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This was the first one I've picked up and pleased I did. Not had time to do anything with them yet so can't really say, or do any sort of comparison.

I was looking for something a bit lighter/quicker than Merchants and Marauders.
Tiny Epic Tactics, Dungeons, and Mechs were all great. Of course, each seems pretty darn good for its own reasons in my opinion.
 
I just ordered print copies of Neon City Overdrive and Biff! Bam! Kapow!. I had both in pdf, but wanted to get them in print. I also ordered the print/pdf of New World: 2D6 Adventure in a Cyberpunk America, which is a Cepheus Engine powered Cyberpunk Game. I have Zaibatsu already, so i wanted to see how different the two are.

A few days ago I ordered the Colony Builder supplement for the Hostile rpg/setting. Got a comp pdf from the publisher via Drivethru (as the PoD is via Lulu)

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RuneQuest Starter Set is now out. I just ordered it. :grin: Here's Chaosium's link for those curious.Looks really good, Chaosium has always done really nice boxes.



p.s: urbwar urbwar Really love the stuff based on Cepheus Engine. Thanks for the heads up on those new products.
 
RuneQuest Starter Set is now out. I just ordered it. :grin: Here's Chaosium's link for those curious.Looks really good, Chaosium has always done really nice boxes.



p.s: urbwar urbwar Really love the stuff based on Cepheus Engine. Thanks for the heads up on those new products.

Interesting to learn that this is out now. I'm still tempted by the hardcover reprint of Runequest Classic for $20 US, which seems a real bargain.
 
I just ordered print copies of Neon City Overdrive and Biff! Bam! Kapow!. I had both in pdf, but wanted to get them in print. I also ordered the print/pdf of New World: 2D6 Adventure in a Cyberpunk America, which is a Cepheus Engine powered Cyberpunk Game. I have Zaibatsu already, so i wanted to see how different the two are.

A few days ago I ordered the Colony Builder supplement for the Hostile rpg/setting. Got a comp pdf from the publisher via Drivethru (as the PoD is via Lulu)

371727.jpg
371563.png

372616.jpg
I have both of these in PDF, but haven't had a chance to look at them yet. Though it's a bit more, wanted to take a look before getting the hard copies.
 
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My order from Sphärenmeister Spiele arrived today: The Scourge of the Scorn Lords (Old-School Essentials/OSR), Guide to Mordavia: Land of Horror, Leagues of Gothic Horror and Leagues of Cthulhu (all for Leagues of Adventure/Ubiquity).
 
3rik 3rik Nice! I love seeing anything that's using the Ubiquity system. :smile: As an aside, you gotta admit that we're truly in a golden age for rpg options. Some really interesting and good material out there. My only complaint is that in this area at least if it isn't DnD (or variants and other editions), Pathfinder/Starfinder, Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, some Warhammer 40k or board games, getting any other system played with a decent amount of people is truly rare.

There is a game of DCC happening and I might actually jump into it, though to be honest that one technically does fall under DnD (or variants and other editions) sphere. I just love the gonzoness of DCC and it's drawing me. There also is a Empire of the Petal Throne group that plays every other Saturday using a mix Shadowrun & DnD mechanics which makes me wince mentally because Shadowrun mechanics are a mess and throwing it into a blender with DnD mechanics just sounds utterly terrible in my opinion.

I'd love to see someone running RQ, Mythras, GURPs, CyberPunk, The Witcher, Free Leagues stuff off the top of my head. Anything but the above I listed. I don't mind those systems and parts of them I find interesting, I just rather expand and play other systems as well like we used to at game shops I went to. <Mutter>
 
Acmegamer Acmegamer I'm in two groups that will probably play anything anybody is willing to GM for them. The non-GM people in these groups have no idea what's out there, and the GMers are all open to most games, give or take a few exceptions.
 
Acmegamer Acmegamer I'm in two groups that will probably play anything anybody is willing to GM for them.

That's how the groups I used to play with in the early days and into the 1990's were like. Whether on the West Coast, Southeast or Europe. They all were up to play almost anything or at least try it and we always had a GM or three. I miss those days for playing.
 
RuneQuest Starter Set is now out. I just ordered it. :grin: Here's Chaosium's link for those curious.Looks really good, Chaosium has always done really nice boxes.



p.s: urbwar urbwar Really love the stuff based on Cepheus Engine. Thanks for the heads up on those new products.
Thank you for the link. I purchased a set.
 
