Hey lads and ladies,

I just entered Rokugan and I am completely sucked into this beautiful world of intrigue and samurai fighting. Since I haven't played trpgs in a long long time and my group consists of mainly boardgamers, I've decided to create some little helpers for us to memorize the rules: I've designed cards with images I found on the internet and took the text from the rulebook and printed them on plastic cards (due to beer and other happy little accidents on the gaming table)

They have some easy advantages: You can reference the rules in an easy way, they help getting into the mood due to the images and they help keeping track of all the options. Basically, I am a big fan of mixing TRPGs with cards... Unfortunately, I've read the Errata only AFTER I designed everything. Me stupid is...

Decided to do smaller cards for the different conditions as well.

I was thinking about doing techniques as well (maybe on horizontal cards) but I then realized that would be too much of work - there are just too many techniques to keep track of.

Hope you like them and maybe inspire other GMs to do similar. Did you design anything like that or something to support your group? I'd be happy for more inspiration myself :-)

These are fantastic! I'm working on some of my own and I know how hard it is to make these things both legible and pleasing to the eye. Mine are much larger, with some basic stance and opportunity information, and not very artistic. I've tried to make them LCG-sized, and they just become too cramped. I will be including cards for any Techniques my players take, because they're gonna need them for reference. I'll try to remember to post up my finished results (and folks are welcome to the files themselves).

I have to ask, what programs are you using to put these together? At what resolution are you working? And is there any chance you'd be willing to share the files for others to print up?

Edit: Also, how are you printing to plastic? Is it a print-on-demand service, or do you just have sweet printers at your disposal?

I've created the cards in GIMP. It's always a bit of a problem creating something like that with non-commercial programs, text editing in GIMP is pain in the bum, but I am not confident enough to create the cards in GIMP and editing them with something like Scribus afterwards. So I decided to do everything in GIMP instead, I've got some experience with the basic functions of the program (created a Space-4X-boardgame with it and lots of other gaming materials).

The resolution should be 300 dpi and the cards are slightly bigger than the original, due to the cutting process. I've ordered them at a print-on-demand shop here in Germany (https://www.printerstudio.de/fotogeschenke/personalisierte-spielkarten.html) and I believe there could be similar shops in your area. The print-on-plastic-version cost 3 € more than linen, so I went with this option, it's safer on the gaming table 😉 If I remember correctly, it was around 18 € per deck of cards.
Having such a printer on my disposal would be a dream come true... I am currently doing something similar for another TRPG I'm am running a lot (Symbaroum) and in the end, I think I will have more than 100 cards per "deck", so yes... that would be super awesome 😂

Well, I really do not know whether I am allowed to share the cards with all the rules printed on them, probably not. If there are more people interested I may considered asking FFG about their permission if I check you having a copy of the rules or something like that.

I'd be glad to see your results, especially the technique-cards - it's still in the back of my mind to do them as well and maybe just start with the ones my players are actually using 🙂

They look great!

Certainly, once characters start going up in levels and have a lot of techniques to keep track of, this sort of thing could be very useful.

11 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

They look great!

Certainly, once characters start going up in levels and have a lot of techniques to keep track of, this sort of thing could be very useful.

This is why I'm making cards. Otherwise we'll have 6 people at a table fighting over the Core Book every round of combat.

Ooooooh! These look lovely!

I'd definitely love to have a set, that's for sure!

10 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

This is why I'm making cards. Otherwise we'll have 6 people at a table fighting over the Core Book every round of combat.

Exactly. Also, I believe that certain rules will often be forgotten due to the intensity of the moment and out of habit. Fights tend to become pretty much "I move, I attack" when you are not reminded of all the beautiful possibilities you have (I'd rather assist that round).

8 hours ago, klatschi0212 said:

Exactly. Also, I believe that certain rules will often be forgotten due to the intensity of the moment and out of habit. Fights tend to become pretty much "I move, I attack" when you are not reminded of all the beautiful possibilities you have (I'd rather assist that round).

It's equally the reason I've gone for purely soft copies of the rulebooks - so people can have their own copies of page 263/264 (the 'special rules of skirmishes) or whatever.

Cards are an even more elegant solution, I think. I love the artwork.

8 hours ago, klatschi0212 said:

Fights tend to become pretty much "I move, I attack" when you are not reminded of all the beautiful possibilities you have (I'd rather assist that round).

Yeah. 40krpg games often devolved into standing in a straight line firing semi-auto bursts at stuff until it went away until I had them play Only War. Being detectably worse one-on-one that....basically anything else made them actually learn to use the tactics available.

Probably the most important thing I can think of is having all the "stuff" you can spend an opportunity on in a given stance and scene type in one place would be amazing, but that's a lot more awkward once you start throwing in 'opportunity techniques' like Striking-As-Earth.

On 3/14/2019 at 4:42 PM, Magnus Grendel said:

Yeah. 40krpg games often devolved into standing in a straight line firing semi-auto bursts at stuff until it went away until I had them play Only War. Being detectably worse one-on-one that....basically anything else made them actually learn to use the tactics available.

Probably the most important thing I can think of is having all the "stuff" you can spend an opportunity on in a given stance and scene type in one place would be amazing, but that's a lot more awkward once you start throwing in 'opportunity techniques' like Striking-As-Earth.

Hehe, I've been introduced to TRPGs with the German classic "The Dark Eye" with endless combat that's been absolutely boring since you can attack and have a way to parry and then have around 30 health points while a sword will do 7 damage on average (and armor is subtracted), so yeah... combat without tactics and asymmetry is pure pain.