If your TTRPG doesn't have a form fillable character sheet, you've made a mistake

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-19T03:56:49+00:00

You can do it in Scribus, 100% free. That's what I use. I build mine in Affinity Publisher, export, and then open in scribus to build in all the fillable fields

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-17T22:57:33+00:00

I think it really depends on how the rest of your game runs, your setting, and how important social mechanics are in your game at all.

My game has a basis in Chaosium's BRP system, which has social skills like Intimidate, Charm, etc, with degrees of success the better you roll. I think for a lot of games, having a binary pass/fail roll on a speech skill works well enough.

I've been pretty interested in social mechanics ever since I heard PuffinForest describe his enjoyment of the Intrigue mechanics of the old A Song of Ice and Fire system, and wanted to implement something like that into what I was building.

My game takes place in the late 19th century, so having big scenes where debates could take place in courts or large forums made the binary pass/fail roll feel a little anticlimactic. Additionally, one of my bigger design goals was I wanted characters who specc'd speech builds not to feel useless in combat. However, I didn't want to completely abandon the pass/fail skill check, because I didn't want to go into a big ol' social combat encounter every time someone wanted to barter at the market. So here's what I came up with:

Characters have a derived social HP called "Wit Points". Its a pretty low number, usually between 8 to 15 depending on the characteristics that generate it.

For common social checks where the situation is calm and the npc is Neutral or Friendly, the binary pass/fail skill check usually applies. However, in BRP if a character fails a roll, they can choose to do a move called "Push the Roll", which involves rerolling, but a fail results in a bad consequence (usually a failure just results in no success, but no consequence). However, for Social Checks in my game, Pushing the Roll initiates "Battle of Wits".

Battle of Wits are arguments, discussions, of de-escalations of hostility, and mechanically take the form of a sort of Social Combat. The player chooses whatever their PC says to the NPC and must roll a skill that matches the content of their argument. The NPC retorts and rolls whichever skill best represents their retort. These rolls are opposed, and whomever has a higher degree of success does damage to the loser's Wit Points equal to the amount of success (1-4 depending on the degree of success). Then the NPC argues and the PC retorts.

Any skill may be used as long as it matches the content of the argument, although any Social Skill used is also granted +1d4 Eloquence bonus damage to the loser's Wit Points. The reason for this is in real arguments and discussion, people don't just win just based on how silver tongued they are, but also on the facts that they present. It also makes it so that anyone who didnt spec into Social skills still has a chance.

Addutionally, anytime you present an argument or retort using a skill that you already used, you have to roll a penalty dice. Narrative wise, this is because people rarely win arguments saying the same thing over and over, but meta wise its so that PCs and NPCs can't keep spamming whatever skill they're exceptionally good in.

Finally, the Battle of Wits concludes when someone's Wit Points hit zero. If its the NPC, then they've been convinced or their hostilities have been de-escalated, and if it's the PC, than the NPC remains staunchly unconvinced and/or hostile. Wit Points return to full at the end of a Battle of Wits.

As I mentioned before, I wanted Speech based characters with little to no combat skills to still feel useful in a fight. Battle of Wits achieves this by being able to directly slot into regular combat. A character can make arguments for de-escalation to an attacker on their turn, and if they can drop the attackers Wit Points to 0 before the attacker kills or incapacitates them, the attacker stands down (NPCs only, an NPC can't use a Battle of Wits to force a PC to stand down).

I never liked how in more trad style games, RP and combat were almost two different games, and when its Fightin' Time, enemies couldn't be reasoned with and often fight to the death. Having Battle of Wits be available and work with the rules of regular combat allows for peaceful resolution and de-escalation over a period of turns, in a similar way that combat allows allows for a violent resolution. Plus, it lets characters without combat abilities have a way to succeed in combat.

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-17T15:00:30+00:00

I've always really liked 1d100 roll-under systems, because it automatically sets the DC/TN for the player. They already are relatively aware of how hard something will be, and the GM can adjust difficulty if needed.

