Back in 2020 I made a character sheet for Dark Matter based on a “hex radar” design in the center of the page. That big chunky design lets players immediately grok that they’re playing an expanded, sci-fi version of 5E. Having a ship combat page with the sheet makes the setting a lot easier to pick up and play.
I’m still proud of that sheet’s design, but there are some things it could have done better. The hex takes up quite a bit of the page. Skills aren’t equally distributed among ability scores (Strength has one and Wisdom has seven, including new sci-fi skills Technology and Data), leading to extremely small fonts, a lot of wasted space, and (most damning of all) feature boxes that are too narrow to write in!
I created a more streamlined design for the Dark Matter starter kit, and with a bunch of new Dark Matter subclasses coming to the blog this month I thought it would be a great time to release this design to the public.Let me know in the comments whether you like this design or the original hex radar! I’d love to hear which is better for your players.
I’d like more room to write in Racial traits box, especially for Vect characters. I’ve had to add it over to Class Features and make a note in case I forget.
Totally fair — I’ve noticed the same thing. I’ll keep this in mind as I work on the 2024 versions of these sheets.