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Oh yes it does and I love it!

November

Goodman Games
Dungeon Crawl Classics #108: The Seventh Thrall of Sezerkan SC
DCC Tome of Adventure Volume 4: The Purple Planet Limited Edition HC
The Purple Planet Judge's Screen
Xcrawl Insider SC #1
DCC RPG Adventure: Cats of Rahtlu SC
MCC RPG: Enchiridion of the Computarchs HC
DCC RPG House of the Red Doors SC
False Flag: An Adventure for Salvage Union HC
Foundations SC
Rainmaker: A Salvage Union Adventure HC
Salvage Union Core Rulebook HC
Shadow of Mogg: Revised Edition HC
Salvage Union: We Were Here First! HC
Silam Volume 1: The Spike of Dosku SC

Mongoose Publishing
Traveller: Starship Operator's Manual
Traveller: Flashpoints
Traveller: Bounty Hunter

Paizo Publishing
Pathfinder Divine Spell Cards (Remastered)
Pathfinder Occult Spell Cards (Remastered)
Pathfinder Focus Spell Cards (Remastered)
Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Occult Dungeon
Pathfinder Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries
Pathfinder Adventure Path: Triumph of the Tusk Part 2 - Hoof, Cider, and Storm
Starfinder Flip-Mat: Planetary Terrain Multi-Pack

Renegade Game Studios
G.I. Joe: Intercontinental Adventures: Factions in Action 2 HC
My Little Pony Roleplaying Game: Knghts of Canterlot Sourcebook
Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Roleplaying Game Gehenna War Sourcebook
Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Roleplaying Game Revelations of the Dark Mother Accessory
Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition Roleplaying Game Shattered Nation Sourcebook

Wizards of the Coast
2024 Dungeon Master's Guide
2024 Dungeon Master's Screen

There's a lot about Salvage Union I like but it really needs a cleverly designed mech sheet. Basically, your mech has its own character sheet and during play it has four resource trackers, almost like four sets of hit points.

The easiest way to tackle this is probably give each character a distinct set of tokens in four colours. Each player would use the same colour for each resource to prevent confusion, and each player have a discard bag.

I think the game designers assume you'll just keep a pencil and paper record. What they should've done is design a mech sheet with resource trackers along each of the four sides, allowing you to slide a paper clip along each side to track the resource.

Ideas like this show that you've actually played your own game and refined it. And they can take a pretty bad idea, like tracking four different resources, and make it seem like ingenius design.

Sounds like something you should whip up in your copious amounts of free time!

You indirectly raise an interesting point actually, Pand. You can almost guarantee, whatever the game system a player somewhere will cook up a better character sheet than the one made by the designers. I always think a character sheet is a vital component of a game but I suspect most designers think of it as an afterthought. What do you think?

Well ... seeing the 'sheets' of players over the years ... I don't think it is possible to design one that would make everyone happy <shrug>

I think you are absolutely correct Nem. When a designer makes a game, they think "these are the things that I want on a character sheet." They don't always have the play experience to say "this would be better this way." Almost always when I start with a new system I Google for character sheets to find what people have made. Often times a fan sheet is much better than the originals that came with the system. It is rare for that not to be the case. Swords of the Serpentine's sheet is on the border of being perfect, but could be improved. Sadly I don't have layout skills to rearrange things the way I want exactly, but the original sheet is so good, that it really doesn't have to be perfected, so to speak.

I think play is the key, 2nd edition of a game and the sheets that follow are often quite good.

Is there a version of the official Serpentine character sheet to look at online?

One of the things that sold me on Fives Torches Deep recently was its character sheet.

Check out this example

If you look closely you'll see the stats are laid out in a flow chart, with derived stats flowing out of their attribute scores. It makes filling out the sheet very intuitive.

Swords of the Serpentine Character Sheet

To be fair there is still quite a bit of note taking on the sheet, mainly due to how Gumshoe works. I would love to figure out a way to make tracking the pools easier, but there are just too many of them to conveniently put paperclips or some other physical marker on the sheet edges.

Nice! I downloaded Five Torches because you talked about it, but honestly haven't delved too deep yet.

Nice character sheet! Having only one page is always a good sign imo.

If I was at the table, I'd probably put it on a metal clipboard and use magnetic push pins to track Health and Morale.

Oh that is a great idea. Of course for convention games that means more carry weight.

There's flexible ferrous sheet. Probably weighs about the same but easier to pack perhaps.

Heh, and I can't fine that in Amazon US.

Though I did discover Chessex makes a vinyl battle map with squares on one side and hexes on the other. I so needed that back in the day!

Another idea is strips, say 1 inch wide, lay them under the sheet, and mag pins on top.

The idea I have used for years is dry erase pens and a sheet protector. The downside if your not careful you can wipe off your marks.

True, ferrous tape would work just as well.

For dry erase, I wonder if you could lay strips of Scotch Tape over the tracks and mark off on top.

Very cool.

December

Green Ronin Publishing
The Sol System: A Sourcebook for The Expanse RPG

Mongoose Publishing
Traveller: War Fleets of the Fifth Frontier War

Paizo Publishing
Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Coastline
Pathfinder Lost Omens: Divine MysteriesSpecial Edition
Pathfinder Adventure Path: Triumph of the Tusk Part 3 - Destroyer's Doom

Renegade Game Studios
My Little Pony RPG: Knights of Canterlot Sourcebook SC
Vampire the Masquerade RPG: Revelations of the Dark Mother HC

That Sol System sourcebook for The Expanse RPG might be quite interesting. The Fandom site's barebones, not a terribly useful reference.

This year I set a supers game (using ICRPG) in a pastiche of The Expanse setting but I could've done with more visual aids to help the players.