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Post by nialldubh on Jun 6, 2022 8:06:04 GMT -5
Ah, thanks got it now...
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jeffb
2nd Level Troll
Posts: 66
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Post by jeffb on Jun 6, 2022 8:44:08 GMT -5
So has Webbed Sphere actually done *anything at all* with T&T, yet?
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Post by stefanj on Jun 6, 2022 12:12:43 GMT -5
Other than getting all of the products up on their webstore, no.
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Post by peterpanda on Jun 7, 2022 12:04:38 GMT -5
Well, I'd like to see Webbed Sphere go all-in on T&T by thinking and acting big. That starts by building a T&T Theme Park where the rides and attractions are based on the most popular solos and GM adventures. Maybe leverage the traps books for some added entertainment and the Citybooks to recreate a historic Trollworld metropolis like Disney does with their Main Street, USA.
Peter Panda
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Jun 10, 2022 7:46:39 GMT -5
I make no secret about not being a fan of bulletstoppers. Some might know I printed/bound the PDF into two books and now I'm on with splitting that again into four books. Character creation and Equipment. Combat and Magic. House rules and Trollworld. Adventures and Appendix. Or something like that. Not decided on the split for the last two books. I desperately need a decent A3 printer. What shows on screen... Doesn't come out on the printer, unfortunately. Still, it's easier to handle, will take a right old beating (I use really thick paper and that cover is as thick as you can get) and when all four are done I'll come up with a slipcase for them. Book 2 (Combat and Magic) ready to cover: This (or something like it) is something Webbed Sphere could take a look at, possibly with tweaks to the rules, a little better organisation (honestly I read something once then can never find it again. Maybe that's just me.) and some better explanations in places. A basic rules all in one place softback with level 1-3 spells would be lovely without any of the fluff or gameworld stuff. In fact I might have a pop at that next. Edit: Draft cover of book 2 Each is about 80 pages or so (40-50 inside) so a hardback is overkill but I buy greyboard in bulk so its no issue. Actual cost to make this? Let's see... I already have stacks of paper from years ago. The ink costs about £40 once a year maybe. Needles and floss (for extra strength) already had but cost a few quid and last forever. Glue is cheap and I have gallons of it gathered over time. Glue sticks about £10 for 12 and I probably need to order some more soon ish. Bookbinding cloth have loads from years ago and just spent £10 on enough for about... five hundred books? More maybe? Clamps and chopping boards are about £10-15 for a one off purchase and last forever. Biggest cost is the printer to buy in the first place. Other than that? Time. print book off (depends on size but 20 minutes?) drill and sew, 5-10 minutes. Clamp and glue cover and spine on. Figure out what to cover it in. Curse the printer for not printing same colours on page. Glue down with glue stick (PVA causes rippling) then cover when dry (about 30-60 mins if you sit near an open window) with clear contact, normally £1 a roll or so but you can buy bulk cheaper.
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darrght
4th Level Troll
Wow, I'm a 4th Level Troll!
Posts: 440
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Post by darrght on Jun 10, 2022 11:36:11 GMT -5
Hey apn , The finished articles look great . If I had the technical expertise and patience I'd do some for myself
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Jun 13, 2022 4:39:24 GMT -5
Small tweak to the potential cover of home printed/bound TnT Deluxe book 2. Here's hoping the ink cartridges work better than the ones in the printer at the moment. The blue sometimes works. If that doesn't the red might. Yellow pretty much doesn't work at all and I have the ink stained fingers to show they've been refilled (and then some, for cyan. Like 'WTF!' as it squirts out the top all over the kitchen. Luckily it wipes off quick when still wet.) I think the Deluxe book will now be split into five tomes. The ' Elaborations', ' Trollworld' and ' Adventures' following books ' Character Creation and Equipment' and ' Combat and Magic'. When that's done I'll figure out a way to make a slipcase/GM screen to slot them all into. That should be pretty easy, just need a couple sheets of A3 greyboard thinner than what I normally use for the cover (which is 3000 microns so will probably go for 2k or 1). As for 'expertise', none of it! I followed a guide on Dragonsfoot HERE to make my first (was it really 2006? Crikey). You'll see a few of my posts in that thread somewhere. My first attempts are still here, still solid just, ah, 'functional' to look at. The faux leather book was my one and only attempt at leather covering. Weighs a ton. The book is Mongoose Runequest II which gives some idea of how old it is. Runequest has that kind of 'niche' fantasy game feel like Tunnels and Trolls. You feel it should be bigger and competing with the 800lb Gorilla in the room (D&D) but it had its chance and now it's just one of a thousand alternatives. Heck, the clones (Old School Essentials more than anything) are