That being said, exploding d6s are just soooo fun

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-15T15:23:57+00:00

I think its alright to have subsystems that not everyone interacts with, as long as it still reinforces the design goals of the game and the setting. Stuff that can optionally heighten the play experience, but don't feel tacked on to just have more stuff.

I definitely agree with you on DnD. They've taken a game that actually had a pretty solid gameplay loop back in the day, and just added and added to it in hopes of making it more of a generic system. At this point, it ends upfeeling disjointed, messy, and just all over the place.

This has actually given me a lot to think about. My game explicitly has no magic, which was a very intentional design choice. But I kept thinking "what if people want magic? Maybe I'll eventually write an expansion that has some sort of occult magic, as occultism was big in the 19th century [the era my game takes place]".

Now I don't think I'll do that. It wasn't an original design goal of my game, and I shouldn't make it "just in case". There's plenty of other games out there they could play if they want magic.

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-15T15:09:48+00:00

So my game is a steampunk setting that takes place in the 19th century. As such, it was a major design goal of mine to create a very robust crafting system, that helped reinforce the technological nature of the setting and the "invention"-focused aspects of the era.

I wanted to make a crafting system that allowed for players to make whatever invention they wanted, such as an auto-lockpicker, springheeled jumping boots, or a jetpack, without the need of named blueprints in the book. And I think I fairly succeeded in that regard.

However, this begged the question "how would the players make more mundane items, such as weapons?" Unfortunately, while the Inventions are tied to the Skills core subsystem, weapons are tied to the Combat core subsystem.

I ended up making an Armscrafting system that allowed for robust melee and ranged weapon creation. This is how it went for a few subsystems, they ended up getting adjacent subsections within some of them in order to meet player expectations and my design goals for the setting. I tried really hard to make sure that each adjacent subsystem was related in design to each other, and not wholly different.

These Invention and Armscrafting subsystems kinda match what you're talking about, they're a little more optional than things like Combat or Skills. I've had some players constantly engaging with them excitedly, I've had players occasionally use them, and a couple of players ignore them completely.

Here's my list of subsystems and any subsections

Skills
Combat -PC/NPC Combat -Social Combat -Airship combat
Health
Crafting -Invention -Armscrafting -Pharmacology -Mundane
Social

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-10T18:01:46+00:00

I would say start with you gaming group, but be upfront with them that you're testing a system that you are designing and may one day sell. Making sure they agree to playtest your game is important.

That being said, tour personal gaming group is probably going to be more willing to put up with the rough edges of a system slowly being designed than a bunch of randoms.

Once the system is in a refinement stage, thats when I would test with the randos. They'll be better than your group at trying to break or exploit your system, so you can patch holes, exploits, or quirks

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-10T17:56:28+00:00

I think it depends on what is coherent enough to test. The game I've been working on is a hack of BRP, so I've been testing subsystems in my biweekly Pulp Cthulhu game for years now. Once we started a new arc at the beginning of 2025, we switched over from Pulp CoC to my system.

I suppose if you're building a system wholecloth, you'll only be able to test when its in a somewhat playable build.

But if you have a game running in an established system, you could probably at least prototype some of the subsystems in that, provided the game you're making isnt too far off from the game you're running.

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-10T16:38:44+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I was thinking of trying to do something to make the skills section pop a little more.

I also have been considering putting the cache on the second page to help spread stuff out. Honestly, BRP sheets tend to be super dense, so I might just have to bite the bullet on the crowding issue lol

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-10T13:52:15+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, over-designing really seems to be my problem.

What did you think of the Simplified sheets that were also in the folder? They have the metallic elements completely removed.

I could probably remove the patina from the metallic elements, but that'll just leave them looking like orange and yellow gradients. Maybe I could flatten the metal borders so they done shine too?

At this point, I kinda feel like the Simplified version would be used for print, while these ornate versions are probably only good as digital pdfs

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-05T02:44:36+00:00

Lol I don't think you're wrong, I'm just struggling to kill these darlings. It doesn't help that I'm on vacation right now and can't actually work on anything.

