People love character sheets. It occurred to me that it might be fun to make a blank, pre-D&D Blackmoor character sheet with nothing more on it than the sort of information seen on the original character records we have. It's nothing fancy, but have a gander:
Some explanations: The entries - Player, Name, Race, Class, Etc. - are all bits of information that can be found on the character sheets of either Dave Megarry or Pete Gaylord. I didn't put on any entries that don't have at least one example in the original. There are a number of things that did exist at some point in Arneson's game, but don't have entries on the original players sheets, so don't get mentioned here either.
The categories themselves are, of course, made up to account for the entries. The original records don't have the word "HEIGHT" written on them, for example, but two of Megarry's characters do have a height listed for the character.
"ARMOR" can be the type of armor or a number or both. At some point in 1972, what we would call an "Armor Class" number was added to Megarry's sheets, written inside a little square. Next to the square, another number was written inside a circle. David remembers the square as an AC number but doesn't remember what the circle number was. I've come to think the most probable answer is that it was a magic resistance number. I've simply labeled that "R" to reflect this uncertainty.
For the "CLASS" entry, it would either be Fighter or Wizard.
Fighter levels would be named: Mortal or Flunky, Hero, Superhero, or Lord, while Wizards would have numeric levels 1 through 12 (at least).
PROFESSION is what the character does in life, and most of the professions listed on Megarry's sheets are identical with the D&D specialist hirelings list - hunter, sailor, administrator and so on.
I've also divided the personality, weapons, and skill lists into separate boxes simply for organizational purposes.
Some things found in Megarry's notebook and in some cases elsewhere, could optionally be added. These would be a "cash account" listing starting funds, acquisitions, taxes and expenses, an "investments" list, and a "kill record".
And for your entertainment, I've filled out a sheet using the historic statistics for Pete Gaylord's Wizard, like so:
1 comments:
It's funny, but I have always used a number in a square box as a way of writing AC, or indeed as recording 'armour value' or equivalent in other games. I know others who do the same.
I wonder whether it is just confirmation bias, or whether there is something psychological in a square, suggestive of solidness?
Heh, forgive my rambling.
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