TSR Character Record Sheets for Dungeons and Dragons - 1979!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Jim made a trade to obtain a copy of TSR's "Permanent Character Folder & Adventure Records," and a copy of TSR's "Non-Player Character Records" - game aids that were published in 1979. In this video, we take a close look at both.
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Yay. I am from Wyoming! And I used to buy both of those products (when I could afford them) back in 1979. I think I still have those materials somewhere. And they are still in good shape.
Wow, not many Wyomingites visit the channel! You should try to get to the Cheyenne Gaming Convention. Lot of fun and we might see you there!
You guys should record a live session some day.
agreed
We're trying to see if that's feasible, Fabio. Thanks for the vote of confidence!
God these videos are always so exciting and interesting to watch! I really love this era of D&D history and over the past year I have been trying to run and learn the AD&D system! While I prefer 2e to 1e I am currently running my first ever 1e campaign and its going as well as a first time 1e campaign can go! I have only had one player death in the past 4 or so sessions (a Manticore). You guys have really been an inspiration to me and I love learning of all this fun and wacky stuff!
Thanks for the great compliment, YDM! It's the kind of thing that keeps us making these videos.
I never had the permanen character folder, but I did have the NPC record sheets. We used them for NPCs and for characters. Thanks to the miracle of Xerox (and my mom's office), we had a free supply of refills. 🙂
The xerox at my dad's office performed a similar function.
Hmm, I recall those character sheets, but the record of the adventure page is something I've not heard of before. That sounds very cool and would really help players know what to ask about and to pay attention to. I'm going to bring that back into my game.
That was one of my favorite parts of this find. I wish we'd kept better adventure records over the decades. Views among my group differ now on what actually took place.
Nice piece of nostalgia. Looks like it’s in mint condition too.
9:25 my wife specifically keeps her previous character sheet - so she has one per level - to cover level draining. 😊
Thanks Solomani
Finding originals like this is very cool, and some people will definitely geek out over having them in their collection.
I started playing in 2016 (Thanks Brad), and have only seen variations of this while scrolling through DriveThruRPG and/or DMSGuild. The content created for 5e, even Adventure League, pales in comparison to what the original creators of D&D dreamed of, because they was literally nothing for the game. Everything at the time was build your own adventure, and the birth of modules was formed back then, so keeping track of NPC's in those settings was a must. Now we just throw random name into random campaign and for the most part nobody cares. At one time I was running two different campaigns a week, each with their own settings and NPC's, and relied on different note pads for each. With this type of paperwork, it would be easy enough to have specific binders for each and every campaign so that you could keep track of what goes where.
Hello Shane! They are good for exactly what you describe. Someone said the Mad Irishman has made similar sheets. Maybe they're at Dragonsfoot?
Incredible find! In the early 80's, I had the orange NPC booklet & the goldenrod PC records, but I never got the folio. Now I wish I had!
Same here! I wish I had known these were around back then. Our local hobby store didn't carry much so we missed a lot.
If you notice in the Permanent Character Folder, there is no spot for certain details (Saving Throws and Armor Class, for instance) and those things do have entries in the Adventure Record sheets... so you are supposed to update them there with each adventure you go on. If you download the Mad Irishman replica of the Permanent Character Folder, he was kind enough to add in an overlay (optional) for those missing fields on the main character sheet. Personally, I appreciated that added detail by him. I printed a bunch of these sheets (print at 11x17, if you can, so it makes the proper folder) and they are my main sheets for 1e gaming. :-) Love 'em!
Hey thanks for letting us know! Keep your sword arm free!
As a player, I was usually the one who kept track of everything and I do mean everything.
I was the mapper, kept track of supplies, hirelings and pay, treasure left behind, kept notes on everything, had to write down names and places because I can't remember them myself. Many of my characters have dozens of papers with all kinds of information written on them. A few with so many that I had to put them in separate folders to keep track of it all. Like the pirate ship and crew for one whole group of characters. I had to keep all the shipboard stuff separate from the land based stuff. But I loved every minute of it and I would do it all again!
It can be great fun. One character of mine had a brewery and I kept track of all costs coming in, costs going out, shipping schedules (we turned it into a big brewery), the list goes on. Had a great time keeping track of the business. Fun in the real world? Not so much. Maybe because there's never swords involved.
Those are some great finds, I always liked those old character sheets. When we started back in the 90s our DMs mom didn't understand it, but wanted us to stop going into the mountains with our wooden swords and pretend we were LOTRs characters lol, so she got him a weird collection of B/X, 1e & 2e stuff. Those green 2e sheets were always so cool, they had little boxes to mark off your ammo and rations (bread & cheese for me, not those gross biscuits that pass off as rations). Will have to show this my rpg club, some of those younger guys would think they're cool.
