So I love paper character sheets. I love them. They're a classic, tangible symbol of the character that doesn't come with distracting Internet access. But I feel like more and more people are using digital character sheets these days (which isn't a bad thing). So, among people who play in-person like me (when there's no COVID-19, that is), do you prefer paper or digital?

Paper when I play in-person (though I’d probably keep a DDB copy; I haven’t played in-person since 3rd edition). But all my current games are online, so digital is just a lot more convenient.

Digital. I just like how dndbeyond does everything for me. *Cut to infomercial shot of a frazzled person trying to do math with a calculator and a mess of papers scattered about* with dndbeyond there is no more hassle and I can focus on what really matters, having fun with friends! *smiling thumbs up toward the camera around a gaming table with friends* Visit dndbeyond.com and sign up for FREE today! So you can go from this: *person spills drink all over their character sheet* to this: *person around gaming table heroically swings a pencil like a sword and everyone cheers* dndbeyond, when you’re here, you’re family!    Ok might need a new catch phrase but you get the point.

I remember my paper character sheets fondly, but I've moved to digital because I can access it from anywhere and I can constantly fiddle with the layout and artwork and stuff.

I always have a custom mini that evolves with my character, so I still get the tactile connection that way. I do think that connection is important to a lot of us. Never played online until recently when there was no other choice, but I've only been a DM for those. When it's my turn to be a PC again I will probably make a mini even if we're still online because it's just part of the experience for me.

Digital sheets make it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay easier to make changes.  Anything from a level up to altering spells on a rest to tracking inventory items.  With a physical sheet you end up having to rewrite it every so often, because you can only erase on paper so many times before it gets all smeary and the paper itself starts to actually degrade.  Tracking Spell Slots, specifically, is problematic in this regard, since those are going to be filled/refilled most often.

And with it being more of a service base like it is on DnDB, you get a bunch of extra goodies like having your to-hit chance and your spell save DC already calculated for you, instead of constantly asking yourself if you remembered to update it or not.  It will automatically apply race and class features that apply to those things, and again tabulates the result so all you have to do is grab the dice and roll.

Being honest, while I was always interested in DnD, the process of playing it made me not like it with a physical character sheet.  Trying to find a digital sheet that didn't cost money was an exhaustive process, until I found DnDB.  Now my problem is finding a group.

I save them digital, print them out for real life play, leave them digital for online.

I have found that simple PDF's are EASY to use and save them that way.   Except for my online games which I use whatever they provide.  Roll20 does a good job, I am happy with their stuff.

When I play in person, I take a printed copy of the exported character sheet with me as a backup, but unless I have connection issues, I use the digital one on my iPad while playing.

Digital now for anything.  Having all my characters in the web in one place is awesome.   It allows me to make copy and experiment on progression ideas, not loose them and everything.  I have a small Samsung Tab-A I bring to games to play on, and its wonderful...although I do export the PDF in case I need to print it out for reasons.

I do sometimes miss the styling of the paper sheets...less the stains and constant easer marks.

I use to my character sheet on paper but after getting my Laptop I doesn't really see a need for paper

If the game is physical ill make a digital sheet and print it out and any changes made physically ill go back and edit digitally

I play in person and i my girlfriend has a newer generation iPad which is the perfect size. Smaller and compacter then a laptop but big enough to make it comfortable to look at the digital sheet and read the compendium.

If i didn’t have that it would be paper with my phone for compendium stuff..

I do roll in person and not use the sheet/app for that. Even though the automatic calculation is the best… feeling the dice in your hand is the best..

I play in person and use both. I find writing down notes about the campaign ( names of people and places etc) is much easier to scribble on paper while looking up spell details etc during play is easier digitally. So I’ve typically got my homebrew word character sheet out next to my dice and iPad and am working both.

I always recommend the use of a physical paper sheet as a backup. I do some homebrew adjustments to every class and race as well that most digital character creator systems have a hard time accommodating so a physical sheet is helpful.

Paper all the way. And you know your character is legit when there’s a hole in the hit point box because of all the erasing you had to do.

Would playing with a paper character sheet make the math that seems to go on behind the scenes with the awesome dndbeyond digital character sheet make sense to me?   I don't like doing math, but I also don't like feeling like I'm in the dark; would it be worth it as an exercise?

It’s still going to do some math for you. Like it will say longsword +5 1d8+3. 
So you’ll roll the d20 and have to add 5 on your own. Then roll the d8 and add 3 on your own. 

But the paper won’t tell you how it got the +5 or the +3, if that’s what you’re looking for. 

There should be an option for both!

I print out a copy but use the app when playing as well which is nice.

I Personally try to have one of each because both can work as backups for the other. Forget you computer got the paper and the other way as well.

Quote from intrepidgnome >>

Would playing with a paper character sheet make the math that seems to go on behind the scenes with the awesome dndbeyond digital character sheet make sense to me?   I don't like doing math, but I also don't like feeling like I'm in the dark; would it be worth it as an exercise?

 

 

 The math is normally simple like 1d20+4 or 1d10+2 the main issue I foresee is Figuring where the numbers come from. However paper is great to try I highly recommend.

Yes.

I use D&D Beyond to build my character so I get all the options right and don't forget anything. Then I copy the results onto paper for use in game... but I still use the D&D Beyond App for the spell descriptions because there's not enough room for all the important information on the character sheets and the app is easier to work with than spell cards.