Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Discussion Thread

[GM Joe]

But maybe they can provide PDFs of landscape ones for those of us who have those customizable GM screens you can put printed out sheets into.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

But maybe they can provide PDFs of landscape ones for those of us who have those customizable GM screens you can put printed out sheets into.

That would involve a whole new layout job. Having tried making tightly designed reference sheets a few times, the layout is remarkably time-consuming. And SJG has to pay people to do that work.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Going by the picture from the kickstarter it's going to be Portrait, just like all of the other GURPS GM Screens.
Picture

I believe, though, that that's just a mock-up rather than a serious attempt at depicting what they want the GM screen to look like. It wouldn't surprise me at all, for example, if it ended up being a series of square panels designed to fold up and fit inside the DFRPG box, thereby making it neither portrait nor landscape, and at any rate not based on 8.5x11 pages.

[GodBeastX]

It's about to be funded and we still got plenty of time left! Woooo!

[GM Joe]

Originally Posted by johndallman

That would involve a whole new layout job. Having tried making tightly designed reference sheets a few times, the layout is remarkably time-consuming. And SJG has to pay people to do that work.

Are you saying the other things they're doing for this Kickstarter don't have a cost associated?

[Nemoricus]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

Are you saying the other things they're doing for this Kickstarter don't have a cost associated?

That's a very good reason for them to not spend the resources on producing two different layouts for the DM Screen. All of the other things they need to do have costs in time, manpower, and money, so why spend it twice on the same thing?

[GM Joe]

Originally Posted by Nemoricus

That's a very good reason for them to not spend the resources on producing two different layouts for the DM Screen. All of the other things they need to do have costs in time, manpower, and money, so why spend it twice on the same thing?

Because people are asking for it, as they have for other things such as the pregens?

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

Because people are asking for it, as they have for other things such as the pregens?

The pregens will help them sell a few more copies of the game, and add almost nothing to their costs. Making an alternate layout for the GM screen, however, will, and likely there will not be enough extra orders of the GM screen if they offer the alternate layout. Even many of the folks who prefer the landscape layout will buy the screen with the portrait layout if that's the only one offered.

[Nemoricus]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

Because people are asking for it, as they have for other things such as the pregens?

The pregens are something new, and not a duplicate of existing work. Offering two different layouts of the DM screen would involve doing the work of laying out the screen's material twice. It also might require them to create new artwork for the second layout, since landscape has different proportions.

All in all, the costs of producing a second layout probably won't pay off.

[GM Joe]

Originally Posted by Nemoricus

All in all, the costs of producing a second layout probably won't pay off.

It's cool that that you're protective of SJGames, but my feeling was that it wouldn't hurt to ask and see what they say.