Hi everyone,

a new version of the Strange Eons plug-in is finished. You can download it at http://www.4shared.com/file/_VH6sOk6/LotR.html or at Svenn’s page at http://tabletopgeeks.com/living-card-game-resources/ (look for LotR Encounter Pack plug-in), who kindly offered to host it, too! As the pool of fan-made adventures is and hopefully will be growing, this plug-in could be a nice tool for card creators.

In the new version it's not only possible to create custom encounter cards, but you can also make homebrew player cards with it! This is possible due to GeckoTH’s high quality templates. Many thanks to him! Also thx to Rhuarc, who notified me about Gecko’s work in the first place ;-) And also to Svenn, for providing a better download option than 4shared!

To install it, first download Strange Eons for free here: http://cgjennings.ca/eons/#Download
Then, double-click the LotR.seext file, and then it gets installed (or updated). Restart Strange Eons. Afterwards, select a card you want to create, e.g. an ally card:

Then, a new ally card will be created. Jump to the “Ally” tab to experiment with its properties, and change e.g. its sphere from Leadership to Tactics:

Or change its card text. Don’t miss the resource icons new in this version, accessible via the <rta>, <rsp>, <rlo> and <rle> replacement tags. You can see all possible tags in the lower left of the upper picture.
To insert your own card image, go to the “Portrait” tab and select an image to load.

To create a pack of cards with several copies of a card, first create all of cards (only single instances) and save them via File -> Save As. Then, create a card deck in SE:

Then, read and delete the yellow instruction plate, and click on Components - Add Cards to load your cards:

Drag as many copies of the cards you want to the sheet:

Then, save, print, or export to PDF or image files your homebrew cards!

If you’re wondering whether you should use this plug-in or Gecko’s templates, here a list of what my plug-in can do:

• The plug-in provides a quick and easy way for creating homebrew cards, without GIMP or Photoshop or similar programs.
• You can easily create decks with multiple copies of a created card.
• If you need any changes/errata in card text etc., it can be done very fast, just change the card file, save it, reload your deck file again, and then every copy automatically has the new card text.

But of course there are some restrictions/limitations:

• There are no scans of portraits/texts of cards FFG published. The plug-in is designed for creating custom cards by fans and for fans; you aren’t able to copy the game with it. Next to that, any commercial use of the plug-in is prohibited, of course.
• The region for e.g. the Artist’s name is fixed; you can’t change it or other regions on a card-by-card basis.
• The plug-in doesn’t support color gradients for fonts.
• You can’t re-arrange the general outfit of the card or add other fancy stuff for which I didn’t provide an option (e.g. two-sphered heroes).

If any of the latter 3 points are of importance for you, you’re better of creating your homebrew cards with Gecko’s templates directly. (Or perhaps you can use my plug-in for quickly testing game balance etc., and when you’re satisfied with the textual content, you can use Gecko’s templates to create the final version of the cards.) His templates can be found on BGG, e.g. here: www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/70314/hero-card-template-300dpi-psd. But if you’re looking for an easy and fast way to have your ideas for card creation realized, my plug-in could be of use for you.

Supported languages are English and German at the moment. Other languages are generally possible, if someone is willing to do the translation.

So then, happy card-creating!

Epic beyond belief!!

Nice work guys! Another way to create more moments of jolly cooperation!

thx =)

(lol, just thx is too short to be published )

I would just like to toss out there... If anyone makes some custom scenarios or anything and needs a place to host them, I am willing to put them up on Tabletop Geeks (for free of course).

Woho! Thank you guys

Cheers, HilariousPete!

Great work putting this all together and providing an awesome tool for the community. This certainly makes it easy to whip up cards!

I might as well mention that for those of you who would still like to use Photoshop, you can still find my template files over at BGG:

GeckoTH's Photoshop Templates

Nice tool!

One problem that I have found out is that it is very difficult keep up with all these new custom made scenarios and cards because they are all shared in different plases...

I am wondering if we could make one portal or site where anyone can save and upgrade their own custom cards... like google docks for LOTR lcg, or something similar? Now the hunting down all these fabulous cards is full time job...

So what would we need for that...

1. some agreement what would be the platform (data server)
2. Some one who would the "founder" who would give allowance to those who privide their own cards and scenarios
3. some serious advertisindg in different plases

What information would be needed

Scenario:

1. author
2. date
3. version number
4. name of scenario
5. difficultu rating
6. description of scenario
7. needed adventure decks

Individual cards:

1. author
2. date
3. version number
4. Card name
5. card type
6. sphere
7. card description

Any thoughs?

I've got links to the ones I'm finding over on the Tabletop Geeks Living Resources page. If you know of any more that should go there, let me know. Also, like I said above if anyone wants me to host their custom scenario I will do that as well.

Very cool

already made one card- although currently just using a fuzzy still from the film, rnadomly found on the internet- can anyone recommend any non-copyrighted artwork out there that would be suitable for stuff?

best senario ever... even better than most FFG ones. (not done wit this editor btw but using the psd template files form bbg)

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/710317/feonixs-custom-scenario-3-the-culling-at-the-bar

that looks VERY cool

as soon as my new print catridge arrives in the mail, i'll be giving that one a try

Thanks for all your encouraging answers!