This landed today...

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Really like Osprey's self-contained RPGs. Have most of them and they don't push up any trees system-wise, but they are perfectly serviceable and useable, and their settings are always interesting. Really good set of products.
 
Interesting to learn that this is out now. I'm still tempted by the hardcover reprint of Runequest Classic for $20 US, which seems a real bargain.
Yea, $20 for RQ2 is a great deal. Pick up that and Cults of Prax and you can run a fine game. Pick up the starter set for scenarios and nice maps... And it may provide enough of the new rules to bolt them onto RQ2 and play most of RQG...

I ordered the Starter Set first thing this morning and I look forward to getting the physical thing, it will be nice even if I mostly ignore the rule book...
 
Just ordered the RQG Starter Set this morning, so that will be here in a few days.
The pdfs are already in my files to check out in detail soon.

I'm likely to consider using Mythras as the BRP core engine if possible, it should be easy to convert NPCs on-the-fly.
Need to have a good look first though, just to make sure it doesn't bite me on the ass down the track. It may not be worth it.

The RQG Starter Set does look really impressive. I love the artwork, maps, and plots here, and I think I may get quite alot of use out of this.

I love the idea of Jonstown as the starter city, it's quite a big urban centre, it almost rivals the capital of Boldhome in many ways, yet it isn't as pivotal as Boldhome in that respect. It'll also have the famed Jonstown Library, the 'Candlekeep' of Dragon Pass.
Not only that, the regions outside of Jonstown will be in the vinicity of the regional areas initially used for RQ2 for the Apple Lane/Rainbow Mounds areas, so it feels familar for me as well.
I am also checking out the RQG GM pack, I haven't had time to look deeply into it yet, but it covers the same region, which ties the RQG Starter Set to the RQG GM Pack quite nicely, as well as returning those familar with Glorantha from RQ2 back to their original gaming area.
Very clever of Chaosium to do that actually.

For me the RQG core rulebook character sets feel very cumbersome compared to Mythras, especially the Mythras Imperative sheets. However from what I've seen of the pre-gen character sheets in the RQG Starter Set they look absolutely beautiful, set out very clearly, and full of flavour.
To my surprise, there is a blank form-fillable version of the character portfolio in the digital pdfs, so yeah this is what I will use for any RQG characters from now on

I might even sit down with a nice beverage and play thru the included soloquest
Yeah I can see myself enjoying this quite a bit :thumbsup:
 
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I was just about to order the Runequest Starter set then I remembered. My eyes! More specifically without stronger glasses/better eyeballs the fonts in Mythras make the game illegible and I don't want another book/game on the shelf I can't read.

So for those of us who squint like Mr Magoo, is there some indication you can give about whether it's worth buying for those of us who are getting on a bit? Sorry for anyone who thinks I (or others like me) go on about font sizes in RPGs but these things matter. I'd suspect just about everyone on here from the age of 45+ on will know what I'm on about, unless you are lucky with your ageing eyeballs.

For comparison:

1636713919527.jpg


this is ok

And this seems to be ok too:

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But this is too small:

1636713919506.jpg


Taken from Mythras and the first random off the shelf glances I laid eyes on... (one is easy to guess the other, not so...)
 
J Jenx it's hard to tell exactly what would be acceptable but it's not as bad as Mythras. Somebody I know who finds Mythras hard to read found it okay since the font is thicker, but I'd still check out the full-sized preview on Drivethrurpg here since it would still be on the smaller font end:
 
I was just about to order the Runequest Starter set then I remembered. My eyes! More specifically without stronger glasses/better eyeballs the fonts in Mythras make the game illegible and I don't want another book/game on the shelf I can't read.

So for those of us who squint like Mr Magoo, is there some indication you can give about whether it's worth buying for those of us who are getting on a bit? Sorry for anyone who thinks I (or others like me) go on about font sizes in RPGs but these things matter. I'd suspect just about everyone on here from the age of 45+ on will know what I'm on about, unless you are lucky with your ageing eyeballs.

