Post ApViGuvQ4hmvIgiEdM by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
(DIR) More posts by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
(DIR) Post #ApU2CeLRO6EzUDCr56 by mattkay@dice.camp
2024-12-27T20:39:51Z
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Hey all, what's your favourite digest-format #ttrpg specifically when it comes to layout, and why? Asking for inspiration for my own project.
(DIR) Post #ApU2CfBYGLvO5paTJ2 by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-27T21:25:50Z
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@mattkay #Starforged (https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn-starforged), no question, bar none. In fairness, since it takes the crown from #Ironsworn (https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn), which is designed and laid out by the same person - maybe that's not as hard as it sounds. The text is extremely clear. The use of illustration is absolutely on point. And unlike many other games, both in standard 8.5 by 11 and 6x9, it has an appropriate use of white space. Just because you're in a smaller digest size does not mean that you can get away with making the text and image density something north of depleted uranium. Starforged is probably the best example of that layout I can think of. #TTRPG
(DIR) Post #ApU2v9f0JoEtLqZw7U by mattkay@dice.camp
2024-12-27T21:33:56Z
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@lextenebris Starfoged is a great example! In fact, when asking the question, a handful of examples sprang instantly to mind - and Starforged was one of those! I have had the pleasure of playing a co-op game of Ironsworn with the author @shawntomkin and have run a Starforged campaign on my channel.It might not be on the same "artistic" level as games like Mörk Borg, Thousand Year Old Vampire, or Eat the Reich, but it is one of the best examples of graphical user-friendliness in our hobby.
(DIR) Post #ApU6xAm3Y3IrCY5wgq by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-27T22:19:09Z
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@mattkay @shawntomkin I'm going to say something heretical: the “artistic” stylings of Mork Borg, Thousand Year Old Vampire, and Eat the Reich get in the way of them being a useful technical document for the execution of playing a game. At a certain point, you have to accept that style over substance means that you are getting less substance. Of those three, Thousand Year Old Vampire is the most playable, but it also has the most straightforward mechanics that don't require very much in the way of explication. Mork Borg is the worst of them. Absolutely horrific in terms of actually producing a usable document that's playable and readable.(And don't even get me started on how bad that book in specific is for people with visual impairments. I have an entire multi-hour rant which is made up of 80% profanity taking on that particular subject.)Another good layout and design source to check out would be Five Parsecs from Home, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, or Ivan's latest book, Forgotten Ruin (https://modiphius.net/en-us/products/forgotten-ruin-the-adventure-wargame) — perhaps the last one best of all because it is deliberately structured as a newcomer's introduction to “adventure wargaming.” Beautiful stuff, though Parsecs and Leagues are both pretty dense and complicated in places. #FiveParsecs #FiveLeagues #ForgottenRuin #TTRPG #AdventureWargame
(DIR) Post #ApUxzoOwTuFWFjQXWS by AndreasDavour@dice.camp
2024-12-28T08:13:25Z
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@lextenebris @mattkay @shawntomkin I wont touch Mörk Borg with the proverbial ten foot pole, because I think it looks terrible and I can't stand it.
(DIR) Post #ApVQf3LIdGi9BKB1Pc by mattkay@dice.camp
2024-12-28T13:34:40Z
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@lextenebris you're not the first person who I've heard this from. But I will say that I've played Mörk Borg and don't find that the layout gets in the way - on the contrary it inspires me. But I totally get the issue. For my own projects, I prefer to create cleaner, user-friendly layouts, too.
