nail (Aug 25, 2008)

porter235 said:


> I still have to add some icons into the little black circles, that will tie the playmat into the look of grandpa's cards. I will upload a pdf once it is complete.



That would be Mucho Cool-o.  Do it!

Question: why do you care if it's "trained"?


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## porter235 (Aug 25, 2008)

Nail said:


> Question: why do you care if it's "trained"?




According to Goblyns Hoard:



			
				Goblyns Hoard said:
			
		

> Some skills have actions that only people trained in them can do, so I thought that would be a useful addition.


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## elwynbdas (Aug 25, 2008)

porter235 said:


> Here is my first go at creating a 4e Playmat, obviously inspired by BodhiWolff's work.
> 
> Includes a few extras, death savings throw, trained column for skills, keep track if you have used your action point and second wind in this encounter, and your healing surge value.
> 
> ...




This is good. Perhaps make a version that looks good b/w?

The whole thing confirms an old suspicion of mine.
The attribute scores are practically useless. When creating a character, we can as well simply determine the modifiers, and skip the attribute scores.

So a character doesn't have Dex 16, he has DEX +3 , end of story.
Unfortunately most Feats have prerequisites like DEX 15, which is uneven, so this doesn't really work without a massive change in the feat rules. Also the leveling up rules need to be adjusted, and some more I guess. In any case, D&D would be the same in essence.


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## Lindorie (Aug 26, 2008)

porter235 said:


> Here is my first go at creating a 4e Playmat, obviously inspired by BodhiWolff's work.
> 
> Includes a few extras, death savings throw, trained column for skills, keep track if you have used your action point and second wind in this encounter, and your healing surge value.
> 
> ...



Minor comment: The "1/2 Max HP" and "Max HP"  labels seem like they should be swapped, since the number of chits in the left box may be "1/2 Max HP" + 1, when using DnD's 1/2-round-down rules. Whereas, the number in the right box will actually be "1/2 Max HP".

A couple of other points that I can live with, but not sure I like:
- The "+" signs, since they result in a few "+ -" when negative modifiers are present.
- I don't think the "trained" boxes are needed. If trained, write in the modifier, which could be "+0". If there is no modifier, consider the skill untrained.


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 26, 2008)

I absolutely love Porter's update! I can't wait to see the version with the icons put in!

I'm in agreement that the actual attribute stats are vestigial save for calculations and character mapping. That is why, for me, they're best left on the character sheet, and then tucked away while playing. They're important to know when you want to take a new feat, but that's it.

I'm torn between Goblyn's *very* pretty work and Porter's *very* functional and easy-to-use effort. How nice to have options!

Keep up the good work, fellows!

- And a note to the admins ... I'm sorry that this has grown into a home-made products thread, which now by rights is probably in the wrong section of this forum. I didn't actually intend for it to go in this direction, but it rather organically went that way. If you wish to move the thread, I'd understand -- but I still think that this kind of discussion is slightly different fromr your standard home-made products discussion, so I hope you'll bear with us awhile longer


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 26, 2008)

Lindorie said:


> - I don't think the "trained" boxes are needed. If trained, write in the modifier, which could be "+0". If there is no modifier, consider the skill untrained.




It is still perfectly possible to have a modifier, even a significant modifier, and yet be untrained in the skill.

Trained is reserved for skills you've trained in under character creation -- spent points in (or a few skills are auto-trained by class, like Arcana for mages).  It is a special status reserved only for those skills.

And thus, you wouldn't have access to techniques with that skill which require training (such as Acrobatics - Reduce Falling Damage ; Arcana - Identify conjuration/zone/ ritual/ magical effect, detect magic ;  Dungeoneering - Aberrant Monter Knowledge )

One could easily have a significant positive modifier in a skill (racial quirk plus attribute bonus plus half-level) without being trained in the skill (it wasn't one of your skills at character creation) -- and as such shouldn't have access to these techniques.

BUT -- that being said ... since you're only going to be trained in a few skills, and there are only a few techniques which require training, perhaps diminishing the "trained boxes" isn't a bad idea?  Just little boxes, or pips, or circles, or something?  Something small and unobtrusive?

After all, most (almost all) of your skills are untrained, and destined to remain that way.  And it only impacts a very few techniques.


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## Lindorie (Aug 26, 2008)

Bodhiwolff said:


> And thus, you wouldn't have access to techniques with that skill which require training (such as Acrobatics - Reduce Falling Damage ; Arcana - Identify conjuration/zone/ ritual/ magical effect, detect magic ;  Dungeoneering - Aberrant Monter Knowledge )



Ah! Got it. I thought things like that would be either on Grandpa-style cards or the "shorthand notes" on the side-sheet you used. 

