Printing PDF’s for RPG’s

I have to own to being a little bit old fashioned when it comes to gaming books, I do love a good physical book and in particular a good physical rulebook for RPGs.

And while I do appreciate it when small third party producers make small adventure packs or supplements to their gaming systems, its really sad that they can’t sit with the main books. So I’ve long looked at getting these things printed out, and while I have bitten the bullet a few times its never been very satisfactory either in terms of quality, usability or cost and none of them look like they go with the main published books.

But I’m pleased to say I found a really good company that ticks all the boxes and gives me exactly what I want at a sane price point, that company is https://doxzoo.com/ . Let me run through the settings, purchase, and results.

So my source materials are the 2 amazing RPG’s I am currently obsessed with:

  1. The perfect Warhammer 40K RPG by Cubical Seven.
  2. The excellent Dune RPG by Modiphius.

Both of these companies produce a ton of material and do very high-quality printed versions of their main stuff 1. but they also do lots of smaller supplements that never seem to make it into a printed form.

Both companies supplements come in the form of well laid out PDFs, that have print-bleed areas, so are ideal for getting physically printed.

DoxZoo provide a huge variety of settings on their website that you can apply to any uploaded PDF and then previewed, the settings I have found work the best are:

  • Binding Form: Booklet
  • Orientation: Portrait
  • Paper size: Letter
  • Printed sides: Double sided
  • Print in: Colour
  • Paper colour: White
  • Paper finish: Matt (ultra smooth)
  • Paper weight: 100 gsm
  • Binding position: Left long edge
  • Card cover: None
  • Scale artwork: Scale to best fit
  • Corners: Square

This gives me an end result that is nearly impossible to tell from the main books.

Obviously price depends on the number of pages you want printing, but with 21 pages coming out at £4 including postage and packaging, its amazing value

Other than some scaling to cope with the hard back nature of the main books you can’t tell them apart.
The booklet format copes very well with the small number of pages. It’s basically just a magazine that uses staples rather than glue. This works out exceptionally well and folds out flat without damage for reference.
The quality is utterly perfect, it just is a professional print job
The format works well from just a few pages well into 50+
The only issue I’ve had at all is that sometimes if your cutoff is a little bit tight, then you might lose a couple of millimetres, but this is rare and has not ruined anything.

There you go, a good value service to solve an old problem.

 

FootNotes
  1. ,the Artwork used by Cubical Seven and the hard cover character sheets by Modiphius are both stand out features[]

Innsmouth Mystery Board Game

I love to see friends grow and do things they love, A long-time friend and fellow geek Tim has released his own mini board game.

Its a beautiful labour of love, as Tim says

The whole thing is essentially an art project for me, to see if I could do it. It is being sold at cost, not to make any money, and I am working on my next game.

Innsmouth Mystery is a ‘mint tin game’, which means a game that fits in a small tin. It has cards, dice, counters and meeples (the little figures).

you can get it from https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/innsmouth-mystery

Update

Tim has done a playthrough guide

Painting Guide – The Great Halloween Pumpkin

Painter: Stickfight

Model(s): The great Pumpkin and Halloween Base, Round 80mm

Method(s):

Undercoat Both models: Chaos Black

Mud:

Pumpkins:

Stones:

Leaves:

Vines:

Cobwebs:

Crows:

Snail:

Candles:

Paint Time: about 20 hours all told (only because I’m a slow painter)

Notes: To get a decent orange coverage, its much easier to airbrush it, Jokaero Orange followed by Trollslayer Orange highlighted on the top, gave a really good consistency. I have to say on a complex model like this that is done with 3d printing, It’s an absolute son of a devil to paint because of all the little nooks and crannies you can’t take apart to paint. As the base was uneven I had to pad the ground to fit the model evenly and used black Milliput squished in place and then peeled off before it dried, flattened out and then given some grooves to give a muddy earth effect, on the wash over the orange REALLY make sure you water down the agrax, else you end up with hard lines on your orange.

 

Painting Guide – Freebooter Warjack

Painter: Dultoriminis

Model(s): Privateer Press Freebooter

Paint(s): Leadbelcher spray, Thousand Sons Blue, Caliban Green, White Scar, Leadbelcher, Balthasar Gold, Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade, Celestra Grey, Ulthuan Grey, Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Mephiston Red, Necron Compound, Rhinox hide, Mornfang brown, Skrag Brown.

Method(s): Base whole model with Leadbelcher spray, next wash the whole model with Nuln Oil. Once this is fully dry, wash with Agrax Earthshade. Again once fully dry lightly dry then brush the whole model with Necron Compound.

For primary armour colour make a 1:1 ratio mix of Thousand Sons Blue and Caliban Green. for highlights add a little White Scar to this mix. this highlight colour can also be used randomly on armour to apply scratches and chips.

For secondary armour, colour base Celestra Grey and then layer Ulthuan Grey. The red cross is done freehand with Mephiston Red, for straight line free hand it is best done with a quick confident line. I find if you take your time you wobble more, if any mistakes are made this is easily fixed by painting Ulthuan Grey over the top. Once fully dried, highlight secondary armour with White Scar this can also be applied randomly for chips and scratches.

Pick out any pipe connections or cogs with Balthasar Gold, wash with Nuln Oil and then Agrax Earthshade.

For any rust apply Rhinox hide randomly, this is best done around connecting parts or anywhere water would pool on the model. within the Rhinox hide layer a little Mornfang brown, and within this apply a few dots of Skrag Brown.

Notes: For the base, paint blue (something like Caledor Sky, and layer Baharroth Blue but not full coverage allow some of the darker blue to show through, lightly highlight with White Scar dry brush. Next use Woodland Scenics Water Effects. This as a gel consistency and and can be shaped quite easily allowing you to make splashing effects, in addition once its dried you can apply more layers to allow for larger splashes. Take your time and have a play with this. remember water is random so don’t need to be precise. lastly once happy apply a very light dry brush of White Scar.

Painting Guide – Blackstone Fortress: Amallyn Shadowguide

Painter: Dultoriminis

Model(s): Amallyn Shadowguide from the Blackstone Fortress base box

Paint(s): Chaos Black spray, Celestra Grey, Ulthuan Grey, White Scar, Space Wolves Grey contrast, Caliban Green, Loren Forest, Elysian Green, Abaddon Black, White Scar, Bugmans Glow, Cadian Fleshtone, Kislev Flesh, Rhinox hide, DoomBull Brown, Leadbelcher, Stormhost Silver, Retributor Armour, Mephiston Red, Nuln Oil.

Method(s):  Base with Chaos Black spray. next I recommend starting with the face, base it in Bugmans Glow, (paint eyes first so you can easily correct mistakes) with Bugmans Glow after, base eye in White Scar, now with Abaddon Black paint each pupil, lastly with a very watered down Abaddon Black just put your brush tip to the edge of each eye this should flood the recesses for a cool dark eyeline affect.) layer Cadian Fleshtone avoiding the recesses, highlight Kislev Flesh.

Armour, base Celestra Grey, wash with Space Wolves Grey contrast, layer Ulthuan Grey avoiding any recesses or points where armour would overlap. highlight with White Scar.

Robe: Base Caliban Green, layer Loren Forest avoiding recesses, highlight with Elysian Green.

Leather and gun: Base Rhinox hide, highlight with DoomBull Brown. gold trim base with Retributor Armour, steel trim base with Leadbelcher, for the sword highlight blade edge with Stormhost Silver.

Lastly for red gems base Mephiston Red and edge highlight with White Scar.

Paint Time: 10-12hours