(DIR) Post #ApVfhhPY807TLMsu1I by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-28T16:23:13Z
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@mattkay There are games that take visual inspiration from Mork Borg and do a far better job of actually being a readable, playable game. #Infaernum (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/481960/infaernum-extreme-role-playing-game-core-retail-version) clearly takes that style of design and actually goes through the trouble of making it readable, in part by increasing font sizes, and by decreasing some of the crazy layout twists, and for the most part, bringing the color palette down to something somewhat sane. I'm not saying perfectly sane, but it becomes far more usable. Contrast with Death in Space (https://deathinspace.com), which clearly got the Mork Borg vibe, and then cut away every single thing except what was absolutely necessary at a visual level, turning it into a stark and yet strangely beautiful text which is completely and utterly functional.(cont)#TTRPG
(DIR) Post #ApVfixfXARFg3WxllQ by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-28T16:23:27Z
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@mattkay Likewise #Mothership (https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/pages/mothership-rpg) which goes hyper-minimalist and thus is utterly readable and playable immediately.But if you want to see something that goes super stylish, bordering into the psychedelic, you have to check out #Warpland (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/358971/warpland). It definitely has a little of that MB influence going along, but it goes its own way to its great and abiding advantage. As I've said about it in other contexts, “You may not be high enough to play this game.” It remains a beautifully hyper-stylized piece of work that is nevertheless extremely accessible for play. #TTRPG
(DIR) Post #ApVhLq9DAJ0ZycwmIK by Tim_Eagon@dice.camp
2024-12-28T16:28:13Z
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@mattkay @lextenebris I like Mork Borg (and the other Borg games), but yeah, the art can be too much. That said, it does help in three ways: most of the rules are printed clearly on the front and back inside covers, they offer art-free rule files, and their adventures (at least the official one) eschew a lot of those flourishes.
(DIR) Post #ApVhLrDrAWJnJK80Aq by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-28T16:41:40Z
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@Tim_Eagon @mattkay Which I find to be an ironic admission by the creators that the style literally gets in the way of the substance. And in order to play the game, you have to remove it. This is fine if you intend to get by on your style, but that really only goes so far and is not something that you can keep for yourself once it's escaped out into the world as the myriad of copycats.First, write a good game. Secondly, publish it clearly and effectively. Really just do that. #TTRPG
(DIR) Post #ApVhnr9H2M9ZBpKr32 by Tim_Eagon@dice.camp
2024-12-28T16:46:44Z
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@lextenebris @mattkay I think Johan Nohr and the other folks at the Stockholm Kartell would argue that the art and layout are part of the substance. It is an art book too and certainly sets the mood.
(DIR) Post #ApViGuvQ4hmvIgiEdM by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-28T16:52:02Z
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@Tim_Eagon @mattkay I would argue that if you can't set the mood for something which is effectively so shallow without impacting the usability of the text, then maybe you should reconsider what mood you're setting.Never try to play Mork Borg with visually impaired people. Just putting that out there for you. Don't try it. Don't try playing it straight from the accessible text, in fact. Mechanically, it's just not a very good game. It's getting by on the fact that it had a very strong visual impact and looks something like a psychedelic 70s zine, while not having the depth and charging way more.I'll go a step further and say that it actually represents an anti-pattern that you should actively avoid, not just in terms of presentation, but in terms of design. Don't be an art book. An art book is not a game's text. Or, for that matter, hot pink on lime is not an inspirational revelation as regards the mood and mode of your game. If you think it is, it's probably time to go back to the drawing board. #TTRPG
(DIR) Post #ApW6roeFblxbfhHnUm by cybergoths@dice.camp
2024-12-28T21:27:33Z
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@lextenebris @mattkay @shawntomkin Let me do a “Yes, but…” based on reading Mörk Borg, Pirate Borg and running CY_BORG. The layout is both stunning, makes your eyes bleed and a disaster for legibility. However, they do provide a plain text version of the Mörk Borg rules and my experience in play was all I needed was the reference sheet.Mörk Borg Plaintext and ref here- https://morkborg.com/preview/
(DIR) Post #ApW6uy86oQi3wlktbk by cybergoths@dice.camp
2024-12-28T21:28:08Z
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@lextenebris @mattkay @shawntomkin These are less useful than the plain text but sharing for completenessCY_BORG reference and generators (bypassing the neeed for a lot of the rules) here: https://cy-borg.io/2/Pirate Borg reference and assets here: https://www.limithron.com/pirateborg
(DIR) Post #ApWAHToxxuzMT8E9cu by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-28T22:05:51Z
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@cybergoths @mattkay @shawntomkin If your core book needs additional supplementation in order to be playable, or even readable, perhaps the problem is the core book isn't that great. Otherwise, they would just be selling the text, and that would carry the game. #TTRPG
(DIR) Post #ApXE9r0c7qWc2gKW9I by cybergoths@dice.camp
2024-12-29T10:23:58Z
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@lextenebris @mattkay @shawntomkin I don’t disagree but there are a lot of people of there who love what they’ve done. I know it put me off reading it. Then again, I look back at some of the older games out there with unexciting B&W layouts and think they did it better. For example, RQ2 or Classic Traveller.
