Shorter spell descriptions for spell cards
Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 8:50 pm
I started thinking about creating some nice looking spell cards. I want these to be suitable for professional printing (at places like DriveThrough or GameCrafter). Of course, they should also be useful in play and that means they need to contain as much pertinent information as possible. Some of the spell descriptions are quite long (Magic Jar, I'm looking at you) and will never fit on something like a poker card. So I set out to edit the spell descriptions down to a size that will actually fit on a card while still being readable. For some spells that means removing information, even if it may be required during play. To alleviate this issue each card will come with a page number to facilitate finding the full-length description.
Condensing all the spells down to manageable size takes some time but I've now completed the first editing pass for the Magic-User spells from the core book. Having the shortened spell descriptions is only half the battle though, they also need to go on cards. I said I want the cards to be visually appealing but it is clear that the card design is likely to change over time. To make changing the card design as easy as possible (and editing hundreds of cards to apply some new design is certainly not my idea of easy), I've also created a system that allows an SVG template to be populated with the spell details. So if you want to make use of the short spell descriptions as part of your own favourite card design that is (almost) as easy as pressing a button.
I've attached a complete set of MU spell cards as pdf file. There also is a GitHub repo https://github.com/humburg/bfrpg_spell_cards where you can find the spell descriptions and templates. If you would like to suggest some edits to the spell descriptions you are very welcome to do so, either here or over on GitHub. As I said, this is the result of the first editing pass and improvements are definitely possible.
Condensing all the spells down to manageable size takes some time but I've now completed the first editing pass for the Magic-User spells from the core book. Having the shortened spell descriptions is only half the battle though, they also need to go on cards. I said I want the cards to be visually appealing but it is clear that the card design is likely to change over time. To make changing the card design as easy as possible (and editing hundreds of cards to apply some new design is certainly not my idea of easy), I've also created a system that allows an SVG template to be populated with the spell details. So if you want to make use of the short spell descriptions as part of your own favourite card design that is (almost) as easy as pressing a button.
I've attached a complete set of MU spell cards as pdf file. There also is a GitHub repo https://github.com/humburg/bfrpg_spell_cards where you can find the spell descriptions and templates. If you would like to suggest some edits to the spell descriptions you are very welcome to do so, either here or over on GitHub. As I said, this is the result of the first editing pass and improvements are definitely possible.
