Extensive Character Sheets Are GM Oppression

PC: I look at the broken wain. Fixing it should be easy. It clearly just needs to have some parts nailed back in place, reset this brace, and a support put here.

GM: Um, are you a wizard or a wainwright?

PC: Wizard. But my Mental score is 15. I can figure things out.

Who was I to tell the PC he's wrong? It's not my character. That's a GM's dilemma, right? None of the PCs are our characters. So I can't say something like, "sorry, you spent your whole youth locked up in a cell, with only spellbooks, food, and a chamber pot going in and out." Maybe his mother was a wainwright. Maybe he actually learned to be a wizard on a magic truck (see: food truck). I don't know. Not my character.

That says to me that the character sheet is the PC's, too. Sure, it has to bear some rules. But the player makes the decisions. My PCs use sheets that are mostly white space - write your own concept. Write your own hero points. Write your own (non-magical) gear.* Flaws. Skills. Your name (okay, that's a gimme).

So, what about these sheets that are covered, top to bottom, with references to the rule book? Where's the PC freedom? "I know how to fix wains." Okay, let me see your character sheet. Hmm. Your Crafting is zero, it says here. Sorry, not sorry. "But my Int is 15!" Okay, but your Background, Page, doesn't mention anything about wains. Being a wainwright takes Strength, and yours is 10 (wow, that's low!).

Do some character sheets need to give the PC a bit more freedom? What does it say about restrictions when page 1 of a character sheet (sometimes we have to number the pages) is entirely covered with rules-references? Or is the highly detailed character sheet a source of creativity, clearly laying out all the options that the PC has? Please, discuss.

*Maybe magical gear should be fair game at the start. We know plenty of main characters who start with some magic. And it's not always a good thing...

This is always why I prefer lighter games to denser games. I tend to find the more rules there are, the more they get in the way of my imagination.

@GMMichael

This is one of the oldest, and greatest, debates in the TTRPG sphere, which I call "The Great Thief Debate."

The original hot D&D debate was about the introduction of the thief class. So, a quick bit of history. The thief class that we are familiar with first appeared in Great Plains Game Players Newsletter #9 written by Gygax prior to OD&D (Greyhawk). It used percentiles for its abilities in both.

It was "borrowed" from Gary Switzer (Aero Games). The original thief used an MU chassis and had thief abilities that could be invoked like spells.

That is the thief that eventually ended up in AD&D (and B/X). But technically, not the first thief. The first thief was McDuck, in the Arneson campaign. But the original thief, McDuck (played by Dave Megarry in Arnesons's pre-D&D campaign) didn't have "thief skills," they just did "thief stuff."

The reason for the initial controversy over the Thief class was that it made certain abilities ... like hiding in shadows and climbing walls and listening at doors ... enumerated and specific abilities within a particular class. For many players, this was an encroachment on the Arnesonian space- these were all abilities that any character, from Fighter to Magic User, should be able to do! In effect, by codifying abilities to a certain class (expressing them as thief abilities), the game system was also excluding those abilities to others.

It's an eternal and evergreen debate. Does codifying help, because it provides certainty to the player? Or does codifying hurt, because it necessarily means that without the express ability, you can no longer do it, thereby limiting players?

I don't think that there is a right or wrong answer, but there are preferences. I would say that rules-lite games tend to go toward one end, whereas games like D&D 3e and 4e tend to the other.

ETA- in D&D terms, I tend to refer to the open and non-codified space for players as "Arnesonian negative space," while I suppose you could refer to the explicit codification as "Gygaxian rules space." But that jargon, and ten dollars, will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

In 5e, isn't this really just the difference between an attribute check and a check with proficiency? If the wizard isn't proficient with the correct tools for the craft, they just make a straight up stat check that the DM picks. Maybe you have them dope out the solution with an intelligence check, but maybe you require a strength check to actually effect the repair. The situation seems covered.

The question for other games doesn't seem that far afield of 5e's solution. Is there something absolutely preventing someone from fixing a wagon in the rules of the game? My guess is no - for most situations. Just lack of particular skill to excel at it. And plenty of games already have rules for making unskilled checks.

You know those restaurants that have you pencil in your order? I'm thinking of the conveyer belt sushi type places or some old diners.

Imagine if a character sheet was presented like one of those tickets/menus, where it's transparently set up for the player to ask for what they'd like to see in the game.

It wouldn't fit aesthetically and it's kinda blatant, but it would cut through the illusionism to the heart of what a character sheet means.