(DIR) Post #ApXhyItlbWjtgqXHV2 by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-29T15:58:04Z
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@cybergoths @mattkay @shawntomkin This rapidly goes over into “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would that make bridge jumping a good idea?” There are a lot of people out there who love a lot of stupid things. There have been some really horrendous fads in both RPG mechanical design and visual design over the decades (complex shaded and lined backgrounds behind text, anyone? Early World of Darkness? Just me then?). “People loved them,” but not most people, and for good reason.That's not to say that bad design hasn't been with us since the beginning and sometimes was much worse than others. But the one thing you can say about the old black and white layouts with minimal art and no backgrounds is that visually they were quite readable. When we get there, we have to start critiquing the actual writing, and some of that was borderline impenetrable. (I'm looking at you, Traveller, in many incarnations.)The modern six by nine with plenty of white space, a large comfortable font, and well-chosen illustrative art very well may be the pinnacle of design in the RPG space. I'm definitely not hating it. #TTRPG
(DIR) Post #ApXiYiVNsOtpX6Ugz2 by cptbutton@dice.camp
2024-12-29T16:04:37Z
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@lextenebris @cybergoths @mattkay @shawntomkin "(complex shaded and lined backgrounds behind text, anyone? Early World of Darkness? Just me then?)."Yeah, bleah.Also one of the GURPS books was awful this way, "GURPS Cops" I think.On Traveller, while you can get scanned versions of most books on CD-ROM, some of the scans aren't so good because of the shaded background messing up the OCR.
(DIR) Post #ApXiowQBu6UdKJnkYa by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-29T16:07:36Z
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@cptbutton @cybergoths @mattkay @shawntomkin Regarding Traveler, that's exactly what I was thinking about plus the recent White Book Traveler just doesn't look very good compared to a lot of more modern digest-sized books. It's not even the absence of art. It's the choice of typography and the density of the text. It's classic and it's functional, both of which are extremely powerful things to call on. But it's not good in the sense that it is a fine expression of the bookmaker's art, as it were.In the 70s, we could forgive such things, even in the 80s. But when the internet and desktop publishing became truly mainstream, and you could check out a book on layout and typography, it became unjustifiable.Today, when you can literally find excellent examples and don't even have to leave your house to watch hours and hours of professional layout artists talk about how to do the job, it's unforgivable.
(DIR) Post #ApXlRp6XF4Q3prH9Vo by mattkay@dice.camp
2024-12-29T16:36:57Z
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@lextenebris @cptbutton @cybergoths please stop tagging Shawn Tomkin, folks.Disliking a piece of art doesn't make it bad. And MB is a piece of art whose influence on the hobby is huge. Pirate Borg and Fleaux both spring to mind as much more accessible games that are graphically inspired by MB.Games shouldn't have to follow some sort of best practice style guide, esp in a hobby rich with artists. Let them do their thing and move on if it doesn't resonate with you. :shrug:
(DIR) Post #ApXrlxeVlnMVra9Zp2 by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-29T17:47:54Z
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@mattkay @cptbutton @cybergoths I find the inherent rejection that there is anything which is explicitly bad art to be self-defeating, especially in a thread specifically intended to talk about good layout and design. Lots of things are hugely influential and complete garbage when it comes to achieving the aim of the product, yet they can be incredibly popular and incredibly influential while still being poorly designed, poorly executed, or poorly intended.In order to make judgments about improving your own, you have to be able to consciously judge the qualities of other things.Games really do have to follow some sort of best practice style guide in the sense of being accessible and playable as games. Products that move away from that find that they aren't very good games. Products that move closer to those ideals tend to be very good games. Could I write a game in Cicerian Latin which had really elegant mechanics? Sure. It'd be a lousy game, however, because no one aside from a few academics would be able to read and play with it. It would be deliberately inaccessible. Perhaps it would inspire people to lift the best aspects of the mechanics. But even if they did, it would still remain a pretty crap game via reasonable objective measures.Don't shortchange the ability to judge #TTRPG
(DIR) Post #ApYSL02UU6SVkcNPGK by cybergoths@dice.camp
2024-12-29T19:26:30Z
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@cptbutton @lextenebris @mattkay The shading only became an issue with GDW books in a big way with late MegaTraveller and TNE. CT and early MT were beautifully clear. Let’s not mention the issues with errata in MT though lol.
