Can a GM require you to have a paper character sheet?

[TriOmegaZero]

Mark Stratton wrote:

Honestly, folks, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting pretty darn tired of Bob's nearly-infallible common sense and reason. :D

Really? I never get tired of such things. :)

[trollbill]

Mark Stratton wrote:

Bob Jonquet wrote:

People, you're missing the "spirit" of this (and many other) discussions. Stop trying to one-up each other. There is nothing wrong with electronic devices, nor is there anything wrong with strictly paper. The issue is having some consideration for the other person, be it the GM or player, and having a solution that works for both without burdening either or the other players at the table. When you force a discussion like this to Brock's level, he has to make a ruling that becomes binding. Remember that in the future before you escalate an issue. You may not like the ruling he makes.

Table variation certainly spurs the largest amount of discussion, and often the most passionate, but its also one of the strengths or our campaign in that it allows a tiny bit of freedom to customize the gaming experience to suit your individual eccentricities. Embrace it before its gone. :-D

Honestly, folks, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting pretty darn tired of Bob's nearly-infallible common sense and reason. :D

That sounds reasonable.

[Jiggy]

trollbill wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Dang. The hassle of paper character sheets is the whole reason I went to the trouble of creating an Excel sheet that I could use at the table. I'm not sure I even have time to "get legal" for my next game...

If you can print a copy of that character sheet to keep with you, it shouldn't be a problem. Mike didn't say you couldn't use electronic character sheets. Just that the GM can require you to have a printed one if he so chooses. So far I haven't run into anyone (except online) that has that requirement.

It's multiple sheets/tabs/whatever you call them, and some of the numbers are buried in formulas that I could easily recite from memory but would not be visible on a paper sheet. Plus, I don't have a printer, so I would have to (one way or another) go pay to print it at the library or Kinko's or whatever.

And then do it all again whenever I level, or heck, whenever I even buy something. So every single session, I guess.

Or I could print a "traditional" character sheet, fill it out, and just keep it tucked away with my chronicles, never to be seen unless asked for, but make sure to keep it updated anyway.

[Christopher Rowe]

Jiggy wrote:

Or I could print a "traditional" character sheet, fill it out, and just keep it tucked away with my chronicles, never to be seen unless asked for, but make sure to keep it updated anyway.

That's probably the way to go. Or at least it's what I'd do in your position.

[Message board troll]

trollbill wrote:

Mark Stratton wrote:

Bob Jonquet wrote:

People, you're missing the "spirit" of this (and many other) discussions. Stop trying to one-up each other. There is nothing wrong with electronic devices, nor is there anything wrong with strictly paper. The issue is having some consideration for the other person, be it the GM or player, and having a solution that works for both without burdening either or the other players at the table. When you force a discussion like this to Brock's level, he has to make a ruling that becomes binding. Remember that in the future before you escalate an issue. You may not like the ruling he makes.

Table variation certainly spurs the largest amount of discussion, and often the most passionate, but its also one of the strengths or our campaign in that it allows a tiny bit of freedom to customize the gaming experience to suit your individual eccentricities. Embrace it before its gone. :-D

Honestly, folks, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting pretty darn tired of Bob's nearly-infallible common sense and reason. :D

That sounds reasonable.

But if nobody feeds me I'll starve.

[TwilightKnight]

Jiggy wrote:

Stuff

Sounds like you have a few options that allow you to continue to enjoy the game your way while still complying with the needs of the GM. WIN!

[thejeff]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

People, you're missing the "spirit" of this (and many other) discussions. Stop trying to one-up each other. There is nothing wrong with electronic devices, nor is there anything wrong with strictly paper. The issue is having some consideration for the other person, be it the GM or player, and having a solution that works for both without burdening either or the other players at the table. When you force a discussion like this to Brock's level, he has to make a ruling that becomes binding. Remember that in the future before you escalate an issue. You may not like the ruling he makes.

Table variation certainly spurs the largest amount of discussion, and often the most passionate, but its also one of the strengths or our campaign in that it allows a tiny bit of freedom to customize the gaming experience to suit your individual eccentricities. Embrace it before its gone. :-D

Honestly, this isn't the good kind of table variation. This is the kind of table variation that leads to people not being able to play, because they thought they could play with only the digital sheets, but the GM thought they needed paper.

Now we know and won't be blind-sided. Or at least less of us will be, since not everyone read this discussion.

