One of the obstacles to pick-up D&D is that you probably don't have your character sheet with you. Wouldn't it be nice if you could fit it in your wallet, along with your Monster Manual?
(high-quality printable version)
Business card back
(high-quality printable version)
Character sheet sizes have varied greatly, from the austerity of the one-page Basic character (with lots of whitespace) to the excesses of the four-page 3rd edition sheets. In fourth edition, the character sheet has shrunk from the original front-and-back version to the delightful one-page Essentials sheet, which now has 12 lines for "Powers and Feats", enough for any character as long as they're level 1.
Character Sheet on a Business Card: My 2 x 3.5-inch character sheet has pretty much everything the official D&D one has, but it's dollhouse-sized. In order to use it, you might have to write in a fine, spidery script, and possibly change your character name from "Robert the Warhorn, Eater of Worlds" to "Bob W. Eater", but that's a small price to pay for the ability to accidentally hand your 12th-level warlock to visiting businessmen.
Skills and Attributes: I laid out the business card so that you write your skill bonuses in the margins. Also, you'll underline your trained skills, which saves a couple dozen checkboxes.
Powers and Feats: You don't have room to write your powers, but that's not really unusual for a 4e character sheet. You should be using power cards: they also fit in your wallet. Also notice that this character sheet has room for 15 feats - three more than the Essentials sheet!
Notes and Character Portrait: It's not a character sheet if there's nowhere to draw a portrait. In the combined Notes/Portrait section, you won't have much room for both, but the player who is doodling elaborate blood spatters on her orc barbarian is not the party note-taker anyway.
The business card format: The nice thing about business cards is that they're super cheap. You can print up, like, 500 business cards for like $10!
$10 for 500 business cards? Why Paul, that’s INSANE! WHAT A BARGAIN!
OK, now I feel like a shill.
[...] take a short name like "Gus". Here's the front: You can download the front and back at blogofholding.com. __________________ [...]
[...] Also on a business card: Character Sheet on a business card [...]
Cool idea. Made cut deal with WotC already to have this in the CharBuilder? Would be cool. Would save several pages.
[...] the Circle of Doom, and discovering a mistake! A Look at Downtime in RPGs and Board Games character sheet on a business card Adding To The Legend World Building 101, Part 2: Creating Your Setting’s [...]
[...] the Circle of Doom, and discovering a mistake! A Look at Downtime in RPGs and Board Games character sheet on a business card Adding To The Legend World Building 101, Part 2: Creating Your Setting’s [...]
[...] the work of rebuilding the character. I’m jealous of the first level character that can fit on a business card, and am quite tempted by the Essentials character sheet’s “list of powers” [...]