Secret Language of Character Sheets Spreadsheet

The incomparable Fred Hicks mentioned a system to analyze the character sheets in a Spirit of the Century game and said with "make a spreadsheet".

So I did.

You can download the Excel file here.

Basic Instructions

So, here's how it works. This is a filled out 6 Player tab:


Fill in the player and character names along the top. Here we have Bob, Chris, Deb, Eric, Fred, and Ginny, and the characters each are playing.

Fill out the skills for each character. The level of bonus is the number you put in. So, Superb skills have 5. Average skills are 1. I find it easiest to work down the pyramid, but I was also making stuff up as I went along. Per Fred's suggestion, Great and Superb skills get highlighted as a flag for things for GMs to hit.

On the far right, the column "3 of Character With Skill" figures out how many characters have any value put into the skill. If a skill is ever unique to a character, the skill will have an orange color. If every character has the skill, it will be a gold.

And that's it. To repeat Fred's advice for this sheet, GMs should refer to the # of Characters column and the individual skills, anything gold should be hit often. Also, anything orange should be use to highlight the unique skill for that particular character. If any skills appear grayed out in the # column, avoid them, no one has the skill.

"But wait!" you say. "There's a darker orange!" Ah, yes. The 6 player and 8 player tabs have a darker orange, instead of the grayed out option. The darker orange shows skills that almost every character has. For the 6 player tab, this is 5 characters. For the 8 player tab, this is 6 or 7 characters. If you want this (or not) on the other number of player tabs, I'll explain how to adjust it later.

Okay, it's later.

FAQ that no one has yet had time to ask.

6 players?! I don't have that many. Can you make a chart for a 4 player game?

It's already done. Check out the bottom of the sheet. I've made some alternate charts for 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8 players.

I need a chart for a 12 player game. Can you make one for me?

Uh, no. But you can! Check it: it's easy to insert blank columns. Simply select the entire column for # of Character (do this by clicking on the Letter of the column), then right click (or command click on a Mac) and select Insert. A new column will appear with all the formatting tricks in place. That's the easy part.

Now, in the # column, click on the first number cell. Up in your formula text box you'll see an insane bunch of characters that looks something like this:
=SUM(IF(B3>0,1,0)+IF(C3>0,1,0)+IF(D3>0,1,0)+IF(E3>0,1,0)+IF(F3>0,1,0)+IF(G3>0,1,0)+IF(H3>0,1,0)+IF(I3>0,1,0))
All you have to do is add in another "+IF(I3>0,1,0)" where I wrote . BUT you change I3 to the next letter of the alphabet. Finally you have to hit SHIFT+CTRL+ENTER (Command+Enter on Mac), because it's not a normal formula. Just pressing enter will break it (no big deal, just double click again and do it right). One you fix ONE line, simply copy and paste it to all the rest. They'll automatically adjust to work for each row individually, although you might have to fix the formatting to make it look pretty again.

So, for 12 players, you need to add 4 columns at the end of the 8 player template in the Player/Character area. Then add four "+IF(I3>0,1,0)" changing the letters to J3, K3, L3, and M3. Then copy that cell to all the ones below it.

How do I make it so that I get the 0's grayed out AND the Almost dark orange?

Sorry, due to the limitations of Excel, you can only have 3 conditions. On the template, they are:
6 and 8 player: 1 = Orange; Almost Every = Dark Orange; Every = Gold.
2-5 player: 1 = Orange; None = Gray; Every = Gold.

Okay, fine. How do I fiddle with the thresholds or change the colors to something that makes sense for me? Remember, Fred said to pick your own colors!

Okay, okay, sheesh. It's easy. There's two main areas to look at, and you have to do them separately. There's the individual skill area and the # column. Pick which area you want to modify and select all the cells. Then, go to Format -> Conditional Formatting... Now, if you want to change the colors, click on the "Format..." button for whichever condition you want to change the color - you can adjust background color (patterns) or font color or even borders (I didn't touch those). If you want to change the values, like Mr. Show Off with his 12 player game, simply change the numbers.

Okay, so what's with this Skill Tallies?

Right. I put this in because it helped me, then I saw this could be used to make character creation a little bit easier. When you fill out skills it will track how many Superb, Great, Good, etc you've put in based on the values. If you have the wrong amount (too few or too many) it turns red. When it turns Gold, you're set. I found this worked really well making the fake characters, I could see it turn red or gold out of the corner of my eye.

I deleted something now it's all broken. How do I fix it?

Two options: Quit and don't save or download it again. I didn't make anything protected, so that can happen if you're not careful. I wouldn't worry about it, though.

The file doesn't work.

Well, it works for me. It was made wit Excel 2003. Older versions may or may not work. Later versions should but I have no idea. If you have an Excel compatible spreadsheet program, I'm even less sure. I use some features that I've never used before, so it's all new to me. I know Numbers for iWork sometimes runs into trouble with Excel files. If you want to make this in your favorite spreadsheet program, go for it. I'm not staking a claim on this.

You Spirit of the Century developers are so cool!

Yes they are! But I'm not one of them. Spirit of the Century is the copyright of EvilHat and all that other legal stuff. I just made a spreadsheet, and even that was based on Fred's idea!



Everything not Spirit of the Century of a product of Fred's (or Rob's or Lenny's) brain is copyright Alvin Frewer 2008.