[TetsujinOni]

Mike, I would respectfully request that you reverse this ruling to an official stance of "no official ruling." I believe it would be better for the campaign if GMs and players were encouraged to cooperate, and at the same time for the players to have the responsibility for being able to present to the GM a sufficient snapshot of how their character's numbers work. I think silence on this better serves the community by reinforcing the notion that "Sometimes Mike can make the rule of not making a rule", and this PARTICULAR issue is one where not making a rule is better, because the position currently taken is at some dissonance to the Additional Resources electronic sourcing rule and the secondary request for a rule is one which i DESPERATELY do not want to see - an "official standard for what a character sheet must constitute".

Because we avoided requiring a specific form and format of the purchased item log, I believe we similarly should avoid forcing a specific form and format of the character sheet.

In my specific case as a GM, I vastly prefer NOT having an 'official' character sheet with a gamer's scraggly glyphs inscribed and erased and re-inscribed all over it. Whether that's a HL snapshot on a tablet, a HL instance on a laptop, HL in dropbox imported to my device, a printout, hieroglyphs, whatever - as long as there's something that gets us to a reverse-engineerable stat block I don't care.

(Hmm, that's a thought: all GMs should be familiar with stat block format.... and it's more consistent than the HL default sheet vs. PFS version of the PFRPG sheet... but I'd still rather not have an official medium, form and format discussion)

Hell, the last character I ran was written out on two 3x5 cards (0xp level one character in Wounded Wisp on a day I wasn't expecting to play and did NOT want to play a pregen...)... in something that closely resembled an exploded statblock format.

Respectfully submitted

[TwilightKnight]

IMO, if a GM bans a player simply because they don't have a printed copy of their character sheet, that is bad GMing. OTOH, if a player is being a jerk about only using their digital device no matter what, I have no sympathy for them either.

What happened to people just being accommodating to each other and trying to just make the gaming experience fun? Honestly, this incessant need to have every single nuance of the game governed by rules is exhausting and tends to drive players away.

[BretI]

Christopher Rowe wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Or I could print a "traditional" character sheet, fill it out, and just keep it tucked away with my chronicles, never to be seen unless asked for, but make sure to keep it updated anyway.

That's probably the way to go. Or at least it's what I'd do in your position.

I agree. I would have preferred being allowed to use digital only, but can work with this now that it has been established.

thejeff wrote:

Honestly, this isn't the good kind of table variation. This is the kind of table variation that leads to people not being able to play, because they thought they could play with only the digital sheets, but the GM thought they needed paper.

Now we know and won't be blind-sided. Or at least less of us will be, since not everyone read this discussion.

The ITS handles most of the equipment listing, so I assume the character sheet is mostly about class, level, feats, and class features chosen. Provided it has at least as much information as on the standard Pathfinder Character Sheet, it should be fine. I'm not certain if a simple stat block would be sufficient, hopefully when GTOP is updated that will state what is required.

I'll probably just mark up the printed sheet every other level, only reprinting when something significant has changed.

[trollbill]

Jiggy wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Dang. The hassle of paper character sheets is the whole reason I went to the trouble of creating an Excel sheet that I could use at the table. I'm not sure I even have time to "get legal" for my next game...

If you can print a copy of that character sheet to keep with you, it shouldn't be a problem. Mike didn't say you couldn't use electronic character sheets. Just that the GM can require you to have a printed one if he so chooses. So far I haven't run into anyone (except online) that has that requirement.

It's multiple sheets/tabs/whatever you call them, and some of the numbers are buried in formulas that I could easily recite from memory but would not be visible on a paper sheet. Plus, I don't have a printer, so I would have to (one way or another) go pay to print it at the library or Kinko's or whatever.

And then do it all again whenever I level, or heck, whenever I even buy something. So every single session, I guess.

Or I could print a "traditional" character sheet, fill it out, and just keep it tucked away with my chronicles, never to be seen unless asked for, but make sure to keep it updated anyway.

Well, not having a printer is a definite problem. I stopped using hand written character sheets ages ago, mostly to spare GMs having to translate my handwriting.