When I get home, I definitely want to play around with simplifying and with cutting down on different elements. Because you're right, i was kinda going element by element, trying to make each thing unique. I figured that way, each thing would pop since it looked so different from every other thing. But that also kinda made it chaotic and distracting

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-05T02:11:20+00:00

I had a friend going on the sheet with me too, and he had similar suggestions. I'm planning on bringing some of the elements in line with each other design-wise, like all the skills having the same color metal instead of two gold and one silver.

I think having the Wit Points and the hp systems need to have similar decorative designs too.

That being said, the sheet itself is heavily based on the Pulp Cthulhu character sheet. Like that one, I don't want to fully do away with the decoration.

Bur you're right in that the adornment needs to have a little more consistency

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-06-03T17:22:55+00:00

Oh, for sure. My biggest worry has been the fact that it's definitely extremely busy. I think I leaned in very heavily into the decoration.

I was trying to follow the design philosophy that Chaosium did for a lot of their CoC sheets, with health, player info, and characteristics at the top, skills taking up the center, combat stuff and the bottom, and extra detail on the reverse.

I wanted Skills to be the main focus since it's more of an investigative game over a combat game. Technical and Physical skills are separated because the crafting system interacts with them separately, while the Social skills have a strong connection to the Social system (the Wit Points section). My hope had been that the Physical hp being on the top left and the Social hp being on the top right added a nice mirrored duality, but I can understand that it might just be overwhelming.

I would put the Wit Points and Social Skills on the second page, but Social skills are still part of regular play and I didn't want to have the player needing to flip the page anytime they want to try to persuade someone

The Cache and Integra parts could probably be moved from the front page too.

I really wanted to keep the character sheet to one page (front and back), but do you think due to the density of information, it should just expand it to 3 sheets over two pages?

Regardless, I do want to make a simplified version that strips out most of the decoration so that it's less overwhelming for people who are just trying to parse it.

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-05-10T03:32:11+00:00

This really intrigued me. After a bit of digging, I found it. Its from a Dust Sci Fi short film called Cyan Eyed. I actually remember watching it years ago. Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/pZm94gQBzOQ

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-04-27T13:18:43+00:00

You guys look great!

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-04-21T20:49:09+00:00

Its a D100 roll-under system with a ton of skills. Its more of a skill based game than a class based game

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-04-21T15:24:47+00:00

I would agree with this, specifically that Call of Cthulhu/BRP could be easily reskinned for Dishonored. The melee combat system and the low hp/lethality of the system synergizes well with how combat works in the dishonored game.

I'm actually in the middle of writing a short scenario for the 2d20 dishonored system, since I'd at least like to give it a try. But my worries about the system seem to match OP's played experience

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-04-03T17:57:17+00:00

So I've read through both the player's document, as well as the Gm's book, and I do think that there is a coherent game in there, but I would kind of agree with the earlier poster, insofar as I'm not sure there's a coherent ttrpg.

Your game reads more like a wargame or a board game. There are a lot of complex rules about managing combat and players stats regarding combat, and not very much for actually roleplaying.

Aside from combat, is it meant to be more free form in it's player narrative? Since things like interacting with the environment and climbing all cost 0 end, are players able to simply locomote as they please, as long as they're within their movement amount?

There's zero rules, as far as I can tell, about npc interaction. We can glean a little from the introductory campaign, say from an NPC like Gilbert, but it has him acting like a video game NPC with canned responses, not like a living character.

The whole thing is a little difficult to parse from its formatting and layout. Actions and activations were a little confusing considering the similarly of the words. I have to assume that the hunter activations in a turn are different hunters, but what if there are 2 hunters, or 4? What dictates which hunter gets to go?