I've not used your mat idea nor Grandpa's cards yet -- but am greatly looking forward to it. With 8 players, 6 of whom are new to DnD, this setup will be invaluable.


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## Lindorie (Aug 26, 2008)

Prestidigitalis said:


> The markers that you put under the miniatures, whether they be poker chips or cardboard, or whatever: isn't it a pain to keep having to pick up the miniature, put down a new marker, remove an old one, etc.?



I bought Alea Tools markers at GenCon specifically for this. We've tried using poker chips and plain-old pencil and paper to track marking and conditions. I have high hopes these magnetic markers will be much easier.


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## porter235 (Aug 26, 2008)

Here is an updated colour and a black and white version. Now with corrected spelling, icons that match the grandpa cards, smaller skill trained area, etc. 

I now plan to do a "fancy" version based on the black and white version. In the next couple of days I will put up a zip file containing all of the pdfs for these. (much easier/nicer to print) 

If you want to see any changes taken under consideration, please keep adding your suggestions and comments.


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## Mistwell (Aug 26, 2008)

You are doing great work, thank you.


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## porter235 (Aug 26, 2008)

Here is a preview of the fancy version (a little blurry because I had to shrink it to get it small enough for preview). I will upload a zip with pdfs soon.


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## Lowsider (Aug 27, 2008)

Seriously awesome job guys.  We're going to be giving 4th edition a trial run this friday.  Your hard work will really help us out, thanks.


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## porter235 (Aug 27, 2008)

Here are the playmat PDFs. Note that I have added them all to a zip file and then had to change the extension of the file to .txt in order to upload the file (as it was too large for .zip) So, download the file, change the extension to .zip and then you can unzip and get a the goodies. Enjoy.


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## yagyuninja (Aug 27, 2008)

I got a lot of cool resources out of this thread. Thanks porter, bohdi, and goblyn!


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## Goblyns Hoard (Aug 28, 2008)

Porter - love the additions you've made - hope you don't mind that I used a few of your ideas on my latest version.

JPG attached - I can't get the pdf small enough to attach even in a zip file.  However if anyone wants it drop me a line with your email address and I'll send it.


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## Lindorie (Aug 28, 2008)

Would the magic item daily power limit be a useful addition to these sheets [1/hero, 2/paragon, 3/epic +1/milestones]?


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 29, 2008)

I'm in favour of keeping things as simple and uncluttered as possible.

That being said, I think that tracking magic-item use is important.

Towards that end, Grandpa's Cards again play a handy role.

If you physically possess a card for each magic item, and then "tap" the card when you use it, that provides a handy reference for book-keeping purposes.

Now, granted, you have to mentally track how many magic-items you are allowed to tap, but since this is directly proportional to your number of action points (plus one after 10th level, plus another after 20th), you should simply be able to look over at your pile of Action Points (spent plus unspent) and know how many "taps" you're entitled to.

One fewer thing on the sheet to clutter things up, but still a simple way to keep track of things.

Plus, the cards have all of the rules right there, to keep things nice and handy.  No need to crack a book.


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## Orcus Porkus (Aug 29, 2008)

*you guys are geniuses*

I'll use your game mat next week, but I don't like the mess with beads flying around like crazy. Players love fooling around with dice and stuff, and I don't think this will work. I love it old school, just writing the HP on the sheet.
Anything wrong with printing out the game mat and use it with pencil and paper?
What do I need to do to use dry erase on them? Does any plastic cover work with those or do I need to buy special stuff? I'm abroad right now, can't try anything out.
Also: I'm assuming you print them out letter size?
Another feedback: There needs to be room at least for the player's name, because at the end I collect all the stuff and store it until the next session. No big deal, I can write it anywhere on the mat.


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## Kzach (Aug 29, 2008)

I like both versions presented so far, although I'd like to make a couple of suggestions.

Firstly, these sheets are about what the player needs to know, minus all the details, right?

If that's the case, then I'd get rid of Passive Perception & Insight, as only the DM needs to know these values. I'd use the space you have to put in a basic melee and basic ranged attack box.

I'd also add in a section for feats. Feats can have a significant impact on a player's abilities and options in combat, but aren't really suitable for power cards and have no place set aside on these sheets.


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## Goblyns Hoard (Aug 29, 2008)

On magic item uses... I'm not sure how to handle this best.  Afterall tracking of these could get complicated between gaining them, using them, and idetifying which items have been used.  If Action Point markers are removed from the mat when spent (which was my assumption) then the tally between Action Points on the Mat and tapped cards could easily diverge.  You'd need to keep a tally of spent Action Points - which would need to be added to the mat to accomplish this.  But that wouldn't be transparent to the user.  I think it might be worth adding them to the mat - it shouldn't take up a lot of room, most of the time we're talking about a small number of tokens.