(DIR) Post #ApYSL0zKxJWwh7uOzA by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-30T00:37:34Z
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@cybergoths @cptbutton @mattkay Interestingly, I think it was an artifact of GDW's DTP style in that period because those were not the only books they put out which don't scan well and really weren't incredibly readable even with the text in hand that they published at the time. I love the content of Dark Conspiracy, but I would very much like to provide a little electrocortical stimulation to the person who did the layout back in the day.
(DIR) Post #ApYStC5ICuMoxDzZxY by cybergoths@dice.camp
2024-12-30T00:43:43Z
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@lextenebris @cptbutton @mattkay There are a couple of current publishers that hit that spot for me, beyond the game we’ve been talking about. Bad layout does that for me. My conflict over the Borg games is that I think they’re visually stunning but make my eyes bleed getting information out quickly.
(DIR) Post #ApYUXuOyxFs3wMBDkW by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-30T01:02:22Z
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@cybergoths @cptbutton @mattkay Looking through my most recent acquisitions and just flipping through and gazing at the layout without consideration of the content:Dawn of the Orcs is beautiful, minimalist, super clear layout. The art is all solid black and white, old school fantasy content. The font is comfortably large and not so dense that your eyes slide off of it. It's a great little book.Siege Perilous has a similar kind of broad open clear layout. The tables get a little bit cramped from time to time, but not too bad. The choice of font for the boxes in offsets is terrible. Way too light and spindly, especially in the high-res version on a goldenrod background. The art is muddy but appropriate to the layout and mood.Forgotten Ruin has been mentioned before, but it's worth repeating that it is clean, open, and makes really good use of color to a level which I can really only say Starforged matches.I've got a couple of games here which are intended to be printed and played from a trifold sheet: Second Sun and Depths of Torment because they have so much information to pack on to a single page effectively, front and back. The font is inherently pretty overly tight, but both of them make good use of color to set off sections in minimal art as suited to their necessary designs.(cont)#TTRPG #layout
(DIR) Post #ApYUcaLSx7N5BQlVWy by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-30T01:03:12Z
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@cybergoths @cptbutton @mattkay Hellsquad is a bit of a goof and a retro throwback, which is immediately obvious from its layout. Overall it's okay, but the fact that it doesn't use any spaces between paragraphs or indentation for the first line means that anything longer than one paragraph in a bit all runs together visually on the left column.Oh yes, and paragraphs are all running full width of the page for a full line.Apocalypse Frame is another indie, very sparse text in terms of layout. And the body font is smaller than I would really like, but it's a good choice of design.(cont)#TTRPG #layout
(DIR) Post #ApYUfDFlGSeyQwLklk by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2024-12-30T01:03:41Z
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@cybergoths @cptbutton @mattkay Community Radio is a weird mess of layout. It's extremely fond of illustrations with bold colors as page backgrounds, often directly underneath text which is itself colored, and on at least one occasion you have dark purple on dark turquoise over dark green as the content of a page.All of that said, when it hits and actually leans into having contrast, it's quite beautiful. And the colors are unusual enough that it's worth at least looking at the print version (as opposed to the color version) doesn't have any of the background or color usage. It's all black and white and as such a far better text and quite printable. As much as I enjoy the physicality of the color version, the black and white version is a better text and a better book.That's just me dipping into the library here a little bit. A lot of those are very indie creators, but it's nice to see there is so much old school layout updated to modern sensibilities in terms of white space, font size, and structure.#TTRPG #layout