Ye Olde Inn

by **yellowmosquito** » December 29th, 2015, 4:35 pm

Thanks for the quick response.

It looks like you decided to abandon the spell shop, armorsmith, and training hall. Did you do this because you found that it imbalanced the game? or made it too complex? Just wondering before I really make a choice and get started.

They made things too complex. The more Quests I played through, the more I was drawn back to HQ's original simplicity, and found that those particular additions required more headspace--players would forget what the bonuses were, or overlook them all together.

You see it repeated here at Ye Olde Inn again and again, and for good reason: that simply adding a special artifact or item here or there can offer a variation on the HQ game, while keeping that simple spirit! So I've finally come to realize, in a round-a-bout-way

by **yellowmosquito** » December 29th, 2015, 8:36 pm

Well, you may be finished with them, but I think I would like to try them out.

I know you may not use them, but I thought I would make cards for your inventory items in the style of drathe's equipment for north america. I have no idea how drathe recreated these, but I used your existing card assets and my own photoshopping to do a somewhat faithful representation. (Thank you for making those available.) They should be decent enough quality for most purposes.

Here are the items I think I may be using: Cloak, Headband, and Hand Axe - as well as some items that I may be less likely to use: Blowing Horn and Skeleton Key.
Cloak
Headband
Hand Axe
Blowing Horn
Skeleton Key

It matches the descriptions and artwork of the items used in the following armories, but I did take some liberties to match the styles introduced by drathe, and also to clarify a bit in the case of the skeleton key:
http://robbieandbobby.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/newarmory1.png
http://robbieandbobby.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Armory-with-Equipment-Improvements-Proficiencies11x17Preview1.png

I hope you don't object. If you are okay with these, I will share the assets with the community.

Edit 1: A few edits of the original images to correct shadows.
Edit 2: The inclusion of the last two images and cleaning up of the post

by **GimmeYerGold** » December 30th, 2015, 9:05 am

Great work! While I do like the black and white style of the UK equipment cards (and it's easier to find B/W Gary Chalk style art to match), drathe's technique incorporates the best of both worlds, modular cards, and the evocative color art that makes browsing the US armory so appealing.

Happy to see what you've done here, yellowmosquito!

by **yellowmosquito** » December 30th, 2015, 2:29 pm

I'm glad to hear that you are happy with the results

I've made the entire package available for anyone to download here. ( If anyone extends this armory using these resources to include additional equipment, please share your changes with the community.)

If you (or anyone else) wants to continue what I've done for your existing items, it is not difficult - just time consuming. I've left enough layers in so that you can see my technique. The real trick comes in eliminating the shadow (which is heavily colored from the background and nearly impossible to extract) from the original image, and then using a drop shadow to faithfully recreate the exact direction, spread, and intensity of the shadow from the original layer. In most cases, you can get suprisingly close with this. You can check how close you are by using "multiply" on the layer on which you are cutting, until its shadow falls right where it should be according to the armory. Also, always remember to move/size the cutout and the background layer for an item together so that they stay locked in position. Hopefully, I have more good photoshop habits than bad.

I've included each piece of equipment in its own .psd (as you did in your card pack), as well as a "master" pdf. I have also included the sheet I used to align those images for printing in drathe's format. And of course, the final PDF most people will want that they can just print out.

Thanks much to GimmeYerGold and drathe!

EDIT: Published the link to the resources now that I have been granted permission by drathe.