I've been making character sheets for various roleplaying games over the past few years, and I've gotten pretty fucking good at it. I've got everything from small, simple, sheets...
...to complex beasts with clocks that tick and self-populating sections that pull from numbers you put in specific boxes.
I've got big, trad-like games with lots of pieces...
...and more abstract story-games.
And I include more than just character sheets! I include mission clocks, world-building tools...
... and safety sheets with a list of common safety tools!
So check out my play-kits - you might find that game you want to play just a little bit easier to do!
On the Conventions of Genre: Protect the Child and Hopeful Storytelling.
You might put them in the wrong dimension or have to talk them down after a nightmare, but at the end of the day... The Kid is going to be Okay.
The following is my first attempt to talk about a concept I hope to communicate in my tabletop roleplaying game Protect the Child, but might be helpful for other tabletop games as well.
In the Romance genre, there are a number of tried-and-true conventions that aficionados have come to expect and enjoy. One of the most important conventions is that of the Happily Ever After. The relationship of the couple is strained, put at stake, but a well-versed audience knows that by the end of the story, love will win out. Heated Rivalry & Bridgerton are two of the most mainstream, iconic representations of this - and due to their launch into the mainstream, are introducing new audiences to these conventions.
Ice Age. Monsters Inc. Star Wars: Bad Batch. Nimona, The Mandalorian, Tokyo Godfathers. If you look close enough, Lion King 1 & 1/2. These are not romance movies, but they share certain conventions within their own genre, a mix of "lone wolf & cub" and "found-family" tropes. Protect the Child draws from these genres in a couple of ways, especially in how the playbooks are constructed: the characters are jaded, hurt and emotionally-stunted, with arcs that are meant to propel them upward as you play. The Child is special and carries within them a special power that both gives them autonomy and puts a large target on their back. Their mechanics are meant to represent how children learn various lessons from the adults in their life, often not exactly the lessons that those parents hoped to impart. The Child in these stories also manages to teach their guardians something about themselves that previously went unaddressed.
But there's another trope in these stories that can be harder to communicate in a roleplaying game without stating it plainly to you, before you sit down and play this game. It is this:
The Kid is going to be Okay.
The thing about genre is that it isn't just storytelling's shorthand; it's also a tool for talking about concepts that are incredibly important to us as people. Science-fiction is a medium that places incredibly complex modern problems in a setting that is divorced enough from reality to allow us to engage with these problems without making them feel too personal. Romance is a fantasy that can allow its participants to communicate about the needs and desires they have surrounding intimacy, vulnerability and power. Protect the Child, and the media that inspired it, is a fantasy of its own, and (if you let it), it can be about something that is in its own way, incredibly complex and vulnerable - your childhood.
Genres also have tropes and patterns that allow you to enjoy the story, even if you're familiar with them; just because you know the ending will be happy doesn't mean that the journey to get there isn't worth watching. The formula doesn't take away from the value of the story; we draw value from how the storyteller works within it.
When picking up games similar in style to Protect the Child, an oft-repeated mantra is that you are playing "to find out." This is what makes roleplaying games as a hobby distinct from media such as movies and television. You sit down to discover the story as you go along, and even in games that are steeped in genre, like Brindlewood Bay, MASKS, and Slugblaster, the end is not written before you reach it. The joy of the experience is telling the story as you make it up.
To some extent in Protect the Child, this is true. However, before you start playing, it is very important that you recognize that you are not playing to find out if the Child is going to survive The Horrors; instead, you are playing to find out how the Child survives. Your Child is going to doubt themself; they are going to rush into danger, get mixed up in complicated situations, and get their heart broken. But at the end of the story…
…the Kid is going to be Okay.
Character bleed is a common accessory to roleplay; pieces of our characters seep into us, and pieces of us leech into our characters. There are a number of opportunities hidden underneath the dice rolls and downtime scenes to plant a minefield of moments that are close to home. I don't think this is a bad thing. There are plenty of instances in which I have rejoiced that this in fact, happens. At the same time, I think it's an incredibly vulnerable thing, and as a result, it's important to be prepared for that possibility.
Part of this preparation exists in the conversation you have during your Session Zero. This conversation should go over the Concept, Aim, Tone & Subject Matter of your version of Protect the Child. What do you want the story to be about? What kinds of outcomes are you hoping to see as you play? What real-world topics might show up as you play, and how do you want to navigate them?
In Lily's Angels you might touch on transphobia, religious trauma, or police violence. In Digital Glitch you might talk about ownership, medical debt, or disability. Your Session Zero is a chance to outline your boundaries on these topics, and make decisions about how they are going to be portrayed and how these elements might affect your characters.
When it comes to the kids in these settings, you as a table should affirm that the threat of harm will likely saturate the background of the story, but it will never actually come to the fore-front. The cops might chase you, but they'll never actually get a chance to hurt Lily. The shady laboratory might imply with their needles or Bunsen burners, but you will always be able to prevent them from putting Nova on the operating table. When you fail, the adults could get hurt, the Child might learn the wrong lesson, or perhaps a relationship is strained… but any threat that is too close to home can be averted.
