Adventure (A Visual Layout)

BrokenClock

I was going through some of the adventures published by Wizards and I thought 'now why can't my adventures look like that?', so I decided to rectify that. I ended up with a design that is very much inspired by the official published adventures. I simply created a template which I can easily edit. Then I saved the file as a PDF so that I could read them from my laptop at the table. It works out really well and I find it much easier than having it on paper. Plus, I can easily create hyperlinks to certain things.

"Example":http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g143/TheBrokenClock/Page1.jpg

What does everyone else do?

- Clock
"Govaga":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/govaga

arsheesh

That's quite a stunning adventure layout you've got there BrokenClock. As for myself, I typically just do up my adventures in Word, since I can easily modify them as the adventure plods along. If I was familiar with LaTeX I'd use that instead. Anyway, thanks for sharing, that is quite inspirational work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

gnunn

Yeah. That is really gorgeous! I'd love to have the template to use for my own stuff. I would be printing it out, but the layout is very nice!

DarkMagus

BrokenClock, that's a great layout you've got there, very professional looking indeed. I kind of wish I could do something like that, but I really prefer to write by hand into a notebook, I'm a very somatic learner in that way (once I write my shopping list down I no longer have to look at it... lol) but it just looks so cool I I'd like to see my adventures look like that for non-utility purposes.

gaaran

I second Gnunn's notion for wanting the template! What did you use to create it and are you willing to share?

VentureSix

Agreed, that looks fantastic!

BrokenClock

Of course I can share.

"Template":http://www.mediafire.com/?z9bm85t29vkcmg0

You have to own Photoshop and have at least a basic knowledge of how it works. Although, with a little goofing around I'm sure you could figure out how to edit it without any knowledge at all.

Essentially I've split it into three different text boxes. You would take the text tool and edit each individual box. Now, it's not the most convenient, but once you get the hang of writing in Photoshop is becomes a little easier as you go along. For me, I'm a visual person, so I'll sacrifice a little convenience for aesthetics.

"Cover Template":http://www.mediafire.com/?try599qay5dmnvh
"Example":http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g143/TheBrokenClock/CoverTemplate.jpg

Obviously it is heavily inspired by the covers of the 4th edition books. You barely even have to know how to use photoshop to make your own cover with that template. You just delete the picture and put your own in there. Just make sure the picture is at the very bottom of the layers (so everything appears over top of it). You can then uses the colour replacement tool to change the colours of the title boxes. From there, you just edit the text. Simple!

When you're done, just save them as PDFs. From there, you can take a simple PDF merger and put all the files together to create your own PDF adventure book that is easy to read from at the table. I like the horizontal layout, that way I don't have to scroll through a page.

Now, you could print all those things out. But, keep in mind that the size of the template is 11 by 8.5 (so a full page). You can't print to the edges of a page, so you would have to shrink it or print on bigger paper.

Have fun! (also, if there is an easier way to create a simple to use and edit template in photoshop, let me know)


- Clock
"Govaga":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/govaga

arsheesh

I would think it would be easier to do this sort of work in something like Publisher, or perhaps a freeware program such as "Scribus":http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus. You'd probably have a bit more control of working with the text boxes and the program would automatically save the entire document to pdf.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

twiggyleaf

Hi again, BrokenClock
Your page template does look very good.

I generally do mine in Word and then copy and paste into OP or save in my own drive. I sometimes do some work in Publisher as well, but usually just keep it black and white with some picture insertions. (As it is only me using it, I feel no need to spend the extra time, doing all that layout work, but I agree that if I ever did, having a standard template like yours is a good idea.)

Good of you to share it with us all too.
twigs