Rip & Tear (Your Character Sheet)
Name
Ah yes, the humble character sheet. That record of tracking whatever doodads and trinkets our little weirdos have gotten in their possibly illegal, highly dangerous adventures. Players mark it with their stats, their items and write down any notes or even doodle what their character looks like. (One of my characters drew a whole self-portrait of their character on the back of their sheet).
Often though, the sheet is really just there to record-keep. Most of the time, it's just there to help a player keep track of their character. A sheet of notebook paper has the same effect. Almost every RPG that uses a character sheet has it listed in the obligatory "What you need to play" section and yet often it's the most overlooked tool. A character sheet can be just as important in telling stories as the d6/d20 or the playing card or the players themselves.
Backstory
I'll give an example. I'm running a CY_Borg campaign right now. My players are having a grand time sticking it to the corpo scum. However, in CY_Borg, every day the GM rolls a die of their choosing and if it's a 1, a Miserable Headline occurs. This is usually some massive world-changing event, and the 7th one is always the same: The world is revealed to be a simulation and the world resets in 24 hours. I decided to incorporate that into my game by having players "dive in" to the source code of the world itself. Upon doing so, I asked something that made them all pause: "Can I see your character sheet?"
Now, this whole thing hinges on your players' permission. Their characters are a part of them. Asking to make changes to it is a big deal. If my players had said no, I would've respected that and moved on. They trusted me though and away I went. I marked down stats in pen, I changed their weapons, abilities, even their names in some cases. I fundamentally changed their character and thus now, they experience the game and the world in a completely different way. And they all loved it. They were so excited at the ramifications of this and what it all means. I was excited at how I could now throw different challenges at them.
To Hit
The character sheet is underappreciated. Yes, it's a record of what the character has and what they're capable of, but it's also a story tool, a list of things that the character can and can't do, who they are and aren't, and what they've done to the world and what the world has done to them.
Use the tools you're given. Use whatever you have on hand to have the game you and your players want to have.