Player Handouts [Semi-Rumble Rant] for Dungeon Advs

[reiella]

Saw Dungeon 108 at store and noticed the happy fun Challenge of Champions has returned! (The pattern broken, oh-no!) And as I prepare to run the adventure myself I return to one of the most frustrating parts of it. Finding a good photocopier for the player handouts/materials.

Anycase, mostly a rant for future player handouts types in Dungeon, is there any chance that Paizo could make them available as a pdf on their webspace?

[ Edit / Add : 4 AM posting makes me forget why I actually post stuff ]

More immediately, does anyone suggest an easier means to photocopy excerpts from color magazines like Dungeon? Most of the local B/W places blur the images (due to the cream/parchment background) alot making the available excerpts less useful.

 

[fba827]

Alas, the "quick and dirty" method I could think of involved a couple extra sheets of thick paper to cover the rest of the page while the players got the occasional look/glance at the layout from the magazine itself.

 

[Richards]

Yeah, I had been kind of hoping they might put all of the player handout stuff (the command word cards from scenarios #1 and #8, the puzzle pieces from scenario #9, the number disks from scenario #10) on a single sheet of cardboard (like they used to do with all of their cut-out monster tokens) - it would make things a lot easier on the DMs using the adventure.

Of course, you could always do it the old-fashioned, more difficult method (like I did), and make your player handouts from scratch. I drew, colored, and cut out everything from blank index cards. (Hint: instead of trying to draw each of the puzzle pieces, measure out the solution, draw the pieces inside the finished shapes, cut them out, and then color them. Much easier that way.) If you make your own "props" by hand, I also suggest changing the "font style" of the number disks for scenario #10 back to a simpler style, with the "1" just a straight, vertical, thin rectangle, the "4" not coming to a point on top, etc. (I don't want to give a reason why, for those who haven't seen the adventure yet, but it works better with a simpler style.) Likewise, if you make your own puzzle pieces, you can actually color them in the same colors as described in the adventure, not the purple and orange that suddenly showed up out of nowhere.

Oh, and as for the pattern being broken, yeah, there was not much I could do about that. "A new 'Challenge of Champions' every 11 issues" only worked out when Dungeon was a bi-monthly magazine; there's no way I can crank them out every 11 months!

Johnathan

 

[robberbaron]

Having not seen the particular handouts in question I can only say what I do:

Unless there is something really cool on the other side, I cut out handouts and stick them on to card. If I want the other side of the page intact then I either recreate the handout myself or scan/fix/print it.

 

[Piratecat]

In addition, I think there might be an art typo in the puzzle with the letter/number design on the floor. I'm pretty sure that two of the clues are switched in the art, making the puzzle unsolvable!

Richards, can you confirm or deny?

 

[reiella]

Having not seen the particular handouts in question I can only say what I do:

Unless there is something really cool on the other side, I cut out handouts and stick them on to card. If I want the other side of the page intact then I either recreate the handout myself or scan/fix/print it.

Hehe, unforunately, the adventure is on the other side , as the handouts are pretty much placed as the general art/maps are in most of Dungeon's normal adventures.

I'm going to try my luck with a color photocopier in town, and if that fails, I can get markers to accent the props as necessary I suppose .

 

[Richards]

In addition, I think there might be an art typo in the puzzle with the letter/number design on the floor. I'm pretty sure that two of the clues are switched in the art, making the puzzle unsolvable!

Richards, can you confirm or deny?

Crap! You're absolutely right, Piratecat. It looks like in scenario #3, they've reversed the numbers corresponding to "O" and "N" so the puzzle is now unsolvable! They should look like this:

I +5
U -1
Z +4
T -1
H +8
R -3
O -6
N -9
E +13

I can easily see how they goofed up, though. Notice how in the scenario diagram all of the letters and numbers are facing the same way? Well, in the scenario map I sent with the manuscript, I had each letter and number situated with the "bottom" pointing at the center of the web, so the orientation switched around along the 360 degree circle of the web. Unfortunately, "O" and "N" were toward the bottom of the web, so it would be easy to see an upside-down "-6" and read it not as "9-" but as "-9," and likewise with "upside-down -9" being "6-" and being interpreted as "-6." Crap crap crappity crap crap.

Oh well, not much I can do about it at this point but send an email to Dungeon and hope they'll print an update correcting their mistake.

Johnathan

 

[Piratecat]

I'm sorry they screwed it up, but I'm glad that I'm right and not totally losing it. I noticed it immediately, but forgot to mention it to you right away.