Orkus - if you want to go pen and paper - give it a go, let us know how it works and what could be improved.  For dry erase - you should just be able to slide them into a clear plastic folder.  As to size - mine is built to A4 standard not that strange letter ratio you guys on the other side of the pond use.  Not sure what ratio porters are.  As to name slot - good call.  It should be easy to assign them quickly enought, but why not make it easier.

Kzach - couple of good points there.  Might be worth trying to draw up a DM's mat to complement this - Passive Perception and Insight for all of the current group, everyone's standard defences, anything else the DM may want to have at hand without having to ask the player's for the info.  Anyone with thoughts on that just drop them in here and I'll see what I can do.

As to Feats that could take up some space.  A 30th level character knows 18 feats, plus extras for being human, automatic class feats, etc.  I'm not sure what the theoretical maximum is, but we could need space to list in the region of 20-25 feats per character.  I think Grandpa's cards cover that better - both through having the feat card themselves and having the space in the power cards to write down your own math.  So you could put down all the bonuses affecting a power, as well as the total (if you're so inclined) and that way can include or exclude feat specific things as appropriate.  So your eladrin soldier that normally uses his longsword who's currently using an axe cause there's no longsword at hand - just exclude the feat +2 damage note on your power cards.

And on the basic attacks - those are also covered by Grandpa's cards - are they really needed here as well?


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## Kzach (Aug 29, 2008)

Goblyns Hoard said:


> And on the basic attacks - those are also covered by Grandpa's cards - are they really needed here as well?




Who wants to have 50 cards on the table?

It's not like you couldn't fit space for 20 lines of text on those sheets. They have a lot of redundant space. And anything that reduces how many cards you have to shuffle at the table is a good thing.

The idea is convenience, isn't it?


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## Glimmin (Aug 29, 2008)

> Might be worth trying to draw up a DM's mat to complement this - Passive Perception and Insight for all of the current group, everyone's standard defences, anything else the DM may want to have at hand without having to ask the player's for the info. Anyone with thoughts on that just drop them in here and I'll see what I can do.




What I've done up to now is have my laptop open while I DM the game with 3 applications open:  an Excel sheet containing all the PCs (and relevant NPCs) defenses and passive insight/perceptions, a Word doc where I write down notes for my personal campaign log so I remember what name I gave priest A or tavern B and a firefox page open to dndinsider.com's compendium so I can try to use that for quick reference on rules.  I think the most useful is definitely the Excel sheet w/ the defenses and passive skill values.  Back in 3E I was constantly asking "what's your armor class?"  With the advent of 3 more defenses, I figured it would be important to not have to constantly inquire, so I have that list.


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## The Little Raven (Aug 29, 2008)

Mistwell said:


> I wonder, is there any reason to not make "power cards" for your trained skills?




Agreed. I've been working on putting together power cards for every single action listed in the PHB, in order to inspire my players to use things like Bull Rush more often.

Using them myself in my last game, I increased the diversity of actions I performed significantly, and it made the other players take notice and ask to borrow a card or two every other round.


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## Nail (Aug 29, 2008)

Kzach said:


> Who wants to have 50 cards on the table?



YMMV, obviously.

But in this case, you'll only have "spread out" those cards you need at the time.  You won't need all your skill cards spread out, your feat cards spread out, etc --> as usually those are situation specific, and easily referenced at that time.

One way or another, you'll need all sort of infor at your finger-tips.  How you arrange that is up to the individual.  for example, I expect the power gamer in our group to not like these mats, as he wants absolutely everything right in front of him --> for that person, a straight-up PC sheet + PH is the most compact information form.


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## Nail (Aug 29, 2008)

The Little Raven said:


> Agreed. I've been working on putting together power cards for every single action listed in the PHB, in order to inspire my players to use things like Bull Rush more often.



THe ENWorld poster "*Grandpa*" already did that.  You might want to save yerself some effort.


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## Bodhiwolff (Aug 30, 2008)

Just commenting on various things, in no particular order:

- on using writing instead of tokens -- you could do that, of course, but in my opinion it is a step backwards.  That was the point of my original post.  The act of using tokens, or  say poker chips, is something well-learned from the boardgame industry.  It really does make a difference.  I agree that the beads and cardboard chits seem fiddly, but they're really not bad.  And if you absolutely hate them, poker chips are about as clean as you can get, and easily distinguishable by colour in set denominations.  When we level up too far to easily fit tokens in the spaces, we're switching to poker chips.