The Kid is going to be Okay.
The danger in this scene is present, but we know that at the end, the kid is going to be fine.
Protect the Child is, in part for all of those kids I know that did not get a happy childhood. But this game is not meant to be a memorial; it is meant to be a gift. It is a chance for us to give the Child a safe and stable family that assures them that they are loved, and in turn, it gives us a chance to help ourselves conceptualize a family that we very much deserve. It is a game of danger and heartbreak and struggle, but it is also meant to be a hopeful story. It is a chance to give the storytellers and the audience the ending that they wanted.
Regardless of whether or not the game you are playing is Protect the Child, having these conversations before you start play gives you the ability to dive in deeper & closer to personal vulnerabilities with the assurance that your companions aren't trying to be malicious. This concept isn't new to the scene; I highly recommend reading about Meguey Baker's philosophy of I Will Not Abandon You Does Not Equal Nobody Gets Hurt, and the linked description of PH Lee's Luxton Technique. And the next time you sit down to play, consider making sure that everyone at your table knows what genre you're playing in, and what kinds of beats everyone can expect to see within that genre.
Also… maybe try out Protect the Child? I promise you, the Kid is going to be Okay.
Kids on Bikes is a game by Hunters Entertainment, about kids solving mysteries in a small town full of big mysteries. The 2nd edition is out, and I've made some character sheets for them!
Hunters Entertainment has some pretty strict copyright on stuff inside their books, so I included only information that is available on their publicly available character sheets. However, I've included the steps of character creation on the World & GM Sheet, and there is space for GMs who have the book to add their own material on the Dice tab!
And of course, I've also included a standard safety tools tab!
You can check out this play-kit here, or you can take a look at my full public library!
If you want to commission a custom play-kit for yourself, check out my Google Sheets Commission page, where I have a range of options and prices to fit your needs!
Hey! You might have heard of Monster of the Week - the dark supernatural game of hunting monsters, inspired by media like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Supernatural.
I just made a Playkit for it!
My Google Sheets have a tab with common safety tools, a page for moves (with a sheet directory), and a character tab for every character option in the main book, as well as a few extras!
You can check this sheet out here, and you can take a look at my full public directory of character sheets at the link below!
Clicky.
Finally, if you want a Google Sheets play-kit for your own game, you can check out my commissions page!
For those unfamiliar with the game, MASKS: A New Generation is a PbtA game published by Magpie Games, about young superheroes trying to figure out their identity while also keeping their city safe.
I've finally updated my MASKS playbooks! I think I've got some beautiful Google Sheets for this well-loved game, and I think you should check them out!
Each playbook has the information any player needs to start putting together a wet mess of a teenager.
I've included my standard Safety Tools Sheet, but I've also included a version of the Palette Grid, for tables who prefer this safety tool! Now you have more options than ever for ways to talk about content at your table.
I've also included a Basic Moves breakdown, with links to each of the playbooks on offer, for quick navigation, and as a rules reference.
You can check out my MASKS play-kit here, and you can click on the link below to see my full library of play-kits.
Clicky.
I did this one for fun, but I also do play-kit commissions? Is there a game that you want to be able to play online? Check out my commissions sheet! I'm pretty proud of the work that I do, and I'd love to do it for your game.
I just released my campaign outline for the Maple Jam! CAMPAIGN.FRAME is a multi-ttrpg campaign designed for online and forum play. Play as residents of a video game console learning about who they are by jumping into various video games and trying to protect their home city, COMMAND.COM.
This game also has a Google Sheets playkit for you to log your character details as you play.
FIST is a tabletop roleplaying game about paranormal mercenaries, written by @claymorerpgs. A friend of mine was interested in running the game, so I put together a play-kit in the event that they managed to get a game up and running!
The game uses a rudimentary database to help you reference various character abilities, and also has instructions on how to expand your sheet should you level up more than what this sheet can hold.
It also has a page for some standard safety tools, as well as a link to the page where you can buy the game.
You can check out the playkit here! I also have an ever-growing library of playkits, which you can check out at the link below.
Clicky.
I also do playkit commissions! You can take a look at this sheet if you're interested in hiring me to make a digital character sheet for your ttrpg.
I've got another Google Sheets Playkit for folks, this time for Mothership!
Mothership is an OSR space-horror game by Tuesday Knight Games, and is inspired by movies like Alien. It has oodles and oodles of interesting modules for you to run for you crew, the most recent of which were submitted to the TripTech Game Jam back in May!
I tried to replicate the way the character sheet guides you through character creation, although I had to upload a second tab just to illustrate how the different skills are connected to each-other. I also included my typical Safety Tools Sheet, which has a link to the game and my bog-standard section of Lines, Veils & Lures!
You can check out the playbook here...
...and you can take a look at my entire playkit library at the link below!