Glad you liked the video, RJ!
As a 12 year old DM I painstakingly created a blank character sheet using a typewriter...then made copies at a local office store for my players...and then a couple weeks later TSR started selling the first character record sheets....
I feel your pain. My experience was much the same.
Very cool find
Glad you liked it Rivers!
I like these records. Very useful.
I kept all my D&D characters on the golden sheets, oddly enough neither the AD&D PHB and DM guide had a character sheet for you to see or copy.
I always thought that was odd. There was the tear-out equipment sheet in some of the early books, but no character sheets. Maybe TSR started to plan on selling them early on?
Yeah, it was all notebook paper, at first. ;-)
Before getting to the video: Wow new shirts! Except for the hat. XD
Hah! We were wondering if anyone would notice!
Pretty cool as historical artifacts! For a while now I've mostly been using blank paper for my old school games as I'm using a couple of house rules anyway.
Also I'm usually disappointed at the meager space given on character sheets for keeping track of equipment and encumbrance. I use mainly slot based simplified encumbrance but I want to know what's on the belt, hand, backpack and sack. It's a lot easier when you have space for it.
Also as a player I write my notes typically on the blank back of my character sheet which isn't ideal. Would be neat to have NPCs in one place, places in other and other intel in another spot. A structured sheet might be nice for that.
Glad you found them interesting, Paavo!
@@theoldwarlock Sure thing 😁
These look vaguely familiar...and may or may not have been in that motherlode of RPG books/modules/accessories that my mother tossed in a dumpster back in '95. I try not to think about it too much. 🍻
Oh man, I'm sorry. It hurts ME to hear those dumpster toss stories.
@@theoldwarlock Thank you! It took a while for me to get over it. Losing the original D&D White Box set, J. Eric Holmes Blue Book (my gateway drug), and Stormbringer 1e box set were probably the most painful losses. 😆☹
I hate to say this, but likely how those materials came to you was probably because the original owner/gamer passed away and his (or her, but probably his) next of kin got rid of his stuff and they didn't really know what they had. They just wanted to get rid of it and get it over with. Don't ask how I know this.
But anyway, if the same thing some day happens to me, I hope someone who appreciates my stuff gets it and cherishes it like I do, even if they aren't related to me and got it for a song from a flea market somewhere. Having it in the possession of someone who cares is better than the alternative of it being in a landfill.
You're most likely right. Sad to think about on one hand, but it must have been important to whomever for it to have been kept for so long. I like to think when I get hold of some of these things and treat them like gold, the previous owner would be pleased.
I used to have both of those, a long time ago : )
They're getting harder to find.
I am so old my first character sheets were all hand made custom for each character. Mass produced 'character sheets' did not exist
I started just before things like this were being produced by TSR. Our sheets always started neat with attributes in the upper left but devolved into hastily scribbled notes in any spare space. Then there were notes about the notes - there was never much time given to organization - often with dire consequences.
@theoldwarlock Name/Class/Level/Alignment across the top. Stats upper left. Weapons and Armour and AC under that. Then skills/abilities. All else on the back and spells on a separate page
When a binder of notebook paper was all you needed. ;-)
I play old school and I would do the same if I was doing the 5e system. I will osr the crap out of it. However since I play 2e I don't need to.
"Its something special. Write a note on your character sheet."
"Where?"
"Your character sheet."
"Under feats, skills, background, items?"
"Its your character, so put it where you want."
"I don't want to break the rules."
"Turn your sheet over. Now, write it in that large white space."
"On the back? There's no space for stuff."
Based on a true story. They were the one "Experienced" player in a 5e beginner game I was running at a game store.
This made me laugh. I had a similar experience playing at a game store recently. I was scribbling notes on the back of my sheet as the GM was describing and the younger players were looking at me like I was nuts. I continued and they started flipping their sheets over and back as they tried to figure out what I was doing. Finally, one of them asked what I was doing and I told them I was taking notes about what we were having described for us so we could solve mysteries, etc. With a wide-eyed look the person asked, "Are we supposed to do stuff like that?" She'd been playing for 4-5 years.
Ah, to be young and not yet know that older people sleep less generally.
OTOH, we need to maintain exact sleep schedule or we're completely ruined for the next day.
Absolutely correct. If my sleep schedule is 20 minutes off, I'm worthless the next day.
Mad Irishman has replicas of these sheets for download.
A couple of people mentioned that - I'll have to check it out. Thanks!
Yeah, the Mad Irishman replicas are amazing. Highly recommended.
Check out mad Irishman productions who has recreated all the D&D character sheets you may want.
A few people mentioned that - I'll take a look. Thanks!
"decently recently" 😆
: ) As opposed to indecently recently, or maybe recently indecent.