danhem
5th Level Troll
Posts: 731
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Post by danhem on Mar 1, 2010 22:56:37 GMT -5
Absolutely leave the solos together. I never liked them spread out through SA. It required way too much page flipping and the print was always agonizingly small.
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Post by zanshin on Mar 2, 2010 4:21:55 GMT -5
I have to agree with keeping the solo together. If thats what you want to play , you can just print that section.
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ydars
1st Level Troll
Ur-Lord and Elf Friend
Posts: 31
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Post by ydars on Mar 2, 2010 10:55:08 GMT -5
Hi there, I have just joined the Forum because I saw the e-zine and wanted to help out if I could. I edit Ordo Draconis, an e-zine for the Dragon Warriors RPG, and I am set up to do anonymous polls to find out what fans actually want from things like e-zines. For an example of the sort of output you can get see here (this is our poll from Ordo) FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=l3gp6g6c3kpjik5702875(please don't fill this form in as we are currently gathering data for our zine). I can set up a poll for you in minutes, to get you real feedback: all you have to do is think of some questions. I also do mapping for fantasy: for some of my maps see here dragonwarriors.wetpaint.com/page/Northern+Cornumbriaand here dragonwarriors.wetpaint.com/page/The+Fief+of+Eastmarch(note that I am Steve Dove, not Kris Richards: I WISH)!! I also write articles and adventures and would be keen to contribute. regards Steve
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Post by zanshin on Mar 2, 2010 11:55:30 GMT -5
Wow Steve, thats brilliant.Welcome to the site! Nice maps. Thank you for the offer of a poll. I'll have to give some thought as to the kind of questions that would need asking but i will be in touch. I see you have posted in the TrollsZine 2 section. I'll answer you there, but its great to have new talent.
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ydars
1st Level Troll
Ur-Lord and Elf Friend
Posts: 31
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Post by ydars on Mar 2, 2010 12:34:38 GMT -5
I await your response, O great master!
Whilst we are on the subject of feedback, I offer myself as a proofreader, since I have done a fair amount of that (I am a University Lecturer in Biochemistry and so have to edit things all day long) and issue 1 has a few bugs in it.
I promise to lovingly excise all bugs for next issue, should you be amenable to my help!
Truly they are minor things, but attention to detail all adds up to yield a reassuring air of professionalism!
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sligo
4th Level Troll
Read my blog: http://indysligo.weebly.com/
Posts: 495
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Post by sligo on Mar 2, 2010 12:56:08 GMT -5
ydars - I might have you re-draw some maps of "my" world. What I have I did in MS Paint and doesn't look nearly as cool as your maps!
Of course, there's a huge inaccuracy in my drawn maps that no one but me has ever noticed...
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ydars
1st Level Troll
Ur-Lord and Elf Friend
Posts: 31
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Post by ydars on Mar 2, 2010 13:19:52 GMT -5
Hi Sligo,
I would be glad to have a go, though world maps are the thing I am least practised at, right at this moment. I should be able to do it though.
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sligo
4th Level Troll
Read my blog: http://indysligo.weebly.com/
Posts: 495
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Post by sligo on Mar 3, 2010 12:44:09 GMT -5
I'm not entering a Font war, I've made my position clear. If you want something different, I'm happy to hand the job over to someone else. All right, Quog... You got me looking at the nearly-finished solo I've been working on. (4 pics to go and it will be done!) Right now, the body text is all in Times New Roman. I tried a number of different fonts that I have available, and I'm kind of settling on Franklin Gothic Book, though there are several that all look pretty good. Without going to a script-style or old-English style font, what would you recommend? Thanks!
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quoghmyre
7th Level Troll
The Summer Troll
Posts: 1,048
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Post by quoghmyre on Mar 3, 2010 15:16:38 GMT -5
The first thing I recommend for anyone laying up large and complex documents is take a little break and learn about Styles, in your word processor. In Word they are overly complicated, but try and learn how to use them. If you use styles then you can quickly and easily reformat your whole document. Then you can experiment without fear. Franklin Gothic Book is a formal font, and quiet weighty. If you have a lot of white space and your text isn't tightly packed it should be ok. desktoppub.about.com/cs/finetypography/ht/body_font.htm
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sligo
4th Level Troll
Read my blog: http://indysligo.weebly.com/
Posts: 495
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Post by sligo on Mar 3, 2010 15:39:03 GMT -5
Wow - I read throught that article and it packed a lot more useful advice than I expected. I've never used Styles in MS Word. I'll spend a little time on it. Hopefully I can apply them appropriately without having to go through 74 pages and manually fix it (because the paragraph identifiers are using a different font, specifically, Wide Latin)
Thanks - you've pointed me in a good direction.
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Post by Aramis of Erak on Mar 3, 2010 17:04:36 GMT -5
Seconding the Styles advice.
MS word isn't too bad to work with for styles, but it's not at all well documented.
I got hooked on using styles with PM4.0a-PM6.1.
I tend to use styles a lot in Apple's Pages; one of the easiest interfaces for styles I've worked with, and further, about the second most robust. (PM 6.x was the most robust.)
One other piece of advice: remember your target audience. Many good looking fonts do well in one mode or another, but not all. Typical modes now are 750-800px tall by 1000-1200px widescreen color monitor, 1200-2600px wide by 1600-3300px tall printed page in either monochrome or color, with color tending to be lower resolution, and a small but growing market of 700-800px tall by 400-500px wide ebook readers. Professionally printed monocrome can hit 6600px tall pages...
Oregon is exquiste for print at 150-300 DPI... but when the text is small, as when looking at full pages on ebook readers or single-full-page in acrobat reader on a laptop, it can grey the intercharacter white space into unreadability.
Mishawka, on the other hand, looks great on screen, but blocky and horrid when too large (It was designed for a scalable screen display font...) or printed.
Also, check with anti-aliasing both on and off... it can make a good bit of difference in low zooms.
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quoghmyre
7th Level Troll
The Summer Troll
Posts: 1,048
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Post by quoghmyre on Mar 3, 2010 18:50:46 GMT -5
Swoon: Number 1 in the Free Section of the DriveThruRPG Special (03/03/2010) Email Newsletter.
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Post by zanshin on Mar 3, 2010 19:12:38 GMT -5
I saw that too, I'm keeping that mail I guess most free things are just tasters. Ours is the real deal. He says, modestly.
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Post by mgtremaine on Mar 4, 2010 10:12:54 GMT -5
I have not played the solo yet but otherwise my favorite articles [besides mine of course ] are the drop in GM adventures Roadhouse and Restless Mausoleum. For those who are lucky enough to have active T&T groups I think articles like these are very useful. All in all I think TrollsZine is very well done indeed. Again great work everyone! -Mike
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Post by zanshin on Mar 4, 2010 10:17:53 GMT -5
And yours is most excellent Mike. Have an exalt! I would love to see more of the world of Cala. I think a proper setting is one of the things T&T needs to be properly relaunched.
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