For comparison:

1636713919527.jpg


this is ok

And this seems to be ok too:

1636713919516.jpg


But this is too small:

1636713919506.jpg


Taken from Mythras and the first random off the shelf glances I laid eyes on... (one is easy to guess the other, not so...)
I find the Chaosium books much more readable in comparison to The Design Mechanism/Mythras. I also can't read more than a few paragraphs of Mythras before my eyes get very fatigued. Its the font type that they use, it sucks so much. Lyonesse was much better but still could use improvement.

I don't think you'll see the same issue with RQG, the starter set looks to be using a similar font to their core books.
 
I’ll cop to an almost complete indifference to font and layout, as long as the type is big enough to read.
 
I was just about to order the Runequest Starter set then I remembered. My eyes! More specifically without stronger glasses/better eyeballs the fonts in Mythras make the game illegible and I don't want another book/game on the shelf I can't read.

So for those of us who squint like Mr Magoo, is there some indication you can give about whether it's worth buying for those of us who are getting on a bit? Sorry for anyone who thinks I (or others like me) go on about font sizes in RPGs but these things matter. I'd suspect just about everyone on here from the age of 45+ on will know what I'm on about, unless you are lucky with your ageing eyeballs.

For comparison:

1636713919527.jpg


this is ok

And this seems to be ok too:

1636713919516.jpg


But this is too small:

1636713919506.jpg


Taken from Mythras and the first random off the shelf glances I laid eyes on... (one is easy to guess the other, not so...)

J Jenx it's hard to tell exactly what would be acceptable but it's not as bad as Mythras. Somebody I know who finds Mythras hard to read found it okay since the font is thicker, but I'd still check out the full-sized preview on Drivethrurpg here since it would still be on the smaller font end:

The first and third ones look like Garamond, which has a much smaller x-height (the ratio between the height of the lower case letters and capitals) than is usual on fonts produced nowadays. The second one is Palatino, which is a 20th century design[1] and has a larger x-height. Garamond is an old design, dating back to the 16th century and was designed to be set at 12 points with no additional leading[2] - it normally looks too small if set at 10 points or smaller as you can see in sample 3.

Most 20th century or later text fonts are designed to be set at or around 10 points on 12 point leading and look about the right size. As an aside, Helvetica actually looks a bit better if set around 9-9.5 point with an extra 2 points of leading as it has a large x-height, but Arial has a slightly smaller x-height than Helvetica so it looks OK at 10 point - Arial was actually designed in the 1980s to render on laser printers.

As a generalisation, older designs with a small x-height (most notably Garamond and Goudy Oldstyle, which are shipped with Windows) are better off set at 12 points or thereabouts for text. Contemporary designs such as Times, Palatino, Lucida, Cambria or Charter are typically designed to be set around 10 points on 12 points leading.

1 - Not to be confused with 'Modern' fonts, which are a specific design style featuring vertical weight stress. Bodoni, Century Schoolbook and Computer Modern are examples of Modern fonts.
2 - Leading is additional space added between lines of text - some times referred to as '10 point on 12 point leading'. The name comes from thin strips of lead of a given thickness that were added between lines of metal type.
 
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This is to let others know, you can get "A Paladin in Hell" in POD now

I recall that picture and then adventure fondly. Though at the time as someone who was mostly GM/DMing games my gut reaction of a singular paladin in hell was more along the lines of Bambi meets Godzilla. Bambi being the paladin. I mean can you imagine how quickly a lone paladin would go down versus all the creatures/elements in a plane of hell? Paladin puree anyone?

 
Wasn't BECMI Baskerville, not Garamond? I also wouldn't be so sure about just equating font age and intended point size. It often depends a lot on the digitization of the font. Back in the days of cold lead, you made different versions for different sizes and thus could change the form of the letters. Now, it often comes down to mathematical scaling, which often doesn't work when used out of the intended context - you get too thick forms for headlines or too thin shapes when setting body text. Never mind that sometimes people disregard how the ink flowed on paper.

There's nothing wrong with Garamond. Maybe with the one that's delivered with your Windows or MacOS. I'd much rather see it, Bembo, Baskerville or Palatino than most alternatives, especially for body text than a lot of more contemporary alternatives. Especially if we're talking about Arial or even Georgia ;)
 
Wasn't BECMI Baskerville, not Garamond? I also wouldn't be so sure about just equating font age and intended point size. It often depends a lot on the digitization of the font.