For what it is worth, this is what I have been doing:

I use Hero Lab for all of my characters. Hero Lab lists the sources for each rule I use. So before a convention I double check to make sure that I have the sources for all of the characters I am planning to play (usually that is no more than 3) and have pdfs of them on both my iPhone & iPad. I also print out copies of my character sheets just in case someone has an issue with electronic mediums (which has so far not been the case). I only print them out at each new level as item purchases can be verified on my ITS. I have a large binder that I have my characters, ITSs and ACs sheets in, as well as the Guide to Organized Play. I keep this in my backpack in case it is needed as a reference. It usually only comes out at the end of the session so I can tuck my new chronicle sheet in it or at the beginning when a GM wants to know if the character has a particular boon. It is, by far, the heaviest thing I keep in my backpack.

At the table, I run the character off my iPad Mini as it auto-calculates bonuses and conditions better than I could manually. But for rules, I mostly use my iPhone because I don't have to make people waiting while I flip between iBooks and Hero Lab and because handing an Otter Box protected iPhone to someone to show them a rule is safer and easier then handing them my iPad. Though most of the time, people will accept me simply reading the exact text out loud.

[trollbill]

Message board troll wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Mark Stratton wrote:

Bob Jonquet wrote:

People, you're missing the "spirit" of this (and many other) discussions. Stop trying to one-up each other. There is nothing wrong with electronic devices, nor is there anything wrong with strictly paper. The issue is having some consideration for the other person, be it the GM or player, and having a solution that works for both without burdening either or the other players at the table. When you force a discussion like this to Brock's level, he has to make a ruling that becomes binding. Remember that in the future before you escalate an issue. You may not like the ruling he makes.

Table variation certainly spurs the largest amount of discussion, and often the most passionate, but its also one of the strengths or our campaign in that it allows a tiny bit of freedom to customize the gaming experience to suit your individual eccentricities. Embrace it before its gone. :-D

Honestly, folks, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting pretty darn tired of Bob's nearly-infallible common sense and reason. :D

That sounds reasonable.

But if nobody feeds me I'll starve.

Bro! You missed the point. I was saying it was reasonable for Mark to be tired of Bob's reasonableness.

[Avatar-1]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

IMO, if a GM bans a player simply because they don't have a printed copy of their character sheet, that is bad GMing. OTOH, if a player is being a jerk about only using their digital device no matter what, I have no sympathy for them either.

You've painted the digital side of that in a really bad light. If a player only wants to use their digital device, they are not being a jerk, any moreso than the player who only wants to use paper.

How can you have it both ways like that? Obviously we want to accommodate each other, but the solution to that is to allow whatever they're using.

[GM Hills]

Gonna chime in, only because I feel like it's worth noting.

I have NO problems with my players using electronic character sheets, however, I have seen too many times that players don't actually know where the numbers/calculations come from because they use HeroLab (Or whatever) as a crutch and don't actually KNOW how to make their characters work. That being said, if I ask them a question about their character, they should be able to answer it pretty easily, and many times can't. Further, I have had, more than once, a player's device drain the battery way faster than they had expected and leading into the last encounter, they are scrambling to write down as much of their character as they can because they don't have a hard copy of their character and only a car charger for their device...or no outlet available... To the point I actually have started bringing my own portable charger with me. Just have the sheet as a JIC, it might never come up, but if it does, you will be thankful. And if the GM is curious about something, you can just hand them the sheet and they can read over it without stopping the game or planning or whatever. It's helpful and convenient. And now the rules.

[TwilightKnight]

Avatar, notice the emphasis on "no matter what". There is nothing wrong with digital devices as I have said now twice, the problem is when the GM wants to audit something, but does not want the responsibility/risk inherent with handling someone else's digital device. There a plenty of options to work through the issue, but I don't need to list them. The bottom line is that both the GM and the player can be accommodating to the other and compromise so the game can continue. If either side is being overly obstinate, then yes, they are BadWrongFun

[thejeff]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

Avatar, notice the emphasis on "no matter what". There is nothing wrong with digital devices as I have said now twice, the problem is when the GM wants to audit something, but does not want the responsibility/risk inherent with handling someone else's digital device. There a plenty of options to work through the issue, but I don't need to list them. The bottom line is that both the GM and the player can be accommodating to the other and compromise so the game can continue. If either side is being overly obstinate, then yes, they are BadWrongFun

Is there an option that doesn't require the player to have a printout of his current character on hand?

If not, there's not much of a compromise, is there?

[thejeff]

GM Hills wrote:

Gonna chime in, only because I feel like it's worth noting.

