I’m currently typing up the next installment in my Game Aesthetics series, and I’m about half-way done with it, but in the meantime, I’ve also been working on the next revision of my Donjons & Dragoons project, and I thought I’d post up the completed character sheet for v2.

This sheet takes a lot of cues from the B/X version of Dungeons & Dragons, rather than the original set, and the graphics are a bit more advanced than anything the TSR produced in its initial offerings, but I justify it for the following reasons:

1. Maxwell Luther, our fictitious professor and alternate time line father of RPGs, would have access to resources that Gygax and company did not, including a professor’s salary, a university printing press, and students and faculty from a variety of disciplines (especially art) to help out here and there.
2. Luther (who is roughly based on me) would not settle for something that looked ‘rough’ or ‘amateur.’ In this case in particular, the game started out as a possible academic research project, and it would not do for the final product to look ad-hoc.
3. I’m a multimedia designer, as well as a teacher, and this is not a strictly academic project (I plan to sell it when all is said and done), so it makes me happy to create art and layout that mimics the old school without being entirely bound by it.

Front Side…

As for the individual design elements, I stuck with Regency style iconography and frames. Some might question the use of a royal lion head, instead of a Fleur De Lis, for Élan, but I decided that each nation needed its own particular symbol, and that heraldic device is particular to the British, who are the focus of the initial game.

Back Side…

The backpack on the back side is my quick illustration of the infamous Trotter pack that burdened British infantry until the late 1800’s. And the ammo pouch, Brown Bess musket, and sword are all from that period, as well.

A quick glance at the front will immediately tell the veteran gamer that this game is very different from OD&D. In fact, the title font is where the similarities end. The current design takes an entirely different tack from the one Gygax would have taken, being based on an entirely different set of wargaming rules (basically Maxwell Luther’s version of Chainmail, which I will include in the basic set), and background influences.