CHARACTER SHEET INSTRUCTIONS
The character sheet is used to record your character stats and keep track of equipment, money, spells, etc. Both the GM and the player can see character sheets as they're being filled out, so that the GM can guide inexperienced players in rolling up and fleshing out characters. You will be able to bring up your character hseet at any time after that and update it. The character sheets are, at present, "dumb fill out forms" no different than the paper sheets that people commonly use. They do not automatically calculate anything for you. The only active feature is a die roller.
When you press the character sheet button in the upper left corner of your control panel a new window will appear with two title bars. The top title bar says "Yourname's characters." There will be at least one button below this title bar, labeled "Fill out form for new character." If you have filled out charascter sheets in the past there will also be one button for each of your characters below this title bar. Below that there is a second title bar that says "Delete character sheets" and a button below it labeled "Delete selection below." Below that there is a scroll down selection window. If you have filled out character sheets then each of your characters will be listed in the scroll down window. The first time you bring up this page, there will be no buttons other than the "Fill out form" and the "delete" buttons, and the scroll down selection window will be blank.
To get a blank character sheet to fill out, click the "Fill out form for new character" button to bring up a character sheet that you can fill out by typing into its text boxes. See the instructions under "Character Sheets" below.
Under the "Delete Character Sheets" label at the bottom of this page there is a button labeled "delete selection below". Below the button is a scroll bar. Clicking the arrow on the scroll bar brings up a list of all of your characters identified by name. You can highlight any one of these and then click the "delete selection below" button to delete it. After you do that the character's button disappears from the page. All records of the character are deleted, and neither you nor the GM can get them back, so don't use this button lightly. If you want to save the sheets of dead characters for nostalgic purposes, we suggest that you print them out. Eventually the GM may delete them, and the GM will probably delete the whole game after campaign is over anyway.
The exact features of the caracter sheet will depend on the game system that you are using. The GM configures the character sheet before each campaign to reflect the game system being used and any custom modifications that the GM uses. As usual, you should get input from your GM before filling out your first character sheet for any campaign. Regardless of configuration, all boxes in the character sheet are text boxes that you fill in by typing, with the exception of the die roller. Some of the common features present on most character sheets include the following:
There will always be a text box at the top of the character sheet labelled "Character Name:" You must fill out this box. The character's name will be used by you, the GM, and the program to identify the character sheet.
Your own name or handle will be printed below the character name fill in line.
There will likely be several fill in tables under the general heading of "Basic Character Information" These will cover information like level, occupation, gender, etc. etc. and many other things like lists of skills or personality traits that are dependent on the game system and game genre. You will get to decide what most of this information is and type it in to flesh out your character. There may also be a text box labelled "Character description" that will allow you to type out a verbal description of your character, its history, perosnality, etc.
If your game system uses dice to roll up certain characteristics, a table labeled "Rolled Characteristics" will appear amongst the Basic Character Information tables. There will be a blank field and a button labelled "Die Roller" next to the "Rolled Characteristics table. You use the die roller to determine the values of the rolled characteristics.
To operate the die roller click on the "roll all dice" button above it. What numbers you get when you do this, and what you do with them, depends on your game system and how the GM set up the die roller. Let the GM explain the rolling system to you before you start. In general, the die roller generates one or more columns of random numbers in the blank box below it. The number of values in each row should be equal to the number of rolled characteristics. The random numbers in each individual column are determined according to the number of dice that are used for each characteristic and the number of faces per die. For example, if you are playing D20, each individual number will represent the sum of the rolls of three six sided dice. The odds of getting any number are the same as if you were rolling real dice.
You will copy values from the rows of numbers into the rolled characteristics boxes in the table to the right. How you do this depends again on the game system and the GM's own rules. For example, some GMs will set up the die roller to give you two or more columns of numbers. You will then get to select the higest number in each row and type it into the characteristics box. Other GMs may set up the roller to produce only one column, but let you distribute the numbers among the bozes in any way that you want. Other GMs may use a more complicated system. Again, talk to your GM before filling our your character sheet for the first time so that you will know how it is done.
Below the basic character information tables there will be a number of other lines and tables who's nature will again depend on the game system being used. You will probably always find places to list the equipment, money, weapons, and defensive items that you carry, spells and spell characteristics if your system uses magic, attack, defense, and spell effect modifiers, and so on. Your character's basic characteristics, rolled or otherwise, will determine the values for many of these, depending as usual on the game system.
After you have filled out or changed information on the character sheet, you can save it by clicking on any of the "save changes" buttons at the upper left, middle left, or lower left of the page. All these buttons save the entire page. If you really mess things up, you can use any of the "reset" buttons to erase ALL the values in the character sheet. Note that we said ALL the values, not just recent changes! The character sheet becomes blank again. Don't use this button unless you really mess up.
You can go back to a character sheet and change values at any time that your gameroom is open.
When you fill out and save a character sheet. a button with that character's name on it will appear below the "Yourname's Characters" title bar. Pressing one of these buttons brings up the appropriate character sheet, to which you can make further changes.
The GM can watch as you make changes to your character sheet using a "collaborative mode" feature in the GM's own selection page. This is mainly intended for helping new players fill out their sheets. The GM starts collaborative mode from the GM screen. All you have to do is turn on the Chat Window so you can communicate with him or her (see below). When the GM is viewing your character sheet in this mode, any changes that you make will appeart on the GM's copy of the character sheet a few seconds after you click the "save changes" button. This is not quite a two way street. If the GM helps you out by inserting a value for you, you will have to manually refresh your screen to see the change.
In the upper left hand corner of your character sheet you will see a button labeled "Chat Window." Pressing this opens a small window containing a large rectangular Chat Box where messages will appear, a single line text box labeled "message" below it, where you can typ in your messages, and four more buttons. This window lets you exchange typed messages with the GM while you are filling out your character sheet. When the window opens, the chat function should be on. If it is on, you see a vertical column of short horizontal lines, like dashes, in rectangular Chat Box. If it is off, you see the words "Chat Box" there instead, and if you use an Internet Explorer browser, you may hear a click every few seconds as the box automatically updates itself. You can turn the Chat Box and chat functions on and off with the "Chat on" and "Chat off" buttons.
To send a message to the GM, type it in the "Message:" text line and press the Sndbutton to the right of the line. Press the Rset button to erage the message line if you make a lot of typling mistakes and want to start over. Your message will appear, preceeded by your name or handle in bold, in the Chat Box and the GM's Chat Box a few seconds after you type it. The GM's messages to you will also appear.