Character Sheet 2.0 Discussion

[WesWedding]

@tokeidlom has done some work thinking about what a new character sheet could look like; trying to support new features is really stretching the limits of the current sheet layouts. The necessity for a possible redesign became really apparent when it came to trying to fit in all the extra Klingon fields about a Klingon's House.

It's a pretty substantial change, though, so I thought bringing it to a new thread is probably worthwhile. Perhaps we can get some feedback from users to consider before committing down a path?

          Alternatively there is another path we could take (these are a basic mock up as a proof on concept, not a finished product), I would need to know if this is a route we wanted to take before sinking more time into this as it'll be a massive job!

Originally posted by @tokeidlom in https://github.com/mkscho63/sta/issues/160#issuecomment-2405520351

[WesWedding]

Maybe we can add a one-time popup to the system that links to this thread so we can get more eyes and opinions to consider. I've seen other systems pop up windows on first install, or after updates.

[tokeidlom]

For comparison the other option currently on the table would be to add the extra rows to the top of the existing character sheet. They will be controlled by a system setting so you can have the sheet as it currently is, or, have these extra added.

[mkscho63]

Honestly I always wanted to move to a tabbed design at some point in the future but when originally implementing I couldn’t get it looking a way I was happy. I’d be in favor of a new design. That being said I like having Star Trek styling like it has currently so whatever we went with I'd like to keep it thematic to the system.

[lwd-hollis]

+1 vote for moving to a tabbed design.

[MrNightwood]

I'm not a huge fan of the tabs as proposed above. That would necessitate a lot more clicking around during play to check talents and focuses, or to roll a weapon, which would slow things down just enough to get annoying, whereas right now everything important to actual gameplay is already right there on the page.

As it stands, I prefer Calin's proposal where the extra options are added to the top. It might be a bit less organized, but in my opinion it would be more ergonomic, and quite frankly I prefer the original layout from a visual standpoint as well, it feels more "Star Trek" to me.

One potential option might be to borrow the idea of tabs and move it to the top, allowing the display of lifepath information to be flipped to the Klingon House information, should the sheet setting be toggled to add the option. That way the information could be added to the top without oversizing that section of the sheet, while retaining the original layout for the important gameplay mechanics below.

[tokeidlom]

Something like that would be achievable, quickly mocked up looks like this (would need to work on the tab button styling as its currently HUGE):

[WesWedding]

I do have to say that I find having the equipment and focus, values, etc on different tabs to be a little annoying myself in STA Enhanced. Especially if I'm trying to manage combat or equipment-focused tasks with many NPCs, I can get momentarily confused or miss details, so I've been reconsidering how to organize the sheets over there to make that easier.

I like the idea of smaller sub-sections being swappable in the input-abundant upper half of the sheet, but the tab buttons will need to have some careful styling to be sure. I couldn't even figure out where they were in the mockups for quite a while.

[mikira7]

I think a tab design is the way to go for the future of the system, though one thing I would like to see personally is moving traits to be item based or maybe combined with the Injury section on the character sheet for ease in implementing. Along with moving trait section into the Values, Talents, etc... tab; since that would be the tab that would be open the most of the time for quick glancing at before making a roll. If that is something you guys wish to undertake when doing this character sheet revamp.

Mainly this is more of a reflection of how 2nd Edition works and how it can increase or decease in potency and their effect on the injury and starship damage gameplay. (Even though this is somewhat the same in First Edition, but is just glossed over and the trait potency system just not covered very well. pg. 76 in the 1e core book if you wanna double check.)

I've just noticed in both running and playing in 2e how the character sheets sometimes with just writing them in tends to gets too cluttered at times. And somewhat slows gameplay down, and generally I believe would make for better ease of use, etc...

[WesWedding]

@mikira7 You've made some good points about Traits that I moved off into its own issue. I personally am constantly struggling to come up with a good method to keep track of traits in my weekly GMing.