You could simply write the book-keeping stuff out, but I really think there is something interesting to getting rid of the ink-sticks and simplifying the book-keeping.   Something visceral.  For an old-school gamer like me it was pretty tough to take at first, but the results don't lie.

- On Skill Cards - Grandpa's latest power cards set is CRAZY!  Beautiful!  Fantastic!  Skill cards, inventory cards, every possible feat, just everything under the sun!  Race abilities, alignment notes, Combat conditions!  The thing is, you don't need to write stuff out, because you can have a little "skill deck" that sits neatly until you need it.  Then you haul it out, find your card, then put 'em away again.  Okay, okay, maybe I won't use all of 'em, but man, it is nice to have all those options!

- On book-keeping for Feats -- see above about Grandpa's cards

My point is that the less you write out, the less cluttered things will be.  Using cards is a pretty snazzy way of tracking 'em.

On Clutter and Spreading Out Cards -- realistically, the only cards that are "spread out" are the ones you need to tap into for powers.  The rest you only look at to remind yourself of rules, and those you keep in nice, neat, sorted piles.  So besides your mat, you have a Skill Deck, a Combat Deck, a "Character Notes Deck" with your feats, racial cards, and alignment/Diety stuff, an inventory deck (maybe with some prime magic items laid out untapped and ready for use) and then spread out your Power Cards ready for use.  Realistically, about the same footprint as spreading out two sheets of paper, side-by-side.  Pretty tidy.

On Wet-Erase and Plastic -- different markers and different plastic react differently.  I have one set of markers which write beautifully on my "report covers", but which don't seem to write as well on the stuff I have covered with contact-paper.  I'm not sure what the difference is.  And, of course, since plastic card-sleeves seem to be designed to protect from all forms of liquid attack, they don't seem happy with my attempts to write on them with wet-erase markers.  If anybody finds a wet-erase marker/card-sleeve combo (or a dry-erase one, for that matter) then let me know brand names.  For Markers, I use Sanford Vis-a-Vis wet-erase Fine Points, and I'm happy with them (except on my little cardsleeves, where I have to write 6 times to get any staying power at all)

I'm amazed at the refinements that have taken place since my first endeavour.  I'm amazed at the beautiful work done by the people in this thread, and also by the upgrades done by Grandpa (and others) which must've been an amazingly labour-intensive project.  I sent him an e-mail to thank him for his efforts, but I want to thank everybody here for their efforts as well.  

'cause you know I'm stealing all your work, right!?


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## grickherder (Aug 30, 2008)

I've been using this idea since you posted it.  I write the HP rather than use tokens.  I find it way, way faster to simply subtract the damage and rewrite it than to count out coins or tokens or whatever.  If I did use some sort of token, I'd just use money.  1 cent = 1 hp.  Here in the frozen wastes we have coins for $1 and $2 if big HP values are ever needed.

I also have stacks of Grandpa's cards for the different things.  I have a "combat stack" which is ordered from basic attacks with each weapon my character has, followed by at will powers, then encounter, daily and so forth.  I also have a non combat stacks.  A mundane equipment stack and a magical equipment stack.  There's no clutter if anyone gives it an ounce of thought.

I like porter235's mats, but prefer more white than grey everywhere, so I made an all white PDF version.  It's attached.  Remove the .txt as appropriate.


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## Kzach (Aug 30, 2008)

Here's my version:

http://kzach.wikidot.com/local--files/miscellaneous/playmat.pdf


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## Ds Da Man (Aug 31, 2008)

bump


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## BradfordFerguson (Sep 4, 2008)

cool stuff *bumpity*


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## Mistwell (Sep 4, 2008)

Now that the Downloads portion of EnWorld is back up and working, these should be put in that section.  It would be nice to see both the mats and the Grandpa cards in the downloads section.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/local_links.php


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## grickherder (Sep 5, 2008)

Well, I took the ideas in this thread back to my group.  They didn't really catch on.  Many of them still insist on doing the math for each attack bonus every time they roll the die and don't want to pre calculate everything on a play mat and cards because it's "too much work" or "I don't want to do all that math."  All I can do is chuckle as they do the math over and over every time they attack instead of doing it once.


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## Bodhiwolff (Sep 5, 2008)

Sorry to hear that the ideas didn't catch on.

I think that one of the reasons they caught on with my players is that  the mats and cards were a fait accompli.  When the players walked in, everything was pre-done for them.  Of course, it took me an hour ahead of time, doing up cards and mats for everybody, but I'm happy I did.

As for people sitting and doing the math again and again each turn, yet balking at the idea of doing it all at once at the beginning of the day ... sadly, that's just part of human nature.