I am going to push back on the idea that a high Int lets you just figure out how to do stuff. I know plenty of engineers and doctors that couldn't build a decent bird house. I know plenty of construction workers that don't know calculous but can make sure a building goes up plumb.

The character sheet tells you what you need to know about the character in the context of the game system. the blank spaces might offer "freedom" for details, but they don't offer an endless list of unspecified skills and abilities. Why stop at being a wainwright. Why not an alchemist or a dragon rider or a dreamwalker? Because what is on your sheet tells you what you can do as it relates to the system.

Some games like Fate are built to give you freedom on the sheet, but they still limit you to what you end up writing down. You can't just assume you have a previously unstated Aspect "Raised a wainwright" because it might be convenient at the moment.

Reading the example you read felt a lot more a question about player authorial control than codified skills - the player was making a statement through the character about the difficulty of fixing the wain. I'm not bringing that up to divert the conversation, but to ask if that is also a facet of the bigger picture of what issue you have with this, perhaps unrealized.

When we started playing 3ed, my long-time AD&D 2nd ed DM talked about how it took so much power from the DM because it had rules for everything as opposed to the DM setting difficulties, making rulings, etc. As primarily a player back then I disagreed - it allowed the players to understand the "physics" of the world and be able to plan. Now, I look at the AD&D 2ed -> 3ed as a reduction of "Mother May I" to the DM that was common in early D&D.

While "Mother May I" has a negative connotation, at this point in my gaming life I am not a fan of where 3.x ended up in these regards. First it introduced simulation rules over many (many!) books, slowing sessions. "I know there were specific rules about fighting waist deep in water! Where are they!". Second is codifying to specific abilities or more likely feats things that everyone could try before that, what Snarf called the Thief Problem. (And it was cool hearing that bit of history.)

As much as I enjoy crunchy games like Battletech, at this point in terms of RPGs I like lighter, more narrative games in terms of rules, so I guess I am in agreement with GMMichael.

Though my reaction to his particular example while GMing a crunchier game would be: "Okay, you think you know the solution. Do you want to implement it and we can roll, or get a second opinion?" The character's abilities are the floor of how competent they are, but in this case pronouncing it easy didn't move that needle nor change the difficulty, and they are good at mentally figuring things out but don't have any training in this particular skill to know what they don't know which is a key of making assessments, nor have the physicality to carry through well on it.

As a GM I am not a fan of saying "No, you can't do that" to my players. They will always have the opportunity to try and roll for it.

In the specific example given I assume that Intellect is just describing Education and would say that his character would have disadvantage, or merely have a low score because he has low strength on Operate Heavy Machinery or Craft or which ever skill is appropriate for this given the system. A wizard is usually not going to be very handy.

On the other hand if he were to use his Education to try and reason how the whole thing goes together to assist another character in their task. Mostly because I like it when characters have to work together.

Another option, particularly early in a campaign would be to say that the player can describe some of their background of being the son or daughter of a wainwright, filling in backstory where non existed before. It would be a fun and flavorful interlude and help flesh out the character as somebody that exists in the setting.

So I guess my answer is that I like things to be on the sheet because it gives boundaries that players can use to get ideas on how to solve problems but also limitations that we try and work with. Importantly to this is, as a GM, being flexible and working with players to give them options to solve the problem, not just hinderances to frustrate them.

^2

These old blog posts seem relevant to this thread:

GMMichael said:

So, what about these sheets that are covered, top to bottom, with references to the rule book? Where's the PC freedom? "I know how to fix wains." Okay, let me see your character sheet. Hmm. Your Crafting is zero, it says here. Sorry, not sorry. "But my Int is 15!" Okay, but your Background, Page, doesn't mention anything about wains. Being a wainwright takes Strength, and yours is 10 (wow, that's low!).

Do some character sheets need to give the PC a bit more freedom? What does it say about restrictions when page 1 of a character sheet (sometimes we have to number the pages) is entirely covered with rules-references?

Click to expand...

If referring to the rules entails that players can't declare the actions for their PCs that they would like to declare, then we have bad rules.

Character sheet design can't cover up a bad system of rules.

I think it is important to acknowledge that the thing the player wants to.do might not be possible. Maybe the character lacks essential specialized knowledge. Maybe they lack essential specialized tools. Maybe there isn't time or materials. Maybe the very physics or rules of magic of the world mean it can't happen.

Players can declare an attempt at anything, but sometimes the answer is automatic failure.