<Original Research>Beyond the Character Sheet: "Character Keepers" as Digital Play Aids in the Contemporary Indie TRPG Community

DOI IR (HANDLE) Open Access

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • <研究論文>キャラクターシートを超えて: 現代の同人TRPGコミュニティにおけるデジタルプレイ補助としての「キャラクターキーパー」

Description

This article explores a central aspect of contemporary online play culture in some parts of the indie TRPG community: the “character keeper” as an emphatically ‘digital’ character sheet, most often realized as a Google Sheets spreadsheet. Rather than simply functioning as digital equivalents of paper character records, keepers serve as shared sheets, allowing all players to refer to the information on all player characters simultaneously. They take advantage of the programming interface of Google Sheets to provide automated functions like drop-down selections for character options or real-time calculation of stats. In many cases, keepers also include tabs for tracking shared session and campaign notes as well as scenario and game state information for the GM and include a lot of the reference information needed to play the game. Finally, they integrate supplementary safety tools that facilitate play and provide links to other accessories used during online play, like digital dice rollers or additional visualization tools. Throughout the article, we discuss the general role of characters sheets in TRPGs and analyze character keepers’ particular characteristics and the pragmatics of their use. Subsequently, we highlight elements of a short history of this format, describe some historical and contemporary examples, and close with a systematic exploration of contemporary player and designer theorizing on this topic.

Journal

  • RPG学研究

    RPG学研究 2 31-50, 2021-12-20

    Japanese Association for Role-Playing Game Studies

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

  • CRID
    1390290701852387840
  • NII Article ID
    120007179313
  • DOI
    10.14989/jarps_2_31
  • ISSN
    24349682
  • HANDLE
    2433/266699
  • Text Lang
    en
  • Article Type
    departmental bulletin paper
  • Data Source
    • JaLC
    • IRDB
    • CiNii Articles
  • Abstract License Flag
    Allowed

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