My wife worked as a Six Sigma specialist (a Master Black Belt for those in the know) so she basically worked with streamlining processes and procedures which sometimes people had been doing the same way for decades without re-examining them.  She would run into that mindset each and every day.  You can even explain to people, showing them on a stopwatch, that they've spent 3 or 4 times more the actual time necessary, over and over, doing the process over and over again during the day, but they'll simply argue that having it spread out over the day makes it *seem* less like a chore.

... and then they'll do it again for the next work day, and the next (or the next gaming session, and the next ...)

My only advice?

Try doing it for them, ahead of time.  Present them with everything all filled out.  Then put the character sheets away (another big thing is to remove the temptation to fiddle).  Sure, it is more work for you, but it might sell the point, and make things go more smoothly.

And once they're sold, then they're willing to do it for themselves when they level up, and the numbers change.


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## mudbunny (Sep 6, 2008)

Goblyns Hoard said:


> Porter - love the additions you've made - hope you don't mind that I used a few of your ideas on my latest version.
> 
> JPG attached - I can't get the pdf small enough to attach even in a zip file.  However if anyone wants it drop me a line with your email address and I'll send it.




I would love a copy of this.

marcel (dot) beaudoin (at) gmail (dot) com


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## Metaphorazine (Sep 7, 2008)

I'd love a copy too, metaphorazine at gmail dot com. I'm in a similar situation to the OP, except no-one has played D&D before, not even me.  Still, we ran the first two encounters of Shadowfell last week, and had a good time, but everyone had trouble finding stuff on the sheets, so...


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## Mistwell (Sep 8, 2008)

I wonder if people (other than the creators) have tried these out yet and have a report on how well they worked?


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## Genofury (Sep 8, 2008)

Well me and my friends get together regularly for this stuff, I do like the ideas you all have throwing around.  I plan on printing up these sheets and giving them a go.  We already do play a bit of card games and have a stash of minatures so using tokens and such shouldn't be odd for us.  

About the whole wet/erase, I can try laminating the sheets, see how that works.


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## Kzach (Sep 9, 2008)

Mistwell said:


> I wonder if people (other than the creators) have tried these out yet and have a report on how well they worked?




Although I'm keen on the idea as I feel it takes the player's attention away from the character sheet and on to the game, it seems that the extra step to go from character sheet to power cards and the playmat is just too much for my group.


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## ignayshus (Sep 16, 2008)

My group had excellent success with this.

I took a two sided clear cover page holder and put in the op's sheet unfilled facing out, a third sheet facing out the other way and pre-filled out in pencil with a black sheet in between the two.

The third sheet has the following:


Initiative Calculation
Movement Calculation
Abilities Calculation
Skills Calculation
Defenses Calculation
Resistances
Experience Current / To Level (ex 2325/3750)
Powers Count AtWill/Encounter/Daily/Utility (ex 2/2/1/1)
Feats Count Heroic/Paragon/Epic/Total (ex 2/0/0/2)
Feats List (with brief description)
Modifier Attack Types by implement (Str attack no implement or with dagger; Dexterity attack no implement, with dagger, or with bow, Const... you get the idea)
Wondrous Items (with brief description and a check box beside if power expended)
Equipped Items (with brief description and a check box beside if power expended)
This way we used the front sheet 90% of the time, but if we needed more detail, you just turn the sheet over.

We skipped the health/action-point tokens, as for us they were unnecessary. We've played two sessions this way and it's gone very well. The only change is we plan on using monster cards in addition to the power cards.

A list of what we use:


RP Tool Token Creator (to create pc/npc tokens)
I put a single hole punch through the tokens.
This allows me to put a yellow square (that shows through the hole) under marked targets, a red under bloodied targets, and an orange under marked and bloodied targets.
 
Clear 1"x1" squares (cut from a report cover) to place on top of pc/npcs with a condition (detailed by a single letter).
Grandpa's Power Cards
Bodi's Playmat (for the front side)
My own version of Weisbeden's CharSheetI tab (for the back side)
Obsidian Skill Challenge Rules (for players on front and skill descriptions on back)
Round/Initiative tracking sheet in clear cover
(To-be added) Monster cards (using the Magic Set Editor)
Laptop, DMG, PHB, tons of wet erase pens, wet wipes and dry cloth, and of course a grid map.


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## darjr (Oct 13, 2008)

This thread is awesome with awesome ideas. The only other thing I would wish for is a char sheet that printed out the one with the math and the one with just what I needed for the mat. The idea is to cut down on the needless work. I could show up with a mat with all the numbers already on it.

