Who prints out RPG materials anymore?

[Agemegos]

My long-standing habit has been to lay out gaming texts that I produce for my players as two columns of 11-point Times New Roman on letter-sized (A4 letter) pages. That is, as you doubtless understand, a compromise constrained by the printers most people have and the paper they have to feed them, and even there there is the issue of different International and US paper sizes.

Now I have started to distribute re-flowable EPUBs as well as the PDFs, and even in the case of the PDFs I suspect that most of my readers read them on the screens of their computers. Even though users ought to set their own preferred font and size for re-flowable EPUBs, I suspect that most users either don't know about that or would rather not be bothered with it. 12-point Times New Roman, Arial, or Courier is recommended as a standard. I could I guess change the sizes of all the styles between exporting PDF and exporting EPUB, but I'd rather not do it that way.

As for the PDFs, two-column layouts are a grind for people reading things on screens. And if I knock it off with the double-column layouts I could make the columns wide enough to use 12-point type without ugly effects on the justification. But the problem would be that if the pages were letter sized (A4 or US) the sweep would be too long for comfortable reading.

Which doesn't matter if nobody prints out their RPG materials any more.


So. What is the state of the art in text layout for RPG materials these days?

[Apollonian]

I tend to print off references, as it's easier to quickly shuffle through a small stack of papers than to find a particular document through a screen interface. Given the current state of gaming, I'm also doing all my gaming online, and printing out references lets me keep precious screen real estate free.

For the past few years, though, I've really begun to prefer digest/A5 size pages and books; both for physical portability, and because in PDF form those read fairly easily on a phone or tablet, even if they're two-column.

[Anaraxes]

Personally, I'm not fond of multi-column text. It works okay for collections of short little bits (like GURPS Advantages or Magic spells), but it's harder to read if you're trying to convey a flow of information, like setting background or the body of most rules systems. (You can again get away with multiple columns if it's something like Maneuver lists with relatively short descriptions.) If there's enough text that single items often wrap -- much taller than "square' or about that portrait aspect ratio -- there are too many columns.

[sgtcallistan]

My standard for printed handouts is the time and place of the hand-out, a news item looks like a section orn from a paper, a note from the archaeologists' notebook is smaller and on lined paper, etc.

If it's a background document; gods, places nearby, customs and mores frex, it's two-column 10.5 Verdana with titles bolded.
Seems very clear to all so far.
Though we're all ageing...

[L.J.Steele]

My preference is the Bits and Mortar approach -- hard copy that I can read in print and a pdf for quick reference.

[AlexanderHowl]

I actually prefer two or three column, as it makes everything look neater.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Personally, I'm not fond of multi-column text. It works okay for collections of short little bits (like GURPS Advantages or Magic spells), but it's harder to read if you're trying to convey a flow of information, like setting background or the body of most rules systems. (You can again get away with multiple columns if it's something like Maneuver lists with relatively short descriptions.) If there's enough text that single items often wrap -- much taller than "square' or about that portrait aspect ratio -- there are too many columns.

From my experience on the layout side of things, I find that single-column text and larger paper form factors (like the usual 8x10, 8.5x11, or A4) tends to waste a lot of space. Two-column wraps and flows better, and eliminates the space cost of a carriage return to a column rather than the whole page.

You can see that three-column layout does that even better, from a space efficiency perspective.

I find single column hard to read on a full-width paper, or even a screen. I find three-column layout can be really challenging. Ergo two-column.

The most interesting and visually distinct layout I've ever seen, though, was the paper copy of the Symbaroum RPG. I bought it on the strength of visual appeal alone at GenCon 50. It uses a unique three-column layout where two of the columns are 70mm wide and the third column is 30mm. The placement of the narrow column varies from page to page depending on what's there. For the proverbial walls of text - of which there are few - they leave the outer column blank, and narrow. Sometimes they use the narrow one for art, having it wrap through the center of the spread.

It's really neat.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I actually prefer two or three column, as it makes everything look neater.

Is that printed out, or reading a soft copy on a device? And if the latter, do you use a full-sized screen, a digest-sized tablet, or a smart-phone?

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how readable documents end up when reduced for display on my iPad, provided that I start out with a clear layout and reasonably large type (e.g. 11-point Times New Roman).

[cptbutton]

I printed out stuff because I could shuffle through papers faster than I could scroll through PDFs. So I print selected pages for reference.

[dcarson]

I fI'm going to read it I read it in electronic form. What I print out is quick reference material. So a 4-5+ page description of somewhere in this setting, I'll read on my tablet or phone. A one page list of important people with short key info on them I will probably print. I might make a one page sheet of key info for me from that handout and print it.

When I make a character I usually make a one page cheat sheet of Advantages/Feats, spells that are not obvious or have a list of things etc.