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While keeping track of all your characters via a tabbed binder is a very good idea, I’m sure there’s many of us who keep our character information in some sort of file, such as a Word document.

Now, typically, once you edit and save any kind of document on a computer and quit the editing program, there’s no turning back. The only way you can really undo changes would be to rely on your own memory of what was in that document before the changes.

So, if you play a lot of characters over many campaigns, you’re going to have your work cut out for you if you want to revert to an earlier version of a character.

However, if you create a new document each time you edit a character, then you wouldn’t be in so much of bind. You can easily create a new character sheet document every time your character levels up, for example. But eventually, you’re going to have a lot of character sheets sitting around on your hard drive, and you’ll need to sift through a whole lot of files to find what you want.

So, I figure, why not use some sort of version control software? Particularly Subversion, since it’s free, open source, and apparently better than other version control software I’ve been exposed to.

Once you’ve created a repository for your character sheets, and added them, you can freely edit them without having to worry about creating brand new documents for when a character levels. Whenever you commit a modified file back into Subversion, that file is saved as its own revision. Since every time you commit a modified file creates a new revision, you can actually recall back an earlier version of that file, if you need to. Perhaps you’re bringing a character you’ve played before into a brand new game, be he needs to be a level 1 character? Just go grab the revision that has the level 1 version of that character and you’re all set!

Another neat thing with Subversion is the ability to add meta tags to any and all files you put into it. You can even add tags to folders themselves! For example, you can create a meta tag named ‘Level’, and then whenever you commit a change of that file, you can tell it that the tag named ‘Level’ should equal the level of your character. The same thing can be done by adding a ‘Character Name’ tag as well. This can make searching for the right character much easier.

Also, Subversion comes with its own server as well, which can be integrated with a web server! So if you’re a DM, and you want an easy way to keep track of everyone’s characters, have them submit their character sheets to your Subversion repository! This will provide you with an easy way to not only check on the latest versions of character sheets, but also take a look at previous versions as well. This can be very useful in the long run!

Subversion is available for not only Linux and Unix, but also for Windows and Mac! Go check out their list of packages to find the right download for your system.

Also, a note for you Windows users: you may notice that the packages you’re immediately faced with are not very intuitive. However, there is a link there that will bring you to a list of installers that will make more sense. Just stick with one of the ones that has ‘-setup.exe’ in it, and you’ll be up and running without too much confusion!

However, as a note of warning, Subversion is a command-line kind of program. This basically means that if you’re not comfortable with a DOS or Unix/Linux command prompt, you might get confused with Subversion. Fortunately for Windows users, there is a GUI project called TortoiseSVN that integrates right into windows, which is great for those who are scared of the DOS prompt. Unfortunately, I haven’t noticed anything like this for other operating systems.

I’ll be trying this out for myself pretty soon, and it’ll be very cool if I can get everyone else in my D&D group to do this as well. I definitely want to set up a Subversion repository that they can all put their character sheets into no matter where they are.

If you’re going to try this out yourself, please let me know how it goes! Just don’t forget to read the Official Subversion Book!

And hey, this is much better than bringing your character sheets to utter ruin.