Hero Cards

[Curufea]

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[The Main Man]

I have nothing useful to add for the moment, but I would like to say that I have been very interested in this idea for quite some time.

[lemming]

Microdots.

Fairly uncomplicated characters. 1st-3rd edition characters could fit on a 3x5 side with the pictures on the other, but later editions have gotten a bit heavy.

For non-Champions characters, easy enough since most of the special abilities like Double Tap and the like can be distilled in just the name and a reference sheet is all you need for details. Then you could have stats, skills and powers on one side. Small type, but it doesn't have to be that small.

[The Main Man]

Powers are probably the biggest hurdle, and thusly heroic characters probably are easier to put on cards.

[dmjalund]

perhaps give each power on its own card

[Ternaugh]

Here's a sample card (based on an old version I used for managing combats), and a blank card. These are actually on a 4"x6" card (with grids--mine's Office Depot item 677-413, which claims on their website to be discontinued, though Oxford/Esselite 02046 is a similar product), which gives a bit more room. Additionally, I'd be tempted to make a template in Word to print on blank stock (I haven't yet), and 4"x6" is the smallest card size that will go through my printer. These are based on 5e, but could be modified for 6e with very little work. Since I mainly play heroic, they use the conventions for those. Oh, and skills, long-form powers, and stuff would be written on the back. The front's mainly for combat/quick reference.

I've designed the cards so that the GM can lay copies of them over each other, with just the rightmost edge showing. This allows a quick view of the active Phases, as well as the DEX value for dealing with ties. If you use a different Characteristic for ties, you can place these on this edge, as well. I found that I could quickly group the cards by phase, and reorder by DEX while calling out the various Phases. The only downside is that it does require a bit of extra space to lay out the cards. The sample character is a modified copy of a former PC from one of my FH games. I've included a wand, written up like a ranged weapon, as an example of a combat spell. In the notes, I've included casting time, as well as abbreviated notes for combat-related limitations.

For those folks who still don't think that it's big enough for their Champions characters, you could move up to the 5"x8" index cards.

JoeG

[concord]

Before I got a laptop, I used to use 4x6 and 5x8 cards to run my campaign. My traveling campaign resources consisted of 2 - 4x6 card boxes and 1 - 5x8 card box along with my books in a backpack.

The character card is from when I was using Fuzion, but it demonstrates how much space there is on a card for character info. I used regular 4x6 cards, printed on the blank 'back' and used the lined 'front' for notes. This was done with an Excel spreadsheet.

I used the 5x8 cards more recently after switching back to Hero System. The example is a combat card for the team versus some agents. This is an export from Hero Designer to HTML and then cleaned up in and printed from Excel.

Now that my laptop is giving me trouble, I might be moving back to cards until I can get the laptop fixed or replaced.

[RPMiller]

I wonder if a HD Export Format could be made that would work with some of the samples above...

[John Desmarais]

I wonder if a HD Export Format could be made that would work with some of the samples above...

Who knows. Maybe if someone who's got some experience building export templates had an interest...

Hmmm... I wonder who?

[concord]

There is an HD export template for the Combat Card example - I believe it is a 5E template and it is posted in the HD Forum... I don't think I ever uploaded it to the template site.

I have also updated it to 6E if anyone wants it...

As for a Character Card export template, it is something I thought about but never put together as I got my laptop and did not need to use cards anymore...

[Curufea]

I'm also interested in the possible use of iconography to replace lists of powers, advantages and disadvantages - making a character sheet more compact, and possibly faster/easier to read.

[The Main Man]

I'm also interested in the possible use of iconography to replace lists of powers, advantages and disadvantages - making a character sheet more compact, and possibly faster/easier to read.

There's a thought.

Color codes as well.

[Curufea]

Colours could be used for the special effects of a power as well as the elements within it.

[RPMiller]

I heard last night, that some guy is actually making some good progress toward creating an Export Format using the examples above with a few modifications. I'm betting he would love to see some examples of color and iconography to make it even easier.

[Curufea]

It all comes down to taxonomy :)
The trick is to associate abstract shapes to the text in such a way that it is as close to intuitive as possible.
Strength to a fist, Int to a brain, ego to a silhouette.
It's trickier with the powers that are themselves even more abstract than characteristics.
Advantages and disadvantages would need to resort to literal representations of the word, rather than the context of how they are used.
I'll make up a list based on 6e for you.

[Curufea]

Hero Icon Charactersheet Schema-

Profile block
Some parts have to be text, but can be shortened:
Character Name (Alternate Identities separated by commas) Player Name - <Campaign Name> / Genre as a two letter code - Gamemaster
:: Date character was created :: Date character was last modifed
Description is free text of any length but should be limited to physical description - backgrounds and personality aren't relevant to this schema

Characteristics block
Characteristics are all contained in a square shape for ease of recognition. Figured characteristics have a plus symbol in the top left corner. Numbers are in the form of value/points(roll) where applicable.
STR - fist
DEX - open hand
CON - heart, anatomical
INT - brain, side view
EGO - silhouette containing a white question mark
PRE - full body silhouette in Hero system pose (ie like the watermark in the hit location chart)
OCV - sword
DCV - shield
OMCV - Eye of Horus
DMCV - black filled
SPD - clock face
PD - brick wall filled
ED - white filled
REC - first aid cross
END - silhouette of head surrounded by radiating stylised drops of water
BODY - stylised drops of blood
STUN - question marks in an arc arrangement

