GM Binder and Genesys

By CitizenKeen, in Genesys

are bits of HTML supposed to be visible?

The only time I see that is when they are giving examples

The linked document is the guide/template, to show you how to use it. It works swimmingly.

summer elf.PNG

Oh duh. I didn't realize GM Binder was an actual service. I had never messed with it before. Thank you.

Looks seriously awesome- from a quick look is it a HTML structured thing? Can you use it for PDF / Word docs etc? - looks great but haven't looked into how it functions as a creative tool i.e. what type of document(s) you output from it by default or choice.

Being able to match things up to the core book visually is great- is there a similar tool for creating campaigns, quests and the like? Although I'm guessing this is already quite a useful template for that.

Also do you need any fonts etc for it to work? It mentions requiring a couple.

Edited by Martinslair

...I need to do some more research into this thing...

I feel this may be useful in combination with this- some people sharing tips for fonts, dice symbols etc and even the right colours:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/256003-genesys-symbol-font/

If someone works out how to bring it all together and make a finished document please share any tips.

It does require fonts. Not only Genesys related, but a lot of the code assumes you have Minion Pro and Bebas Neue.

To @Martinslair - it's HTML/Markdown/CSS that's designed to "print" to PDF. Nothing related to Word, but it makes lovely PDFs.

One of the things that I'm loving about it is that if you have a basic understanding of CSS and the <style> tag, you can swap out the fonts and background images, but retain the layout 'feel' of Genesys. Not that I'm totally doing this for my Age of Sail game, but I'm totally doing this for my Age of Sail game...

Hey! I finished putting together this theme after another reddit user got too busy to work on it. It uses the Eote and genesys dice fonts that were posted here from . It also uses Bebas Neue for most of the formatted stuff. All of these fonts are free - Bebas Neue is open license and skyjedi and ak_aramis gave permission to use the dice/symbol fonts for this. I *think* iveld may have uploaded those to the site and should be working as webfonts, but i'm not sure about that.

the minion pro font is not free and thus can't be used as a webfont unless the site coughs up hundreds of dollars, so for now you'd need to purchase that one yourself if you wanted it to look extra authentic, but that font is only used in this document for the regular text, so not having it shouldn't change much as far as formatting goes

Just a quick look at what some tweaks in the style tag can do for you...

Genesys - Pirates and Privateers - Excerpt.png

The change in colors to the archetype block did require some quick tweaks in GIMP, but I was easily able to pull the image off of imgur because it's all there in the source.

Edited by Foghorn

That's cool! I was considering making one to mimic terrinoth's book when it comes out too...

Also, the site admin let me know that the 3 fonts i listed are indeed hosted on the server so you should be automatically using them when you load the theme :)

Whoosh! That's the sound this thread made as it went over my head. LOL! Looks like I have to do some research myself just know what all this means. :)

basically, when you pick the genesys theme on gm binder the dice symbols and formatting and stuff is all automatic. you need a basic knowledge of html and/or markdown to make the files...i plan to make a better "instructions" document eventually, this was just a temporary one to get people started.

If you already have MS Word and can generate PDF's, what's the advantage to GM Binder? I don't mean to sidetrack discussion or sound contentious. I'm honestly curious since not all my players have Word, but they all can look at a PDF generated by it (including its use of the Genesys TrueType font.

Just now, Dragonshadow said:

If you already have MS Word and can generate PDF's, what's the advantage to GM Binder? I don't mean to sidetrack discussion or sound contentious. I'm honestly curious since not all my players have Word, but they all can look at a PDF generated by it (including its use of the Genesys TrueType font.

I'm still working out GM Binder as a tool (it's new to me) but my current understanding is that it does (I think) a lot of the layout legwork for you if I'm understanding it correctly - I think it helps give your documentation a professional layout without the significant extra work you may have to do in a word processor or similar unless you're used to formatting/ setting up documents or have done so already and already have templates.

20 hours ago, Foghorn said:

Just a quick look at what some tweaks in the style tag can do for you...

Genesys - Pirates and Privateers - Excerpt.png

The change in colors to the archetype block did require some quick tweaks in GIMP, but I was easily able to pull the image off of imgur because it's all there in the source.

Mind sharing the code for that? It looks absolutely awesome and I would love to use it!