I have NO problems with my players using electronic character sheets, however, I have seen too many times that players don't actually know where the numbers/calculations come from because they use HeroLab (Or whatever) as a crutch and don't actually KNOW how to make their characters work. That being said, if I ask them a question about their character, they should be able to answer it pretty easily, and many times can't. Further, I have had, more than once, a player's device drain the battery way faster than they had expected and leading into the last encounter, they are scrambling to write down as much of their character as they can because they don't have a hard copy of their character and only a car charger for their device...or no outlet available... To the point I actually have started bringing my own portable charger with me. Just have the sheet as a JIC, it might never come up, but if it does, you will be thankful. And if the GM is curious about something, you can just hand them the sheet and they can read over it without stopping the game or planning or whatever. It's helpful and convenient. And now the rules.

Not to resurrect that debate, but printing out the Herolab sheet doesn't magically make the player know how the character works. Forcing them to play without HL might over time, but there's going to be a long period of forgetting buffs and getting things wrong in between.

[Avatar-1]

The point is that even if someone is using a digital device, they aren't being overly obstinate to want to use that instead of a paper copy.

If a GM doesn't want the risk of dropping a tablet, then they can tell the player that, and the player can either convert to paper or walk from the table. That's accommodating each other.

Isn't that what this ruling was trying to do?

[Thurston Hillman]

And this is why we can't have nice things...

Seriously folks, it's pretty obvious that Mike didn't want to lay down the law on this subject, but when he's backed into a corner and people start pointing to this a FAQ-required post, he has no choice. It only gets worse when he gives an open response, something people can tweak to their regions, and then gets demands to drill down into exacting details.

Now we have a ruling, and people aren't happy with it. I'm 100% with Mike on this, because he was pretty much FORCED to make that response.

Yeah, if I handed my iPad to a GM and they dropped it, I would expect them to get me a new one. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people here would think the same, whether they admit it or not. That being said, if it's allowed for me to bring an electronic device to a game, and be able to show it to the GM in lieu of paper copies, then who does it fall on if something happens to the device? As the person with the device, I'd still say the person who drops/damages it. So all Mike is doing with this ruling is protecting his most dedicated volunteers.

Yes, the same logic applies to books, but a book is not a thing that costs hundreds of dollars...

I hope results like this can calm the storm of "OMG, I NEED AN 'OFFICIAL' RULING ON THIS NAOW!!!1!!!!!" and get us back to sensible people finding sensible solutions.

[TOZ]

Thurston Hillman wrote:

I hope results like this can calm the storm of "OMG, I NEED AN 'OFFICIAL' RULING ON THIS NAOW!!!1!!!!!" and get us back to sensible people finding sensible solutions.

My sensibility is in short supply.

[Christopher Rowe]

thejeff wrote:

Is there an option that doesn't require the player to have a printout of his current character on hand?

If not, there's not much of a compromise, is there?

The compromise exists in that the player is not prevented from using her phone or her tablet or her laptop as she's used to and prefers in play. She's merely required to have a physical copy of the sheet as well, along with the forever-required physical copies of Chronicle sheets. What's so onerous about this?

[thejeff]

Thurston Hillman wrote:

And this is why we can't have nice things...

Seriously folks, it's pretty obvious that Mike didn't want to lay down the law on this subject, but when he's backed into a corner and people start pointing to this a FAQ-required post, he has no choice. It only gets worse when he gives an open response, something people can tweak to their regions, and then gets demands to drill down into exacting details.

Now we have a ruling, and people aren't happy with it. I'm 100% with Mike on this, because he was pretty much FORCED to make that response.

Yeah, if I handed my iPad to a GM and they dropped it, I would expect them to get me a new one. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people here would think the same, whether they admit it or not. That being said, if it's allowed for me to bring an electronic device to a game, and be able to show it to the GM in lieu of paper copies, then who does it fall on if something happens to the device? As the person with the device, I'd still say the person who drops/damages it. So all Mike is doing with this ruling is protecting his most dedicated volunteers.

Yes, the same logic applies to books, but a book is not a thing that costs hundreds of dollars...

I hope results like this can calm the storm of "OMG, I NEED AN 'OFFICIAL' RULING ON THIS NAOW!!!1!!!!!" and get us back to sensible people finding sensible solutions.

Except that without the official ruling, we were back in the "Of course you need a paper character sheet, you'll have to play a pregen", "No, of course there's no need for paper, just bring your tablet" days.

For all the fuss about not forcing Mike to make a ruling, people want to know they'll be allowed to play. If GMs can refuse to accept digital versions, that's a good thing to know officially.

