Hoppsbusch

I expect that at least a few of you are interested in how I made the PDF versions of Dragoons20 RPG and maybe even how to make the booklet.

I started with the original Microlite20 RPG rules. I cut the text as best I could from various sources. If you try to redo this you will notice that most of the PDFs are encoded – probably in come form of UNICODE (UT8 or UT16). Occasionally I could find a text or doc version if I looked hard enough and at least a few people who have extended Microlite20 have published their PDFs in easy to clip form. I’ve tried to make it easy for those that follow my footsteps.

Once I had the basic rules in a good easy to edit MS Word document, I started the process of rewritting the rules and adding new sections. Some of it went pretty quick. Sections like laying out the character sheet and many of the tables I saved for later – in my Desk Top Publishing tool of choice Serif PagePlus. I started playtesting even this early version and felt like I was really getting somewhere very quickly.

Once I was happy with the sections and basic text I started importing the DOC file into PagePlus. First I create my master doc, a side folded 8.5″ x 11″ booklet. Then I create my master pages: one blank, one with just a border and one with a border and page numbers. Then I import the acutal DOC file in as a new text frame. It spills and jumbles its way on to a HUGE number of pages and looks like junk. It does preserve the idea of layout text so I have one header style and a normal style. Easy enough, I change those styles into something that looks like the fonts will fit into my tiny, but useful, half-pages. I always prefer to have one topic per page (unless sections are very small and grouped together). So next I insert a page break for all the big sections at the header. Now I have topics mostly on pages by themselves and a bit of room for tables and graphics. Tables are pretty easy for me to build – I either fake them in text layout or actually build them in MS Excel and then import the cells as a new table with cut and paste.

The graphics are from 30+ years of keeping a sketchbook and I pulled characters that fit my wacky sense of what Bantumwart is like. I love to draw, but never have been that good at REAL people – just monsters, beasts and fairy creatures. My fantasy world is filled with achronistic paradoxes and I have never taken my fantasy too seriously. When I read fantasy authors I prefer Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Patricia Wrede, Robert Asprin and great comic authors like that. My fantasy art tastes go in the wild directions and include Brian Froud, Frank Frazetta, Sergio Aragones, Mike Ploog, Tony DiTerlizzi, John Bauer, and others who mix fantasy and cartoons.

Then it is time to edit, edit and edit some more. I make my family and friends read everything so that they can fix my crazy grammar and funky way of punctuation. I count on grammar and spell checkers, because I was not a English major.

Most of the crazy little mechanics for adding humor come from over 30 years of homebrew rules and reading tons of other fine RPGs. I’m pretty proud of the results and my players seem to really like the ideas – even if they get frustrated when they visit Hell. Games run very quickly. Several combats and tons of role-playing all in about 3 hours a night. Try that with some of the more complicated RPGs out there – no offense to D&D 4E, GURPs, HERO System… but if you play with all of the rules in those systems you will probably bog down a bit while running the adventures.

To make the actual PDFs I export the non-booklet rules and character sheet from “Publish as PDF” in PagePlus. I use Print and send it to Adobe PDF to generate the booklet. Since PagePlus already knows it is a booklet because I told it so before I started it actually handles all the fancy page reordering and as long as it is done double-sided everything works out great. I notice one review mentioned that the booklet might be a PocketMOD. I love PocketMODs, but they only hold 8 pages. This one is 28 pages and becomes 7 double-sided printed pieces of paper. Pretty cool really. It also explains the one blank page – it is so that I have the back and front covers on the same page.

When I print the booklet, I print page 1 and 2 on two sides of on one piece of card stock. Then I print pages 3 through 14 on 6 double-sided regular printer paper pages. My wife is a needleworks master and knows a bit about saddle stitching. So she pokes 5 holes in the folded pages – 1 in the center, 2 are 0.5″ from the edges and the other 2 are bisecting those. Then she laces the pages together with good strong thread and ties the knot off in the center pages of the book.

I also considered buying a “long” stapler for this task. If you would like to try this yourself take a look at some of these fine sites:

http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2007/10/make-mini-saddle-stitched-booklet.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_5176140_saddle-stitch-booklet.html

Because I use a folded booklet template in PagePlus, making the booklet into an A4 booklet only took about 40 minutes. But I’m afriad it would take me quite a long time to tell it that I want each page on a single A4 sheet – I may even need to start from an empty project and re-layout the entire book using cut and paste. For now I’ll just post the A4 booklet and character sheets – maybe I will figure out a clever way to solve this problem Until then enjoy the game and let me know what you think about it or pass along your own editing and bind tricks. [EDIT - OK, so a few minutes later I realized that I didn't have to re-layout the PagePlus file - I just needed to trick Acrobat into printing over the old PDF with the paper size set to A4 - it worked and I've uploaded a A4 verison for everyone to enjoy.]