2 hours ago, Martinslair said:

I'm still working out GM Binder as a tool (it's new to me) but my current understanding is that it does (I think) a lot of the layout legwork for you if I'm understanding it correctly - I think it helps give your documentation a professional layout without the significant extra work you may have to do in a word processor or similar unless you're used to formatting/ setting up documents or have done so already and already have templates.

That's basically it - all the formatting info is already right there for you so you don't have to go through the tedium of doing it. its got some other benefits too like: online hosting/sharing, versioning (you can update the document and it tracks older versions of it for you in case you mess something up), etc. gmbinder is still a fairly new site too so they are working on adding new features like searching through created documents and stuff

51 minutes ago, Tkalamov said:

Mind sharing the code for that? It looks absolutely awesome and I would love to use it!

PM'd you about that, but another beauty of GM Binder is that unless I'm reading it wrong, once I share something publicly, it also makes the source available. If you know what you're looking for (especially since their style tag is very nicely commented), a quick CTRL+F can pull everything you need to copy styles for your own use.

On 1/30/2018 at 3:47 PM, CitizenKeen said:

It does require fonts. Not only Genesys related, but a lot of the code assumes you have Minion Pro and Bebas Neue.

To @Martinslair - it's HTML/Markdown/CSS that's designed to "print" to PDF. Nothing related to Word, but it makes lovely PDFs.

I remember seeing elsewhere, Crimson ( https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Crimson ) - is a very close alternative to Minion Pro

On 1/30/2018 at 4:28 PM, saethone said:

Hey! I finished putting together this theme after another reddit user got too busy to work on it. It uses the Eote and genesys dice fonts that were posted here from . It also uses Bebas Neue for most of the formatted stuff. All of these fonts are free - Bebas Neue is open license and skyjedi and ak_aramis gave permission to use the dice/symbol fonts for this. I *think* iveld may have uploaded those to the site and should be working as webfonts, but i'm not sure about that.

the minion pro font is not free and thus can't be used as a webfont unless the site coughs up hundreds of dollars, so for now you'd need to purchase that one yourself if you wanted it to look extra authentic, but that font is only used in this document for the regular text, so not having it shouldn't change much as far as formatting goes

Any chance on the host(s) including Crimson instead of defaulting to Minion Pro? :)

If you're a designer meeple with Acrobat's editor it has Minion Pro- not sure if the reader has it (it may get lost and changed when you share the document, not tested this though, if it's still in my recently uploaded file then it keeps it, if not maybe it doesn't, but if it lets you use it creating documents I'm guessing it does keep it) Don't think its in the font list of other programs though even if you have Acrobat.

Plus Acrobat does sometimes go to sleep, it's great but a little temperamental!

- Any chance on the host(s) including Crimson instead of defaulting to Minion Pro?

I'm thinking you probably can anyway by changing the styles to use Crimson or your font of choice?

Edited by Martinslair
crimson

Hey there. Creator of GM Binder here. Yup, we can get Crimson added to GMB and will swap out the Minion Pro references with it.

It probably won't be until this upcoming weekend though.

btw, it's awesome to see the excitement around this theme from a non D&D community. Our documentation isn't all that great, so if you do have any questions, feel free to ping me, or check out our sub reddit @ /r/gmbinder to get some community help.

thx!!

Anyone have issues with the Adversary block formatting oddly? The numbers along soak/wound/defenses don't align correctly for me if I don't have two digits in them.

22 hours ago, iveld said:

Hey there. Creator of GM Binder here. Yup, we can get Crimson added to GMB and will swap out the Minion Pro references with it.

It probably won't be until this upcoming weekend though.

btw, it's awesome to see the excitement around this theme from a non D&D community. Our documentation isn't all that great, so if you do have any questions, feel free to ping me, or check out our sub reddit @ /r/gmbinder to get some community help.

thx!!

Great to see you on here- thanks for the info, would be great if you pop in occasionally to answer any questions. I have the Acrobat editor- can you use the two tools together, I've still not sussed out GM binder fully but then I've not had long to look at it. Most of it seems fairly self explanatory but it might be worth doing a quick intro to it in this thread just to let people know a bit more and how best to get started. Its clear what the html does but less so how you use it, do you just start a new document then type in the code you need etc, but again maybe just with how quickly I've looked at it. Cheers.

Also would it work/ could it be set up for campaign guide structures which are similar, probably mostly the same, FFG example here: https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/56/75/5675bba2-a5a2-4161-b4c0-eaed85a3d0b7/genesys_gencon_adventure_lowres.pdf