Skills/Talents/Perks block
Items in this block are in rectangular containers. Skills have a semicircle on the top right and bottom left corner. Talents have a thickened (bold) top line. Numbers are in the form of cost(roll) where applicable.
Skill levels are denoted by filling the container: Familiarity = white fills, Proficiency = left semicircle black filled, Competent = rectangle black filled (inverse text), Skilled = right semicircle black filled, Very Skilled = as Proficient+Skilled, Highly Skilled = as Proficient+Competent, Extremely Skilled = Competent+Skilled , Incredibly Skilled = all filled with inverse text. Skill levels in between can be shown with a half fill to the next level.
e.g. Acrobat familiarity =
http://www.curufea.com/hero/lib/exe/fetch.php/characters:acrobat_fam.gif

Powers and Equipment block
Items in this block are in tablet containers (rectangles with circular ends). Advantages are in circles. Disadvantages are in triangles. The strength of a power, advantage or disadvantage is denoted with additions to the container (similar to unit sizes in military symbols). Numbers are in the form of cost(roll) where applicable. Endurance use is represented with stylised drops of water (ie black teardrops) using base 5 (ie a different symbol, say a white filled teardrop could represent 5 End)
If you decide to put everything inside a tablet container (the power icons and advantages/disads) you will end up with something similar to an ancient Egyptian name in style - a cartouche.

Complications block
Items in this block do not have containers and therefore no set outline. The strength of the complication is denoted by repeating the symbol (taking up more space that way and being more important). Numbers are in the form of cost(roll) where applicable.

[Curufea]

The astute amongst you may have noticed I used the gymnast symbol from the Beijing Olympics :) Anyhow, I'm going to develop this idea some more on my own wiki. You can follow it over here-
http://www.curufea.com/hero/doku.php/characters:iconsheet:start

Also I'm modifying skill icons to include the characteristic they are derived from.

[The Main Man]

It all comes down to taxonomy :)
The trick is to associate abstract shapes to the text in such a way that it is as close to intuitive as possible.
Strength to a fist, Int to a brain, ego to a silhouette.
It's trickier with the powers that are themselves even more abstract than characteristics.
Advantages and disadvantages would need to resort to literal representations of the word, rather than the context of how they are used.
I'll make up a list based on 6e for you.

Well for one thing we already know the characteristic order so that helps with the memorization of symbols.

[Curufea]

True

[dmjalund]

I would put a maze in a human head silhouette to represent MDCV

[RPMiller]

Hm... Thanks to Curufea's development, this may be even easier than I... er... than that guy thought. Thanks Curufea, and definitely have some rep! Hopefully we'll see a beta Export Format sometime this weekend, assuming that that guy uses his time wisely.

[Curufea]

I would put a maze in a human head silhouette to represent MDCV

I thought that a "blank blackness" would better represent a mental defence - it also ties in with the other "filled" icons for defence - energy being white (most reflective), brick for physical - and while the shield isn't a fill, it has a lot of whitespace in it.

Also I've used the human head twice in other icons.

[Curufea]

Hopefully we'll see a beta Export Format sometime this weekend, assuming that that guy uses his time wisely.
re: export format
It's entirely doable if you export as HTML and use DIV and layers (z-index) to compile together complex symbols from simple pictures. E.G. by putting the symbol of the skill and the numbers on top of the container image.

I'll write you an example markup on my wiki to have a look at.

[RPMiller]

I prefer RTF, as you know. ;)

[Curufea]

I'm not familiar with the standard enough to know if layeriing is possible when it embeds images. What you could do though is create a number of combinations and refer to those when compiling the RTF. Alternatively, rather than large numbers of combination icons - you could have the export format create a list, and you do those symbols separately so it becomes a 3 stage process - list of icons, make icons, create RTF with those.

Another possibility is SVG creation although it means converting everything to vector.

[John Desmarais]

re: export format
It's entirely doable if you export as HTML and use DIV and layers (z-index) to compile together complex symbols from simple pictures. E.G. by putting the symbol of the skill and the numbers on top of the container image.

I'll write you an example markup on my wiki to have a look at.


I prefer RTF, as you know. ;)


Maybe we can haz two export templates? An RTF one and an HTML one? :whistle:

[RPMiller]

I'm not familiar with the standard enough to know if layeriing is possible when it embeds images.

If you look at my Export Formats, all the images you see are in fact embedded in the code. Layering is also possible, but it gets a little tricky with text placement as far as having it show up in exactly the correct place over an image; however, I like a good challenge. :D

[RPMiller]

Maybe we can haz two export templates? An RTF one and an HTML one? :whistle:

I would suspect that that will be a reality.

[Curufea]

If you look at my Export Formats, all the images you see are in fact embedded in the code. Layering is also possible, but it gets a little tricky with text placement as far as having it show up in exactly the correct place over an image; however, I like a good challenge. :D

Sadly I've not touched the designer in over a year as I've not played Hero in over 3 years - so I've not looked at any export formats for a very long time.

But it may be okay to have a very large range of icons to choose from in that case, and the values and text outside of the icon.

[Curufea]

A note on this - I've done some mockups of the work in progress for a character sheet, based on the one in the rulebook. The style here is "icon+text" for clarity and space. The style for a card would just be the icons and no text.
http://www.curufea.com/hero/lib/exe/fetch.php/characters:iconsheet:hics-front.png?w=200 (http://www.curufea.com/hero/lib/exe/detail.php/characters:iconsheet:hics-front.png?id=characters%3Aiconsheet%3Astart)http://www.curufea.com/hero/lib/exe/fetch.php/characters:iconsheet:hics-back.png?w=200 (http://www.curufea.com/hero/lib/exe/detail.php/characters:iconsheet:hics-back.png?id=characters%3Aiconsheet%3Astart)
I'll eventually convert the entire character sheet when I have time.

[concord]

6E Combat Card Export Template

As per a request from william_nova

remove .txt file extension to use...

[william_nova]

Many thanks!!