probably better sellers/played more than RQ/TnT/Everything not D&D 5e. Still, each to their own. I moved on from D&D years ago and will only revisit to write my own Moldvay basic/Tunnels and Trolls mashup at some point. Haven't touched this book in years. It's still solid. Might see how the gold effect print comes out when the new print cartridge gets here for titles. Key points are: [/b][/u] [li]Laser Printer with Duplex is required for the pages. If you are going to use an inkjet use thickest paper you can find (usually 120gsm not sure on weight for the US but 'heaviest') as the ink will soak the page and ripple it. Thinner paper (even as thick as 90gsm) will show through. [/li] [li]Use chopping boards with clamps to hold it all together or a home made book press like I do (which looks ghetto but works) to drill the holes[/li] [li]Bookbinders or 'Cheese' cloth (mull) is an open weave easy to sew and cheap way of binding the books. I sew them with dental floss because its strong, cheap and minty fresh.[/li] [li]PVA glue to attach the binding cloth to the boards (I use Greyboards at 3000 micron but 2000 is probably as suitable). When gluing paper to anything use glue sticks - it won't ripple like PVA does.[/li] [li]Printing the cover is a headache. You can print the bits like the title and credits separate to put on a blank coloured paper cover (done that) or make up a white cover for a basic 'does the job' job (done that). Or split an image up over several a4 sheets to make a full colour cover which is a pain as you have to cut up/glue the sheets together and your printer may mess up the printing (as mine did on book one with a different shade of brown. More red, and different from the lower half). A3 printing I will try next because I can print a full A4 cover on one sheet of A3 without joins. If I print it landscape it will be too short because of the hinge and require some messing about. [/li] [li]Clear contact to protect/give a gloss look is easy enough to apply after a few goes. I'm still at the 'curse a lot/leave a crease/bubble/shout and go through repertoire of swear words' stage at the moment.[/li] [/ul] Anyway, fingers crossed the A3 printer thing works otherwise it's plan B and get a scabby old epson r300 to work. Somehow. Last I saw it prints misaligned and misses bits out. Probably fit for the bin. The point of all this is that Webbed Sphere can easily come up with something like this. Smaller books, easier to handle, digest sized versions that don't scare people off like the industry standard bullet stoppers do. They have the material, can hire the writers, get the books into print at a quality level higher than I can manage at home. Kickstart it, gauge the interest. Do something with it at any rate.
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Post by nialldubh on Jun 13, 2022 5:51:56 GMT -5
Good to see the adventurers coming from outside the circle!
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Post by houndle on Jun 13, 2022 12:01:20 GMT -5
That looks great apn. I'd go for a commercial version of that if it was made available in the UK. As long as they didn't go down the route of shrinking the font to a miniscule size to fit a smaller format book. Been there, done that, had to buy a special pair of "gaming spectacles" to cope with it.
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darrght
4th Level Troll
Wow, I'm a 4th Level Troll!
Posts: 440
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Post by darrght on Jun 13, 2022 15:51:50 GMT -5
That looks great apn . I'd go for a commercial version of that if it was made available in the UK. As long as they didn't go down the route of shrinking the font to a miniscule size to fit a smaller format book. Been there, done that, had to buy a special pair of "gaming spectacles" to cope with it. I would join you in purchasing a commercial version like this houndle I assume you are younger than me because I have to game in my reading glasses whatever the size of the font nowadays
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Jun 13, 2022 16:24:15 GMT -5
I hear you about the font sizes. Even younger me (with official 20/20 vision as determined by the Railway doctors every few years) must have thought 'there will come a time when glasses are needed'. This one is TnT 7.5. Can't remember why I didn't buy in physical form. Maybe because the small tin (now showing a bit of rust on it) wasn't that long beforehand so went PDF only? Anyway, the advantage of a small (digest) size book is that when you print it off to fill the A4 page the letters are nice and large This is obviously an early effort and 'poor workman blaming tools' according to the blurb I put on the back page. Something about the printer crapping itself. Well it seems to be a theme cause the replacement cartridge isn't working either in exactly the same way (prints black fine, blue when it likes and red not much with yellow not at all). New Printer required then. Doh. Some of the problems I listed back then (in 08 I guess or thereabouts) aren't issues today. Inkjets soak pages. Lasers don't, so are great for churning out page after page and can also Duplex (both sides) pretty quick without having to faff about with it manually. However inkjets are better for full colour prints so looks like I'll have to dig into my pocket. In case anyone asks, I've worked on my car and my motorbike today, hence my nails are black!
