The Grimm Window is a much more fluid RPG system that most, and that includes the character sheets, or lack of it. The write-up of a Grimm Window character should be treated as a character summary for a book. While conveying the abilities of the character is definetly an important task of the character write-up, more important still is that it conveys an engaging and believable synopsis of the character's personality, manor, history and 'soul'.

The Grimm Window assumes that all players are mature storytellers with no childish desires to 'max out' their characters and as such there are no rules around character creation or experience points. The player is free to describe their character as vivaciously as they desire, the more skills the better. The only rule is that everything you add to your character fits with the character concept and that there is a believable history around why the character has that skill.

The Grimm Window also stresses that a character, like any real-world person, is ever changing and hence so should the character write-up. If during the course of the story a character was captured and interrogated the player might feel that the character would believably have picked up a thing or two with regards to intimidation. The player should then feel free to add to the character sheet 'X became pretty good at intimidation, something he sadly picked up during his many long and terrifying days of captivity among Y'. Such an addition makes the character's write-up much more interesting to read as the character's history and developments are neatly documented.

So what does all of these fine words mean in practice? Best way to show it is by a short sample character.

Name! Sylvester Markham

Profession! Florist

Physical Description! Sylvester is a balding brown-haired white man in his early 50's, roughly 1.75 meters tall and of average build. He is usually wears a stylish but worn suit-jacket, not rarely dirty from working in the florist shop. He wears round thin-framed glasses, often perched precariously on the tip of his nose.

Manners! Sylvester is an intellectual. He is a bit shy and not entirely comfortable with dealing with people which sometimes can make him be persieved as stand-offish or snobbish. This is not true though as Sylvester has both feet firmly on the ground, often out in the garden. He loves two things, his family and botany.

Lately Sylvester has become much more introvert and moody as his scientific mind tries to comprehend the Byakhee and the Sin Eaters that he came in contact with during the course of The Pennywell Hangmen. He has developed a decidedly destructive obsession with finding out more about these terrifying horrors.

History! Sylvester was born in England but moved to New York on a scholarship in biology. Sylvester did very well during his academic career and became a distinguished scientist with two PhDs under his belt by the time he went on his first and last expedition in the name of science. The trip to South America, although resulting in some interesting finds and a well-received paper on the fibre-composition of a certain Bolivian tree, the arduos conditions did not agree with Sylvester who decided that a quiet life in New York was to be preferred.

Sylvester opened up a small florist shop and together with his wife he built it up to the fine and respected establishemnt it is today. Well, that is before the Pennywell events turned the basement into an interrogation dungeon.

Attributes! Sylvester has never had the need to do any particularly hard labor and don't think it important enough to keep himself in physical shape and hence he has {:below average strength and dexterity:-1}. Despite such priorities he has {:average constitution:+-0} due to his dear wife's excellent and healthy cooking.

What Sylvester lacks physically he more than makes up mentally. He has always been {:very intelligent:+2} and he is {:exceptionally educated:+3}.

Skills! Sylvester's dedication to his studies have made him an {:exceptional (green) biologist:+3}. His many years in academia gave him many ohter skills as well such as {:basic Spanish:-1},

The write-up is loosely structured into whatever sections that feels appropriate to the specific game being played. The little structure that is imposed though is:

• Attributes defines the kind of qualities that all characters will share such as Strength, Intelligence etc. They may differ from game to game, but once defined all character within that game will have these. Since they are the only values that a Storyteller can trust will be there, they will often be used as the default values for various skill checks.
• Skills are specific skills that a character may have learnt, be naturally adept at or anything else. There isn't a definite list of them and the players are encouraged to add as many or as few as they like, as long as each of them makes sense to the character.
• Each attribute should be described in the context that it was acquired. This not only gives the character some more depth but also guards the above point that all skills and attributes and they levels should make sense.
• Each attribute or skill should be prefixed by an adjective that shows how good or bad the character is at the given attribute/skill. These should also map onto one of the rungs in the competency ladder described in the next page.