So, as many folks know I put out a set of GM reference sheets, and I will shortly be making my 1st adventure available for download as well. My GM sheets are plain white background and low on graphics, in large part to reduce color printing cost and overall ink use.

But what do you prefer for your adventures PDFs? Do you want lots of graphics, on a nice parchmenty background? I am inclined to remain with the white background for aforementioned reasons, but a couple of folks have suggested I add backgrounds and the like. Thoughts?

Definitely a plain white background. While a fancy graphically enhanced background is pleasing to the eye, I almost never print out things with full color backgrounds and such. It takes far too much printer ink for something that probably only you (the GM) is going to see.

Plain and white background it is in my case.

Easy to print, easy to read.

Graphics are fine when placed right, but background ones are often only a burden.

And Your GM Sheets are absolutely fantastic, keep this style in the future please

Well I guess the ideal solution, assuming you are going pdf, is to use layers and allow the background image to be turned off. I have several adventures for Savage Worlds from Triple Ace Games and this is what they do. Barring that, I'd have to vote plain, since I print stuff out for use at the table and don't use a laptop when playing. Background graphics makes it less likely that I'd use your material.

Love the GM Sheets and as I said in the other thread, if FFG produces a GM Screen, the supplemental content in that package is what I would be buying it for rather than the screen itself, since your Sheets in my customizable screen are more than adequate. The black text on a white background is easier to read in lower lighting conditions than text on a colored background and one of the things I really like about your GM Sheets. Nothing against Nezzir's cheat sheets, but that background graphic he's used proves that point and is one of the reasons I quickly made the switch to yours when they became available.

I think you can do a slight increase in tone of the background without adding a lot of ink. There are a lot of cool borders out there you can use too. I always print my stuff out in B&W.

Looking forwards to your scenario!

jh

I will have to cast my vote for leaving out background image as well.

While I like how background images can look, they cause more grief then they are worth in my opinion. I often look at PDFs on a slower laptop and background images can make my PDF reader slow to a crawl. Also, when printing, none of the printers I use have edge to edge printing (they all have a small margin) so background images when printed always have a white border and don't look very nice unless I trim all the pages to a strange size.

Why not eat your cake and have it too? Make two versions

But I'd certainly appreciate a low-ink version

I guess I'm the lone wolf here. I print everything in fully color and like everything to look nice; it's one of the things I like best about this systemeverything is beautifully art-directed! Still, I can understand the argument for keeping everything simple. I'd love the idea of layers you could turn on or off, but if most people like it plain, there's no reason to spend the time.