It's complicated - You might well be right about Baskerville (the long foot on the upper-case R supports this) but most serif fonts from before the tail end of the 19th century tend to have small x-heights, so that still applies to most 17th-18th century transitional fonts such as Baskerville as well (although Garamond is a fairly extreme example of this). Garamond is actually designed to have a little bit of space on the punch above the caps and below the descenders, which was common practice on metal type. If it's digitised correctly (and this really is a thing) this should be the case on digitised versions of the fonts - this dates from the transition between metal type and photosetting in the 1960s-70s where copyfitting typeset text had to behave consistently whether you were using metal type or photosetting.

IIRC in the case of Adobe's Garamond implementations, which largely came from Linotype, Monotype or Stempel (via Linotype) they were digitised like this and the dimensions were based off the actual fonts as specified. Other implementations may vary - knockoff designs were quite common as you couldn't copyright the letterforms, so you would find outfits like Compugraphic or Bitstream making copies with different but similar-sounding names. These may or may not have had the same dimensions.


Back in the days of cold lead, you made different versions for different sizes and thus could change the form of the letters. Now, it often comes down to mathematical scaling, which often doesn't work when used out of the intended context - you get too thick forms for headlines or too thin shapes when setting body text. Never mind that sometimes people disregard how the ink flowed on paper.

A lot of digital fonts are just outlines, although the difference in letter forms between 10 and 12 point metal type tends not to be all that much. You would notice significant differences at really small point sizes or larger sizes intended for display type. Some fonts are multiple master designs - where the control points themselves move along tracks defined as splines according to input parameters - so you can get away from purely mathematical scaling. Another work around was that some digital fonts came in text and display or low-res and high-res versions. The Adobe version of Optima used to do that.


There's nothing wrong with Garamond. Maybe with the one that's delivered with your Windows or MacOS. I'd much rather see it, Bembo, Baskerville or Palatino than most alternatives, especially for body text than a lot of more contemporary alternatives. Especially if we're talking about Arial or even Georgia ;)

Edit: A little google-fu tells us that the Garamond that ships with Windows is ex Monotype IIRC (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/font-list/garamond) and the Palatino that ships is called Palatino Linotype, which suggests that they both come from the horse's mouth, as it were. If you look at the screen shot below, you can see the letters from Garamond are appreciably smaller than the letters from Palatino set at the same point sizes. That is functioning as designed.

As an aside, ITC Garamond is quite a different beast - most notably you can see this font on Apple corporate branding from the 1980s-1990s. ITC Garamond is a late 20th century design with a large x-height, envisaged in ITC's 'large x-height=readability and contemporary feel' ethos from the 1970s-1980s and is quite different from traditional Garamond designs.

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Why, yes. I used to be a typesetter at one point. Why do you ask?
Unfortunately the days of my erstwhile superpower of recognising fonts at a glance are behind me. It was quite the party trick but I'm getting a little rusty, I'm afraid.
 
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I can read most stuff with reading glasses and I now have prescription computer glasses. One thing that is nice about digital form is that you can always make the text larger. As an experiment, I just dug out my Chivalry & Sorcery 1st edition book. With the computer glasses and holding it close to the 26" distance the computer glasses are calibrated for, the tiny text was reasonably easy to read. If I really was going to sit down and read it, I would use off the shelf readers which would let me hold it closer.
 
It's complicated - You might well be right about Baskerville (the long foot on the upper-case R supports this) but most serif fonts from before the tail end of the 19th century tend to have small x-heights, so that still applies to most 17th-18th century transitional fonts such as Baskerville as well (although Garamond is a fairly extreme example of this)...

Why, yes. I used to be a typesetter at one point. Why do you ask?
Unfortunately the days of my erstwhile superpower of recognising fonts at a glance are behind me. It was quite the party trick but I'm getting a little rusty, I'm afraid.
I think Nobby-W Nobby-W has just permanently clinched his Pubbie as geekiest poster on the site :smile:.

Seriously, though, I'm in awe of your erudition.
 
Not sure about the second example I posted but I always thought BECMI was Souvenir and Garamond in the Rules Cyclopedia (will have to check. At one point I was obsessed with buying enough RCs to build a hut out of. At last count I have eight, or nine. For some reason. Stupidity probably, it's hard to rule that out.).

The books I posted in the example above are:

1636713919498.jpg


Is there a thread about fonts and layouts on here? Which books do we consider as paragons of presentation and ease on the eye? Which books are, well, a bit shit really?
 
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