I'd think this would be a GREAT way to leverage the xml files that'll come from the character creator program of WotC's.

Other than using this as an excuse to get that cthulhu board game, any other chits/tokens seem almost ready built for this?

edit: oh.. and if wotc doesn't come up with a product that has a bunch of this pre done, any bets on who might? Hint, hint, hint.


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## burntgerbil (Oct 13, 2008)

I would just like to chime in and say that the regular game group I play in had so much fun with 4e that I wanted to try it out with some non-gamer friends also. I took a lot of tips from the posts in this thread and they wound up having an absolute blast ! 

I also created simplified Character sheets and pre-calculated power cards. below are the .pdf's for the fill-in sheets I made.


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## Bodhiwolff (Oct 13, 2008)

Very cool to hear some of these positive outcomes!

Our own little game is chugging along nicely, slowly but surely.

We're on our second version of the character sheet now, using the prettier one provided here.  We've switched to using Poker Chips to track hit points (they stack much more cleanly, and are much easier to sort and keep track of), but one fellow still uses the original heart tokens, 'cause he likes the messy look and feel of things.

I've noticed that our "newbie" player, the fellow playing the wizard, has now got a firm grasp of the rules, and is more than able to help his compatriots work out tactical advantages, coordinate efforts, work out net penalties, etc., all without ever having cracked a manual.  Everything he's ever picked up has been in the moment, reading the cards and/or talking about the rules as we've played.  That is fairly impressive to me, and now that he's got to the point where he's seeing how things can be assisted with a smidgeon of character planning, and he is no longer suffering from information overload, he's at the point where he can take over the planning of his own character.

We keep finding all sorts of cool and interesting things in 4E which impress us, tickle us, and make us happy.  We're enjoying ourselves.


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## FSBDavy (Oct 17, 2008)

Bodhiwolff- I have been gaming for a long while now, but as soon as I saw this thread, I knew you were on to something big!

This is absolutely fantastic! Thanks!!!!!

I am using poker chips- with colors that show all at a glance my character's approx status (green-yellow-red-black). I was putting the play grid and the sheets (and cards for lower lvls when there are not so many) all under one big sheet of plastic available in any hardware store. However, it did get a bit sticky when resting your arms on the plastic for extended periods. But this did let me cover up used powers with markers nicely too! And let the newbies see their available powers grouped by at-will/enc/day. Lower levels only, obviously.
Glass is the best cover I feel. Easily written on and erased with standard easliy available whiteboard markers. You may be lucky enough to own or be able to get hold of a glass topped table, or a large additional piece of glass can be cut to size for your entire table, but it isn't cheap!

I'm with you 100%. I agree that the whole point is to keep it simple. If you want to know your feats, use your character sheet. The playmat is for constantly used at a glance stuff!

I agree loose the passives- that is DM territory!

And I also agree completely with darjr- this is so great, I am sure we will see an 'official' version of it soon- just hope they credit you Bodhiwolff, this is really really great! It has eased my introduction into 4th, and my entire group to a man want to have your babies!

Cheers!


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## Turtlejay (Oct 17, 2008)

I'm still not sure how I feel about tokens for HP's, but using a seriously trimmed down sheet like this with power cards seems like the best way to speed things up.  Why not just trim down the character sheet but allow us to write our precious numbers on them so that the other players at the table don't laugh us away.  I could go for that.

Jay


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## Milambus (Oct 17, 2008)

Turtlejay said:


> I'm still not sure how I feel about tokens for HP's, but using a seriously trimmed down sheet like this with power cards seems like the best way to speed things up.  Why not just trim down the character sheet but allow us to write our precious numbers on them so that the other players at the table don't laugh us away.  I could go for that.
> 
> Jay




I've hand made a couple of cards (the same size as power cards) to use as a mini character sheet.  

Card/side 1 has across the top lines for:
Name
Level & EXP
Class & Race
Paragon Path & Epic Destiny

Below that are 4 rows of boxes:
Row 1: Init, Speed, blank, Passive Perception, Passive Insight
Row 2: AC, Fort, Ref, Will, blank
Row 3: Surge HP, Bloodied HP, Total HP, Current HP, Temp HP
Row 4: Total Surges, Current Surges, checkbox for Second Wind, checkbox for AP Usage, Action Point

Card/side 2 has 4 columns of 6 boxes.
Column 1: Stat bonuses
Column 2-4: Skill bonuses

Use pencil to write in static values, then slip the cards into plastic card sleeves and use Dry/wet erase markers to write in the variable numbers (Current HP, Temp Hit, Current Surges, AP).

I haven't had a chance to test the cards out in play yet, but if I find them useful I'll make electronic versions soon.


