As promised, I’m working on a compilation of Fortean creatures initially statted up for Microlite74.
Here is a screenshot sample of what the creature entries will look like:
Yibboth entry in Beast Book
Yes the stat block was inspired by D&D 4e, but by looks only. I still haven’t played 4e, and don’t plan to. But I took to heart something that James from Grognardia said a while back about retro clones slavishly imitating even the bad layout of original products. I can’t help it when it’s finished the Beast Book will be 5.5 x 8.5 inches, a booklet just like the original D&D. But hopefully the layout and organization will be better. I mean the supercomputer idling on my desk ensures that at least I can make my products attractive. Whether they are useful or not is another story.
Suggestion for you from my personal experiences with the Swords & Wizardry Ref Sheets and microliteMechwarrior digest sized booklets:
- Tables and multiple columns are your friends. I saw your block and immediately wanted to shove the bottom two columns next to the name and AC/HD area. That’s a ton of white space you could save/use.
- Don’t be scared to decrease the font size in your tables (I can see they’re a bit bigger than the font underneath) because you can use row shading to set things off.
- I reduce the margin/padding on my tables a lot – sometimes to 0.04″. You get more in the table that way and it’s still quite readable.
I’m looking forward to seeing your stuff!
Hey Chgowiz thanks for the input, I will look at tweaking my layout as you suggest.
On another note I recently discovered The RPG Circus podcast and heard you interviewed on episode six.
That was great I hope they have you back. I was also pleased to hear Jim from LotFP on episode nine.
Heck I’d encourage them to have at least a Notes from the Old School segment, we need more consistent
representation in the podcast arena.