I was asked to come over here and explain why I prefer the minimalist sheet over this sheet. This sheet is not a bad sheet and has many of the features I would like that aren’t in the minimalist one (for example, an active creator)! But, still I use it over this one because it is visually better and easier to use.
We’ll start at the top bar of sliders, while extremely helpful at times, it shoves everything down from when you initially open the sheet. It also shares no similar appearance to the rest of the sheet, which makes it stand out, which is somewhat good. Could this not be hidden when you click the gear, which as far as I am aware, doesn’t do anything?
Second thing, Layout. For some reason, if you drag the edge of the sheet, instead of everything staying centered or evened out, some items lock to the left side, some reorganize themselves so there is now 4 per row instead of 3, and others just stay in the center. I suggest finding what you want to be the default, and setting all of them to that one. Furthermore, Feats and Perks are offset from everything else, placed so that they are forced to go as long as possible and halfway through Favored Actions to the other half of Other Actions, as if laying bricks. As I understand it, you are working on remedying this last one. And in order to fit the 3 line system you have going for the top, I would suggest putting the Inventory right next to them and making it be a repeated section, like Feats, Perks, and Actions. I understand that we can only have twenty items of inventory, but not always do I want 20 items of inventory to have to see.
Third thing, appearance. I understand what you were going for appearance wise, mimicking the sheet from the PDF, but there are some problems with doing this layout. For one, wasting space as most of these designs take up inches of space that could be used to consolidate space and make scrolling easier. Second, it sets a theme in a game not meant to be theme locked. It feels either pirate or medieval and I’m not sure which. But it doesn’t fit for Modern or sci-fi. Third, not all your text fits in the boxes well enough. Toughness clips the edges for me, as well as several text boxes in actions, feats, perks, and inventory. Fourth, random colors. We have a mostly grey and colorless sheet, but there are a few colors thrown in. We have the green at the top for when things are on, but the off is grey. The teal-ish blue color over the top of favored actions, feats, perks, and flaws. It stands out, but not in a nice and gentle way.
Fourth major thing. The gears. The only ones with any meaningful use are the ones next to attributes. The gear at the top seemingly does nothing. The one next to init hides the attribute and advantage/disadvantage, but doesn’t actually shrink the length as while Wealth moves up, everything else recognizes that space is something there and leaves the same amount of space blank as if you had it open anyways. For Favored Actions, it works and I like it. Feats and Perks, it makes it seem like settings, not expanding it so you can see the description of the ability. It’s not often I need to roll those or push them out for the GM (though not necessary to remove the feature, a more appropriate button might make sense for them).
I hope this helps and explains some of the reasons why I prefer one sheet over the other. I’m not trying to be rude, and I know you’ve put a lot of time and effort into this sheet. Which I am sure I speak for most people here when I say Thank You for doing that.
Other suggestions:
- Would be nice if the sheet auto-calculated Attribute and Feat Points (As this is based on XP)
- Removing the white background around the roll template, I use a plugin to help me know when different people talk by changing the background color. Makes the white border extremely noticeable.
- A link on the sheet that can take you to the discussion here. Like “For questions, ideas, or complaints, please go to [link] to let us know!”