Spell cards

Creating game materials? Monsters, spells, classes, adventures? This is the place!
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pytheas
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Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2019 7:06 pm

Spell cards

Post by pytheas »

I've been thinking that printable spell cards would be really nice. There was some discussion regarding this about a year ago here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3035 but it looks like there hasn't been any activity since. So I've had a go at creating a spell card design of my own. I've kept these black and white as that seems to be in line with the general BFRPG aesthetic.

An example of a spell card for Magic-Users is attached. There are two different designs for a card back. One is intended to clearly mark the cards as BFRPG spell cards but I wasn't entirely happy with the look and created an alternate version that isn't BFRPG branded. I would love some feedback on this and if there is a completed (or at least active) spell cards project that I'm unaware off, please let me know.
Attachments
L1-protection-from-evil.pdf
Protection from evil spell card
(66.45 KiB) Downloaded 335 times
mu-back_alt.pdf
Magic-User alternate card back
(87.65 KiB) Downloaded 300 times
mu-back.pdf
Magic-User BFRPG card back
(144.93 KiB) Downloaded 307 times
Pholus
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:31 pm

Re: Spell cards

Post by Pholus »

Hey! You actually motivated me to consider I had a way to quickly make a set of spell cards. They are nowhere near as fancy as what you're describing, but they are a complete set out of the rulebook at this point. They're a bit up-thread in the workshop if you'd like to look!

Cheers!
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pytheas
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Re: Spell cards

Post by pytheas »

Pholus wrote: Sat Feb 16, 2019 5:39 pm Hey! You actually motivated me to consider I had a way to quickly make a set of spell cards. They are nowhere near as fancy as what you're describing, but they are a complete set out of the rulebook at this point. They're a bit up-thread in the workshop if you'd like to look!
I like the look of those cards, except that the font size seems way to small (as you noted in that thread). The idea of generating them semi-automatically is quite appealing but my impression is that quite a bit of editing is required to make sure all the most important information ends up on the card while remaining readable. In the example I posted I reduced the text substantially. To make up for it I added a page reference. That seems like a reasonable compromise to me. The goal is for the cards to act as a quick reference. If more details are required the card at least facilitates finding it quickly.

I'd be willing to invest some time into creating a set of spell cards but really would like some feedback first. Once they are done even small changes will take some effort. Much easier to nail down the design first (as much as possible anyway).
Pholus
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:31 pm

Re: Spell cards

Post by Pholus »

Okay, I had a few hours off today (my wife is reorganizing her new office) and so I did a hack editing job. I think it's not bad and at least the fonts are more readable. It's "r2" in my thread.

Sorry, I work a job where I am just not sure when I've got time for this so I rammed it through! Hope it's useful!
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pytheas
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Re: Spell cards

Post by pytheas »

Thanks! Yes, that seems a lot more readable.

It has occurred to me that I've been going about this wrong. I should, of course, separate the spell descriptions from the card art/layout. The first step would be to create a text file with spell details, including suitably edited description. Then I could write a script to generate all cards from a template. That way, if I (or anyone else) wanted to change the design of the cards it would be very easy to recreate all the cards, provided that the area available for text doesn't change too much.

I might have a go at that when I have a bit of time. It'll probably be a few days though.
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