REF2 Character Record Sheets . . . ARRRRR!!!!!
In September of Advanced Dungeons & Dragon 2nd
Edition’s maiden year, 1989, product 9264 was released as REF2 Character Record
Sheets. Now, this is still the most
bootlegged product which TSR ever put out! With a suggested retail price of
$8.95, many at the time felt that this was too expensive, especially when you
could easily make them yourself at home. Those who did buy it, typically took
it to a photocopier and did it that way. It is surprising how many whole and
complete copies of this product are still available, especially for a product
that was designed to be destroyed.
Back when this product first came out, there was no World
Wide Web, desktop printing was no where near as advanced as it is today; I
think that the only use that one ever got from their printer, if they even had
one, was to print of these ugly banners. The photocopier was king! I remember
going to the local library and paying fifteen cents per page!
So, there you are, you killed your character doing something
stupid, and you are officially out of the game until you are finished with a
new one. First thing first, you get out your binder of loose-leaf note pad
paper, a ruler, a pencil, and some dice. While everybody else is playing, you
are rolling up stats, so that you know what your character will be, and then
you get your ruler and start drawing all of the slots that you wanted. Then,
once you had drawn your own player character sheet, it was time to fill it out!
Just the basics, but this process typically took the rest of the night. Once
you get some free time, you’d go back over the character sheet with a pen so
that you can see it better.
We really loved our characters too! We’d get eraser burns in
our hp slots and on our own, we would just draw up a new Character Sheet to
play with next time. I have drawings that I’ve made of my characters, and ones that
were so special that I marked them out in pen.
Going through my Father-In-Law’s stuff, he had a variety of
different character sheets, everything from basic notes written down on scratch
paper, highly artistic drawings, to saving a blank drawing and photo copying
that! The benefit of drawing up your own, was that you could add stuff that
was important to your class, or individual to that character. Yes, they took a
lot longer to draw up, but if you are playing a thief, a homemade PC Sheet is
far superior to the published variety. You could also tell, at a glance, just
whose character is whose because all of them were different. We don’t do this
anymore either, I think that I made a custom PC sheet on the computer the last
time I played, but it took even longer than just drawing my own by hand would
be. For the most part, we use this book. We are much better about keeping
characters alive, but back in the day, we’d really burn through this thing if
we had one. To have a character go from 1st to 7th was a
big deal! It was then that we’d feel confident enough to really get special
with it.
The generic PC sheets, while they take some of the flavor
away from the character itself, does allow us to play faster, and it is easier
on the DM because he can quickly find the information that he’s looking for
because it is always in the same place, however I don’t think that, when we use
them, we are as intimate with our characters as we normally would be. I would
get all kinds of ideas while drawing and redrawing them things up. When copying
items that I had collected through my adventures, I’d remember each one and how
I got it. It was fun!
It is funny, how people will look down on you for playing
with bootlegged material, however they go right to Dragonfoot to download a copy
of these PC sheets to print off without even thinking about it. Are they free
to use? Do we have permission to photocopy them? The answer is NO! We can
photocopy the special PC sheets found in the Complete Series for personal use,
but as far as the original Character Record Sheets go, there was no permission
ever given; at least not on the product itself. The copy on Dragonfoot and
other locations around the web have been there for years! Wizards of the Coast definitely
knows about them, but since they say nothing, it can be assumed that we can
print off our own. Can you imagine a lawyer trying to bust all of the people
who have pirated these things over all these years?
The product itself is one of convenience, it is not
necessary to play the game, and it never was! Yes, it looks good and is fast to
use, but the information that it contains is subpar at best. Besides the PC
Sheets, you also get a good collection of spell sheets which you can fill out
as you go, they work for both the mage, cleric, and all other spell casters,
and those are pretty convenient! Looking up spells and reading those
descriptions to the DM can take time, this product allows us to have all of the
basics right at our fingertips! But, again, you can download these for free or
make one yourself with you computer.
This book has been republished through the years, but as far
as I know was never modified until the Player’s Options series was published.
Collectors are interested in this product, but as far as the casual gamers go,
if they find a cheap copy then they might pick it up. I know that I still use
mine and it has lasted a really long time! The sheets are a lot stronger than loose
leaf paper, and resist eraser burns, spilled drinks, cheezy poof stains, and
cigarette ash. They aren’t overly detailed, but you can keep them in a folder
with all of your PC memorabilia and it will last for years! It Is kind of fun
finding a character sheet from decades ago that you had forgotten about and is
still looks the same as when you last played it, so maybe there was more to
this product than meets the eye?
I personally give it a D+, there is definitely worse stuff
out there, but it isn’t nearly as useful as it claims to be.
Monday, July 04, 2016
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