The Image IS Your Character Sheet
I bumped into this thread from Vincent Baker about character sheets. In it, he shows an image of a character and then brilliantly defines the character from the image:
"He's got some immediate evident qualities: his gun, his attention to his surroundings, his energy/adrenaline/capacity for violence/will to action, and it looks like maybe he's done this thing more than once before."
Mr. Baker (I mean, it's Vincent Baker... RESPECT! So yes, Mr.) explains how RPG design should handle three types of character qualities: effectiveness, resource, and positioning. Yes. Cool. But then Mr. Baker fucks up and suggests we translate all that into a character sheet.
False.
The image already contains and communicates everything perfectly. The stance, the tension, the weapon, the context, the whole situation: effectiveness, resource, and positioning unified in a single image. It works perfectly as-is.
Lost in translation
Translating the image to a character sheet reduces it. At best it's a photocopy of the original?
- Consider an image
- Break it down into stats and mechanics
- Build "currency" relationships between those mechanics
- Try to make the currency produce fiction that resembles the original photo
This is attempting to solve a problem you created in step 2.
Names are Images
My friend Wightbred's game, Named gives us the concept of Names (which I stole for my game OYAB). Characters have Names: Reluctant Captain, Mail Order Medic, Disappointment.
These work exactly the same as the image; just in text form. Which makes them better for conversational games.
Reluctant Captain gives you everything: leadership capability (or perhaps incapability), nautical experience, doesn't want the job, probably inherited it or got stuck with it, crew dynamics, pressure. All right there. Unified. Interpretable.
Names function as images. Reluctant Captain hits your brain the same way that image does: as one thing that means more than its parts, but never everything. Coherent but inviting interpretation.
Not STR 14, Leadership +3, Naval Combat (Expert), Morale Penalty -2. The Name stays whole. When you roll with an applicable Name, you're asking "does this relevant thing about you help in this situation?"
That's it.
Conversation, Not Calculation
Names work for conversation. Reluctant Captain isn't character data, it's a conversation hook. It suggests backstory; it prompts questions. The GM asks "Why don't you want this?" or an NPC says "Captain, the crew's looking to you..." and everyone knows the tension without checking the rules.
OYAB's Totems work the same way. "Blood remembers the blade" isn't a rule, it's an image that sparks conversation about what magic means right now. The table riffs on it together.
Burdens use Tarot. Yeah, requiring a deck is a conversational sin. But it earns its place by doing work. Drawing The Tower doesn't dictate outcomes, it gives the table something to interpret together. What does magical imbalance look like? How can we resolve it? What is the cost for succeeding when the world said no?
Conversational spark? I absolve myself...
The image IS the character sheet.