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## Ravingdork (Oct 17, 2008)

bodhiwolff said:


> the real hero is grandpa and his wonderful power card set, all here from enworld.  Bless grandpa's power cards.  They made my game!




link please. :d


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## Bodhiwolff (Oct 17, 2008)

Granpa's Power Cards
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4351249-post718.html

I've got a link in other places in this thread, and I've edited the original post to include it as well, now.


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## Turtlejay (Oct 17, 2008)

Milambus said:


> I've hand made a couple of cards (the same size as power cards) to use as a mini character sheet.
> 
> Card/side 1 has across the top lines for:
> Name
> ...




Yes, do.  If they work out well I'll try them out.  While I am leery of using markers to keep track of HP's (especially my little pony markers shaped like hearts (kidding!)), I think bringing a deck of cards to the game would be hilarious.  Especially if I glued MtG backs onto them and referred to my character as my deck the entire session....

Seriously though, I'm interested in this card idea.

Jay


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## Bodhiwolff (Oct 18, 2008)

It'd be interesting to see a combo of these two ideas.

A gamer mat, permanently broken down into a set of 4 or 6 or 8 (or whatever-it-takes) cards, designed to lay out in various formats, but still with spaces to take poker chips as tokens to keep track of effects.

Thus, you could have a health card, and a skills card, etc.  Those things that don't change you put down with a marker.  Those things that do change you keep track of using poker chips, or tokens, etc.

That way your entire character can be carried around in a deck box (including a combat deck and skills deck, so you'll never even have to crack a player's handbook again!) and you can customize your own layout to a certain extent.

Yet you still have the advantages of pre-calculations all done up for you (protected under sleeves) and the ease of tokens to keep track of those things that change quickly.

A mat-made-of-cards, formatted ingeniously such that things don't get too crowded, and still pretty.  Maybe even formatted to blend in nicely whatever Power Cards you're using (Grandpa's for my preference, since they have the space for calculations and I like that), but with the "character sheet" cards still having a slightly different-yet-cohesive style to them to tell them apart.

If anybody comes up with a design, post it, and I'll gladly steal it!  ('cause you've seen the lousy designs I come up with!)


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## Nail (Oct 19, 2008)

Bodhiwolff said:


> If anybody comes up with a design, post it, and I'll gladly steal it!



Me too.


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## Pabloj (Oct 21, 2008)

Is it possible to edit these mats? Or can someone uplad an editable file with them? I would love to translate them in spanish for my group.


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## Pabloj (Oct 21, 2008)

Is it possible to edit these mats? Or can someone upload an editable file with them? I would love to translate them to Spanish for my group.

EDIT: no idea why this ended like a double post...


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## Bodhiwolff (Oct 27, 2008)

So, I made up a combo like I was talking about.

Character Sheet cards -- formatted in the same style as Grandpa's Power Cards.  Made to sit on the table next to them and blend in.

Spaces to put in your character's actual calculated values, etc., but also spaces to hold poker chips or tokens for hit points and action points and healing surges, etc.

8 cards in total, and it winds up being the same floorspace as a player mat, but you can re-arrange them however you like.

What is more, you can place Granpa's Race/Diety/Alignment cards, etc., all next to them, and they all blend in thematically, so you can have a nice little section where you keep your "Character Stuff".  Stack 'em in a deck if you want to save space (except for the three with tokens on 'em, of course).

So with these, and a full set of Grandpa's cards (including the Skill Deck, Combat Deck, etc.,) you shouldn't have to be doing much looking up any more, and stacking them into little piles will save you tons of table space.


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## turk128 (Oct 30, 2008)

9-pocket card/binder sleeves are perfect for combining cards and gamer mat.
Image:Cardbinder.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I was using the cards alone but shuffling through cards can be a lil tedious if you have lots of powers and feats (looking at the wizard character ). Tried out the 9-pocket card sleeves and it's perfect; I use Ander00's cards so it was actually much easier because I could fold the sleeve like an accordion.


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## Serendipity (Oct 30, 2008)

That sounds absolutely immensely cool.


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## Zephyrus (Oct 31, 2008)

I very much like the idea of a game-mat though doubt I'd ever get the chance to really use one but who knows. One of the things though that I've seen in a number of the play mats that I think could be useful is that anywhere a token(s) are used, I'd suggest that those area's, especially the large health area be next to the pages border so that tokens can easily be slide off without having to be picked up first if possible. Since most people are right handed I'd suggest the top and right edges of the mat for this purpose with the left and bottom edges to be free of token zones. 

