Most gaming systems require players to fill out complex character sheets, complete with statistics on strength, speed, power of weapons, dexterity, health and more. They’re full of dots or numbers, usually involve math, and only sketchily cover character concept and background.

The reason for character stat sheets is that as the game unfolds and characters become involved in conflicts, there comes a point where skills and stats can’t be guessed at. Dice rolls are required to know if the blow aimed at the supernatural force causes damage, or the punch in the bar brawl lands right in the eye, or the lock the character is trying to pick opens.

A stat sheet helps guide character actions and outcomes. It determines the number of dice to roll based on the combination of strengths of various skills and character attributes that character has. It tells players how many dice to roll, and what number they have to beat to succeed in their desired outcome.

Basically, stat sheets help determine whether a character succeeds or fails in his or her attempted action.

What Are Dots?

The basic World of Darkness character sheet uses dots, not numbers – the more dots, the better. The WoD gaming system also uses a “D10″ gaming system, which means that all dice rolls use ten-sided die.

Each dot you’ve marked on a character sheet equals one die. So, if you had 3 dots in Composure and 3 dots in Resolve, you’d have a total of 6 dice to roll. The more dice, the better chance your character has of success in action.

Dots also function as a rating system for various attributes, skills, merits and flaws. Think of them as a rating system, like a five-star restaurant or a three-star movie. One dot is okay, five is tops.

If your character has one dot in the skill of computers, for example, he or she has a basic knowledge of computer use. Two to three dots indicates strong working knowledge. Four or five dots gets into the expert range, where the character could possibly be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs – or hack into governmental agency records.

The Difference Between Online and Offline

In an offline tabletop game, action is the focus, not character development. Stat sheets are a must to have the game progress properly and give Storytellers a good idea what characters are capable of.

At Escaping Reality , we ask players to build characters a different way. Complex stat sheets aren’t important to fill out right away – we suggest players do so only after playing for a while and once they’ve gotten to know their characters well.

By experience, we’ve found that new characters change and develop differently from what the original concept suggested. Players start with an idea for their character concept, but once their character is acting of its own will in the game, developing on-screen, he or she tends to turn out quite different than originally intended.

That means that if a player had filled out a character sheet, it now needs to be redone completely. The original stats don’t fit at all. Maybe the character doesn’t have such strong composure as originally thought, or maybe he’s wittier or has stronger stamina.

Action and conflicts aren’t as frequent in a creative writing rpg either, nor are they usually part of the introductory phase of a character’s development. The player has enough to think about while getting used to a creative writing game and learning to interact with others. Tossing in stats just adds confusion.

Once a player becomes more familiar with the character, he or she has a clearer vision and can fill out a stat sheet more realistically. It can even be fun to fill in the sheet, giving a clear portrait of the character’s abilities and skills or his merits and flaws.

Stay tuned for our next post, where I’ll cover the various sections of a World of Darkness Character Sheet and explain what each section covers and how to fill it in properly for a human character.