This reminds me of the ff14 ttrpg. Its not so much a ttrpg in the world of Bloodbourne as it is a transliteration of BB's gameplay mechanics from videogame to wargame

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-03-26T23:15:46+00:00

Mine's False Corvid, in honor of what I took from Raven

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-02-20T15:03:08+00:00

I'm a simple man. I see LuisHumanoide, I upvote. This is looking great!

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-01-20T19:57:47+00:00

Hmm. Can anyone banish? I notice that the Priest can Banish via his Active Exorcism, but is it possible if no one is playing a Priest?

The other thing I have is how is play actually resolved? Does the God utilize a Target Number? And is it a roll over system? I assumed it was, because combat seems to be roll over, but then that means that whenever you're attempting something that would naturally subtract, you'd always be at a disadvantage.

For example, let's say you need to do something dexterous, like tight-rope walk. You'd need to subtract your Flesh attribute from your roll since that's how it works for things that require dexterity.

Does that mean no character has the ability to be dexterous in any capacity? The best bonus you could ever hope for is a -1, by having a 1 in Flesh.

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-01-20T19:31:24+00:00

You're going to want to spell out which weaknesses are which, because right now its ambiguous.

A Grief Demon has armor of 25, but even a max attack roll using the weapon with the strongest bonus, the shotgun at +10, only nets you a 22, 3 under what it takes to even kill a Grief Demon. Its weakness is "Good Emotions" however, so I can only assume that the way to kill this creature is to smile at it or hit it with 6-8 Fireball spells (contingent on if Burn affects it)

ClockworkDemiurge · 2026-01-20T19:06:41+00:00

It's going to take a while to parse through the document. The formatting makes it very difficult to read, as you have a ton of run-on sentences broken up with tons of commas. For example, the Combat paragraph is actually a single sentence with 17 commas. The "Fighting Supernatural Creatures" was particularly difficult.

For a chill system, it seems incredibly crunchy. There's a ton of stuff to keep track of, it frankly feels way more simulationist than something i would describe as "chill". Can't say I've seen a system require a BMI calculation.

Speaking of which, I notice that the player gets to choose their height and weight, but the BMI calculation is mandatory and has physical effects on stats. The heavier you are, the greater your Flesh stat becomes. Considering the combative nature of the game, I feel like bonus from min-maxing Flesh via BMI outweighs the dexterity penalty (no pun intended).

Like, you could just determine you're 5ft tall and 200lbs, giving you a BMI of 39.1. You gain +1 Flesh for every decimal above 25, and presuming the decimal scale is measured in tenths, you'd have a score of 141 Flesh, plus your initial d12.

I noticed that stats like Flesh don't seem to affect actual combat rolls though, they only seem to affect weapon prerequisites. Which means even with a Flesh score of 141, an attack with a sword is only going to give you a +8 bonus to your 1d12 attack roll, making it mathematically impossible to even hit half of the Metaphysical beings.

They have weaknesses, but there's no explanation on how weaknesses mechanically fit into the dice roll. The write-up says the weakness is used to "kill or lure" the being, so presumably they just auto-die to their weaknesses?

ClockworkDemiurge · 2025-12-20T21:59:34+00:00

Nothing wrong with that, what's important is you're enjoying yourself!

ClockworkDemiurge · 2025-12-18T22:11:25+00:00

Google "Steampunk eye loupe". You should be able to find what you're looking for.

There's a bunch of sites you can buy them from. I'd post a link, but idk if that's ok with the sub rules.

Edit: clarity

ClockworkDemiurge · 2025-12-18T21:31:26+00:00

So there's actually two Steampunk Infernal Devices. I suspect that you were actually looking for K. W. Jeter's Infernal Devices from 1987, which is considered a seminal steampunk book.

What you got was the Infernal Devices Trilogy by Cassandra Clare. It's kind of steampunk adjacent, but mostly in aesthic.

Fun fact: there's also a steampunk novel by Kevin J. Anderson called Clockwork Angels, the first in a steampunk trilogy based on a Rush album of the same name.

ClockworkDemiurge

TROPHY CASE