@Hannibal_pjv: A place where all custom cards are collected/linked is a good idea, but I'm not sure if the version numbers are really necessary. Difficulty ratings and short descriptions (without spoiling too much) would be a good thing. But I think this will be more of an issue in, let's say a year or something, when hopefully there are so many custom scenarios that it's difficult to overview all of them ;-) Meanwhile, name, link and author as provided by Svenn's page is sufficient, I guess.

@Mighty Jim: I also found it difficult to get good images. You can try elfwood.com and deviantart.com. There are some awesome pics. But it could be difficult to use the pictures. (All rights are reserved usually, so you got to ask for permission first. At elfwood chances could be better, but on deviantart there are also many artists who provided scans of their commissions, so I think they can't allow you to use them.) You can search on flickr.com for paintings only with creative commons license (use the advanced search). And you can search on wikimedia commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Paintings. Usually, these pics are pretty old and it's legal to use them, but it's difficult to find something which is at least somehow usable for The Lord of the Rings...

If you guys want a page with more info than just name, author, and link I could set up a specific scenarios page with more detail. Doesn't take long to toss up a new page.

Honestly, I'm not much into playing custom scenarios myself, but if it holds interest for other people or generates more interest in the game I'll put up whatever you want. Let me know what the best way to go about it would be. As I said, I'm definitely willing to host up files for anyone who needs a place to put them. I'm also trying to put links to other scenarios I've seen around.

A database of all the known custom scenarios has already been set up over at BBG:

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - Adventure Database

This list also allows players to rate all the scenarios, providing others with a way to see which ones are the favorites. This list also stays up to date even if someone updates their custom scenario to a new version!

Once again thanks Pete, great job! Already created a few cards and I'm very satisfied with the results :-)

Wow, this is pretty cool.

How do I insert custom icon for encounter set when creating scenario?

It would be nice if you could insert tool for creating card dividers in this beautiful plugin.

Thanks

Valsimot said:

For quest cards, the procedure is the same, go to the "Front side" tab and insert the filename if you want it to appear in the frame of the small icons, or go to the "Common" tab for the big icon.

If you want to create your own icon, make sure that the surroundings of the circle are set to 100% transparency (use png or jp2 for this), otherwise you'll get a rectangle drawn above the template background.

I fear I won't be able to add card dividers. I have no experience/skill at painting, so I can't create a template image for dividers (inserting the encounter set icon or sphere icon wouldn't be a problem, but the background image is...) Perhaps I can extract the ornaments from the Adventure Packs rulesheets and put it together somehow... I'll keep it in mind and will try it. (But you better don't expect anything, I don't think the chances for me are good ;-))

Greetings, Pete

Been using this a bit- generally seems like a really nice piece of software

just one problem

every time I re-open a hero, the image has been re-sized to 64% - this means that when I try to put multiple cards into a deck for printing, I've got tiny images in the middle of big white gaps

anyone know why this is/how to alter it?

You're right, that's a bug. I'm working on it.

The new version 2.1 is out at http://www.4shared.com/file/_VH6sOk6/LotR.html. The scaling bug is removed. Additionally, The Hills of Emyn Muil encounter set icon is included and selectable for quest and encounter cards.

The updated version is now available on Tabletop Geeks as well.

GeckoTH said:

Not bad. I am not sure how messy this will after there is 100+ scenarios out there... The It would be easier if you could some how filter those scenarios besed on what Epic journey the quest belong, difficulty level etc. But that would need somekind of database...

Even now, when there are only 25 scenarios, it takes some time to find out what you are looking for. Allso the information is a little slim. Only the name and difficulty at this moment. But even now this is very usefull! I am just being afraid that arter more scenarios are released, it may become more and more difficult to find what you are looking for.

The summary in the top of the page is the most important part of this portall! It should give some information: difficulty and average rating and quick link to the host page (where the files and additional information can be found) Maybe nothing more, so that the "Link"-list woud remain easy to read. So actually it is guite good as it is now, The only "killer" feature missing is the link to the host page. And because the scenario list is an picture at this moment, it can not be easily added. So normal list with a link would be easier to do, byt then the rankin system would be difficult to maintain... Hmmm... maybe they could be separed from each other?

Thanks for all the ansvers!

Svenn said:

I looked your page and it definitely has a lot of stuff in there! So a separate page for scenarios could be more "user" friendly
If you host files, then small introduction to scenatio would be nice. If you only provide link, then the host of linked scanario is better place for information. I am not sure how much and how often scenario makers update their old scenarios, but if they do, the information conserning the scenario can become obsolete quite soon, so It is allways easiest, if the maker of the scenario provides the deeded information. "What are special rules", what cards go to the encounter deck, and what don't. Any other rules that are not normal (many scenarios provide scaling rules) And story line introduction is allways nice to have! It adds so much flavor to the scenario!

The most easy thing would be if people start using Quest sheet template along their custom scenarios!
http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/71627/quest-sheet-template-300dpi-psd

You would just have to store the the Quest sheet that contains all scenario information and pdf that contains the nesessary cards. After that only thing what you would have to do is provide list of scenarios: the name, maker and difficultu and lin to those two files.