this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023

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Best tools for character sheets? (self.rpg)

submitted 1 year ago by Nariom to c/[email protected]

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Each time I try to find something (website, software, ...) to edit and automate character sheets, I go back to spreadsheets because nothing else seems good enough. Am I missing something?

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[–] Andonome 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For online-usage, nothing will ever beat spreadsheets. They exist to crunch numbers and compare values. They work with both text and numbers. And they're flexible.

Want to add +2 to perception for elves? Check if race = "Elf" and if so, add +2.
Want to add a fixed list of weapons for the player to choose from? Stick the entire list on a secret sheet, then reference them in a drop-down menu.

If a bespoke tool ever came out, it would only do one system, badly. Spreadsheets do any system, and the skills you learn with them are transferrable to almost all other spreadsheet programmes.

There's my indie RPG character spreadsheet (requires Libreoffice Calc). Fill in your name, and it'll use numerological constants to find your race and stats, then tracks your XP every time you buy a skill.

People want to use something like a pdf because it looks like paper, but this instinct is wrong. PDFs are for printing. Their fill-in text boxes are ugly, and programming them is clunky.

[–] Nariom 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah that's why I often end up making a spreadsheet. I'd love to use LibreOffice for them but often find google sheet more flexible. I'm not very happy about that but that's how it is. I was curious to know if I missed something new that didn't come up through my searches.

[–] Andonome 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Something new with Calc? Not to my knowledge, though I've never found something I couldn't do. What additional features do Google Docs have?

[–] Nariom 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Some functions like QUERY, SORT, CHOOSECOLS, MAP* that makes it easier. I tried to understand how merging several columns into one would work in Calc and gave up. There are workarounds but no legit way to do it outside scripting, but I'd like to keep my sheets script free. Also there are no in cell checkboxes in Calc, but I guess you could just use a boolean. Overall I'm often frustrated by Calc and shamefully go back to G.

[–] Andonome 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I tried to understand how merging several columns into one would work

It's this button.

Also there are no in cell checkboxes in Calc,

Checkboxes:

https://ask.libreoffice.org/uploads/short-url/biHcqD9rpmk0V92ShVFWZwDVIUD.ods

[–] Nariom 2 points 1 year ago

Sorry I meant getting the union of two ranges, concatenating two columns, putting the data of two different columns into one. Don't worry about it though, I found you can do some stuff with INDEX, but then you can't sort it, so I arranged my data in another way and color coded it... The whole process was quite annoying tbh but I got what I wanted. On your example with checkboxes they don't behave as part of the cell, idk how they work but that's weird compared to gdocs. I can use true/false instead. Also I didn't want to turn this thread into a Calc stackoverflow one ^^ Thanks for the help all the same.

[–] INeedMana 5 points 1 year ago

Spreadsheet is visually flexible and understands math. Apart from editable pdfs created for the system, I don't think there is something better. Even solutions "for this system but different flavor" will either require of you a lot of input for it to understand the concepts or will be dumb and won't provide more value than a text document

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

which system are you specifically looking for? I dm for 5e and really like Fastcharater. I mainly use it for NPCs though, so i've never really tried editing them so that might be a hangup.

[–] Nariom 2 points 1 year ago

INS/MV 4th edition, there is an old software for it but it's no good. I already made a spreadsheet for it anyway, I was wondering if I was missing something outside of rulesets specific tools.

[–] PriorProject 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As others have noted, it depends on the system. VTTs are often thought of as being oriented around battlemaps and visual aids, but you can play theater or the mind with character sheets in a VTT. If the system support is rich like pf2e in Foundry, DnD5e/SWADE in Fantasy Grounds, or any VTT with strong support for a particular system... then you'll have access to great sheets, combat trackers, and automation.

For niche systems, yeah... spreadsheets are the original tool for non-programmers to track stats and math. They're great for building custom sheets. They don't have the flexibility of a true programming language to create custom UI and really rich automation. But they are very very good, and can be better than a VTT with poor system support if you don't care about visual aids.

[–] Nariom 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm biased against VTTs, maybe I'm wrong. They always seem to want to sell rulesets and adventures on top of subscriptions (eww) or the software. Not sure if you can play a game previously own without buying it again, or sometime they limit the ability to make a custom one without a subscription and so on. I'm usually fine with VOIP and some form of chat or forum anyway.

[–] PriorProject 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm biased against VTTs, maybe I'm wrong.

Ah, your original post didn't mention them... and then asked what was missing. VTTs are pretty clearly the elephant in that room that was omitted.

It sounds like VTTs might not be your jam, which is fine. But to address possible points of confusion...

They always seem to want to sell rulesets and adventures on top of subscriptions (eww) or the software.

Foundry and Fantasy Grounds are both one-time purchases and most (but not necessarily ALL) rulesets are free along with their SRD equivalent if one exists.

Now, both of these do sell optional add-ons, and have third-party folks who build and sell or Patreon-gate stuff they make. A one time purchase does not entitle you to everything that anyone in the world can imagine to build on top of the core VTT... but it does entitle to the core VTT many rule systems and regular software updates for a good long while.

Not sure if you can play a game previously own without buying it again, or sometime they limit the ability to make a custom one without a subscription and so on.

Both Foundry and FG allow you to enter your own content/characters/monsters/items/adventures into existing systems (including generic systems that try with varying degrees of success to be system agnostic), or to make your own system from scratch (though that's a difficult and time consuming programming project... it does enable folks around the world to create their own custom systems and most of those are made available for free for others to use as well).

Now, both these VTTs also sell and allow the additional purchase of adventures and other stuff that was previously published in book form. This is generally sold separately from the book, and from the VTT. These digital adaptations are nice and if you want to pay only for the core VTT and be done with spending money it's easy to get jealous looking at them. But that's very much like complaining about having to pay to see a Marvel movie because you own the comic. These are different things from the book, made by different people, and they're a lot of work to create well. The best publishers like Paizo offer discounts for multi-format purchases, but they need customers to tell them what formats to invest in by buying stuff and they need money to pay people to do the adaptions.

All of which is to say, you may not be into VTTs. They are a whole thing and getting them working well is a major distraction from from normal prep. But with some of them it's certainly possible to develop your own adventures without a subscription or additional purchase beyond the core product, or to adapt a paper/pdf adventure in a supported system. I've done both and enjoyed the process and results.

[–] Nariom 2 points 1 year ago

Alright looks a lot more fair than what I had in mind.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I generally go

Preferred VTT
Other VTT I like VTTs as I often have visual aids (ex trackers and clocks) and it us a place to share visuals (drawings, scene art).
Someone's spreadsheet
Own spreadsheet Beyond this I don't expect any functionality beyond the most basic things
PDF sheets on shared drive plus a dice roller

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I generally go

Preferred VTT
Other VTT

I like VTTs as I often have visual aids (ex trackers and clocks) and it us a place to share visuals (drawings, scene art).

Someone's spreadsheet
Own spreadsheet

Beyond this I don't expect any functionality beyond the most basic things

PDF sheets on shared drive plus a dice roller
Discord bots

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