I agree that anything that makes play easier, power cards etc is a wonderful boon. I've had to GM-PC a character in games and wished I had power cards to help me run the extra character since I was already busy running the game I often had to have another player look up things for me so as to keep the pace of the table going and avoid having too many books behind my screen at an already semi-cramped table. 

I'm very much looking forward to the DDI character Creator Beta and the Automated Power Cards that will print when you print your character including Item cards!


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## MadLordOfMilk (Nov 2, 2008)

Zephyrus said:


> Since most people are right handed I'd suggest the top and right edges of the mat for this purpose with the left and bottom edges to be free of token zones.



Actually... wouldn't you want the token zones on the left side as a righty (and vice-versa for lefties) so you can write on and manipulate stuff on the sheet with your right hand without knocking tokens around (esp. w/sleeves) or having to angle your arm?


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## Hambot (Nov 4, 2008)

I'll give these playmates a go this Friday.

I'll keep the Weisbaden character sheet underneath, with the favourite powers bit sticking out so I don't have to faff about with cards - all the math has already been done during PC creation, so we'll just print off another sheet each time a PC levels up.


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## thebouv (Jan 5, 2009)

I know this is dredging up a topic, but I love this playmat (the final version by porter that is zipped up with the b&W and fancy versions).  And I love the OP's ideas for his group.

Someone mentioned that they would love to see a DM playmat that is similar to this, with some simple callout boxes for the numbers you constantly ask the PCs for (Defense numbers for instance, etc).  Anyone come up with one yet in the same style?


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## Smog (Jan 5, 2009)

thebouv said:


> I know this is dredging up a topic, but I love this playmat (the final version by porter that is zipped up with the b&W and fancy versions).  And I love the OP's ideas for his group.
> 
> Someone mentioned that they would love to see a DM playmat that is similar to this, with some simple callout boxes for the numbers you constantly ask the PCs for (Defense numbers for instance, etc).  Anyone come up with one yet in the same style?




THANK YOU! For pulling this thread back up. I would have never found it if you had not.

And thank you to everyone that had a hand in all of this.


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## Nathal (Jan 5, 2009)

amysrevenge said:


> This.
> 
> Seen it sooo many times.  I only play at clubs and conventions, so I see a great many gamers, and it is almost universally true.  Folks who could handle doing the arithmetic from scratch every time are the ones who have it pre-calculated, and folks who can't don't.




That's funny...I learned a long time ago to bring my calculator to games. I'm too slow doing simple math in my head. So I produce the calculator and explain it's my "left brain". Also, I'd have stuff pre-calculated on my character sheets.


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## Goblyns Hoard (Jan 5, 2009)

thebouv said:


> Someone mentioned that they would love to see a DM playmat that is similar to this, with some simple callout boxes for the numbers you constantly ask the PCs for (Defense numbers for instance, etc).  Anyone come up with one yet in the same style?




I did actually have a look at this and created a first template but then abandoned the idea.  The issue I had was that there are a number of factors that can affect Defences that it would require the DM to keep track of a range of numbers not only for the NPCs but now also for the PCs as well.  I figured that was best left to the players.  Plus having to ask them all for details keeps them drawn into the game while the DM is having his 'go' at the table, and keeps the interaction flowing - which has value to the game as a whole.  So the only thing that I've had value to keep as a sheet myself is the passive insight & perception, and I didn't see the need for an entire mat for that.

If I'm wrong about this and anyone can identify a list of stats that they think are worth the DM tracking for the players then I can come up with a suitable design.


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## WarDaddy (Apr 24, 2009)

*Wow*

So I have not played DnD since I 2e.  I have been wanting to get back in, but all of my friends are too cool to play DnD, sad.  So I have been waiting, and waiting, and now my sons are 8 and 5 and I am going to give it a try.

I was really worried about how I would do this, but I think the tools of this thread are PERFECT to help me introduce the game to my sons.  They play lots of games, so using the playmate with gramps cards will be a nice way to visually show them what is happening and what they can do.  

I have been searching long and hard for any other version of the 'mates.   This thread has been quiet, anyone else try playing with them?  Any new alterations made to the concept?  Anyone still using it?  This thread has been quiet a while, so I thought I would bring it back.  The ideas here seem perfect for my shadowfell adventure that I will introduce the family to gaming with.


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## Mistwell (Jan 21, 2011)

I always loved these character sheet mats.  I wonder if they would require any changes after all this time and the changes to the game? Is anyone still using them?


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## Kealios (Jan 1, 2012)

<cant find a way to delete my post>


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## Dice4Hire (Jan 1, 2012)

Kealios said:


> <cant find a way to delete my post>




Once you raise something from the dead it does not automatically just go back in the grave.


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