[Avatar-1]

I mentioned this earlier in the thread - are GMs not allowed to refuse a player on any grounds?

Are GMs forced to GM for every player no matter what? Or do we need a list of things they can and can't refuse on?

I'm sure the answer to that question is no, that GMs aren't forced to GM for every player no matter what. That's crazy.

The point is that GMs should be able to make a reasonable request of a player that they would only like people playing with paper, or that they don't mind people using digital character sheets or chronicles or dice, or any 1 of the 3.

The worse option is to say players aren't allowed to use them ever, so as to spare GMs accommodating of refusing player's reasonable requests.

[Thurston Hillman]

Avatar-1 wrote:

I mentioned this earlier in the thread - are GMs not allowed to refuse a player on any grounds?

Are GMs forced to GM for every player no matter what? Or do we need a list of things they can and can't refuse on?

This is what we call poking the dragon... I really hope we don't get an official answer on this question. PLEASE, don't answer this question.

[trollbill]

thejeff wrote:

Thurston Hillman wrote:

And this is why we can't have nice things...

Seriously folks, it's pretty obvious that Mike didn't want to lay down the law on this subject, but when he's backed into a corner and people start pointing to this a FAQ-required post, he has no choice. It only gets worse when he gives an open response, something people can tweak to their regions, and then gets demands to drill down into exacting details.

Now we have a ruling, and people aren't happy with it. I'm 100% with Mike on this, because he was pretty much FORCED to make that response.

Yeah, if I handed my iPad to a GM and they dropped it, I would expect them to get me a new one. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people here would think the same, whether they admit it or not. That being said, if it's allowed for me to bring an electronic device to a game, and be able to show it to the GM in lieu of paper copies, then who does it fall on if something happens to the device? As the person with the device, I'd still say the person who drops/damages it. So all Mike is doing with this ruling is protecting his most dedicated volunteers.

Yes, the same logic applies to books, but a book is not a thing that costs hundreds of dollars...

I hope results like this can calm the storm of "OMG, I NEED AN 'OFFICIAL' RULING ON THIS NAOW!!!1!!!!!" and get us back to sensible people finding sensible solutions.

Except that without the official ruling, we were back in the "Of course you need a paper character sheet, you'll have to play a pregen", "No, of course there's no need for paper, just bring your tablet" days.

For all the fuss about not forcing Mike to make a ruling, people want to know they'll be allowed to play. If GMs can refuse to accept digital versions, that's a good thing to know officially.

Agreed. With only 8 days left until GenCon registration, people who are planning on spending large sums of money and vacation time need to know how to make sure they can play once they get there.

As additional note, however, I do want to apologize to Mike for being party to forcing an official ruling. Had I not felt the answer important, I wouldn't have.

[Philderbeast]

Michael Brock wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Michael Brock wrote:

Physical sheets are required.

To clarify:

Chronicle sheets, character sheets, or both?

Both

This euling would make every onlkne table of pfs an impossability as there is no way we can bring paper sheets/chonicals to these games.

[Michael Brock]

Another post removed. One more inflammatory post and we will go ahead and lock the thread.

[Quadstriker]

Philderbeast wrote:

This euling would make every onlkne table of pfs an impossability as there is no way we can bring paper sheets/chonicals to these games.

Webcam!

"Can you hold that sheet up to the camera for a second? A little to the left please."

[Christopher Rowe]

Philderbeast wrote:

This euling would make every onlkne table of pfs an impossability as there is no way we can bring paper sheets/chonicals to these games.

Sure we can. I played off a printed out Hero Lab sheet with supplemental notes in a Roll20 game just last night.

[Jim Cirillo]

I thought Mike Brock was joking with his first comment on this and then he doubled down. Broken tablets? That's the concern?

I think the incredibly small risk of a tablet getting cracked when a player shows a GM their character is worth the reward of how much hassle they save - especially at Cons. I'm hoping this is reconsidered.

[LazarX]

It's not a matter of a GM refusing to let someone use digital versions, but requiring a physical sheet for him to review if needed. That's an important distinction, Jeff.

[Michael Brock]

While we require that players have physical chronicle and character sheets, we want it to be as easy as possible for anyone to come to a PFS game and play Pathfinder! So if someone comes to your table without a printed character sheet, we strongly encourage you to find a way to include them in the game and then advise them of the rules for future games. We want everyone to feel welcome in our PFS community.

Another post removed. Topic is now locked.