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Post by houndle on Jun 13, 2022 23:24:29 GMT -5
It's one of the reasons I resisted anything other than physical copies of my gaming materials for a long time. PDFs are reasonably cheap, but the initial outlay on printers and the like increase costs unless you're going to use them a lot. Over the last few years I find I've been printing things less and less. But there, I still do a fair bit of writing in longhand. Using a fountain pen.
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dungeondevil
3rd Level Troll
Give me grain and I'll give you guns!
Posts: 174
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Post by dungeondevil on Jun 18, 2022 14:40:36 GMT -5
It's one of the reasons I resisted anything other than physical copies of my gaming materials for a long time. PDFs are reasonably cheap, but the initial outlay on printers and the like increase costs unless you're going to use them a lot. Over the last few years I find I've been printing things less and less. But there, I still do a fair bit of writing in longhand. Using a fountain pen. The biggest downside to being an author is the vast expense of having to post print-ups of countless query letters, proposals, sample chapters and entire manuscripts in hard-copy to many agents and publishers in hopes one would offer a contract. Most of my budget was burned away by all that nonsense until I left the industry to jump on the POD waggon. But worst of all was the permanent loss of all that time that nobody can ever get back.
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Jun 19, 2022 9:16:33 GMT -5
For anyone new to the thread my 'what would you like to see' includes a DT&T book split into smaller easier to manage books. In the absence of that happening any time ever, I thought I'd print and bind the book myself. One of the biggest issues I've had is that with a laser printer though its fast to print double sided for the innards of the book they aren't great for covers which typically require full page colour and no border. Had some bother with an old second hand printer from ebay that refused to print in some colours despite new cartridges so I bit the bullet for a new one a week before pay day. beans on toast for a week. I'm not OCD about the books I make. They should be functional and not fall to bits. Anything else is a bonus. With that in mind I printed off a new cover for the 'Book 2 - Combat and Magic' and covered over the top of the book I'd made. That created its own problems because the clear contact I then put on over the new cover wouldn't go on without bumps and wrinkles. Anyway, book two is done aside from a little trimming required on the contact that covers it. Ugh. I hate that stuff with a passion. It's a pig to put on and I was tempted not to bother but I'm not sure how durable the printed cover would be without it. The old cover. Mistakes were made, my cutting mat had a bit of glue on it and I had to get the felt tip pens out! The new printer prints up to A3+. That is about 3cm and 6cm larger than A3 but I didn't have any paper of that size so had to cut/glue some to enlarge the paper. A3 on its own would fall short of covering the book because of the spine and the hinge. Even A3+ is slightly too small. Next book (on it now - 'Book 3 - Elaborations and Trollworld') I may print the cover in A3+ then the main title page on A4 and try to hide the join with some creative printing. Tried to cover the book as much as I could and ended up being slightly lop sided with the title page. It looks better than the picture shows (lighting) because of the d**n contact and I may have a pic somewhere of before it went on. Am hoping the next book won't have the same problem. Needs a few bits trimming. I hate the clear contact stuff. May have already mentioned that. Book 2- Combat and Magic is a short tome and hardback covering is overkill but I have a box of Greyboard A4 sheets in 3000 micron thickness to get rid of as I'm fed up with tripping over it. Far easier and faster to do a softcover book but where's the fun in that? Function over form was always the rule of my home printing but with a colour printer that is a) borderless and b) replicates the colours on screen very well/perfect (that was just the standard medium setting as didn't want to use all the ink) I may have to up my game with regards the book creation process. Easy reference for the combat and spell sections. I combined 'Elaborations' with 'Trollworld' because the house rules section wasn't that big - the cover would have been thicker than the contents. Also have some ribbon to include so may find a way to attach that to the spine as a bookmark. It's a learning process. All being well the next one will be better if I put into practise some of the things I mention above. Already considering how to make a slipcase and use magnets so it folds out into a GM screen and clicks back together as a case. That's a couple of books away though. Edit: Yeah, it looked better before the contact went on. Still lop sided (too far right) on the title page so it means a little out of the box thinking for book 3.
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Jun 19, 2022 10:43:53 GMT -5
Couple of questions... For those that ordered the full page printed Trollworld map, was there a PDF version in high resolution? Been playing about with a cover whilst glue is drying. Anyone have any suggestions of the fabulous Liz Danforth art that might serve as the cover for Book 3 - Elaborations and Trollworld? I sort of combined the Mage with a shrunk Trollworld that you can just make out if you squint but wondering if there are other pictures that might serve as well? Potential cover for Book 3... Edit: and a variant, but not sure I'm keen on this. Couldn't get the Gold outline to make a perfect circle around the globe so it looks wonky.
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