Props You've Made: Helpful Advice Edition

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Ok, so I'm trying to make a nice prop for one of my players. The short of it is he is a Necromancer, and he's looking for tomes on necromancy to increase his power. So in the dungeon the party's about to delve, there's an undead spellcaster he can get such a book from (roleplay or combat, whichever he feels like trying).

So, yeah, I wanna make that book. It's essentially a collection of lorem ipsum, old medieval sketches/sketches of skeletons, and a spell crib sheet for his necromancy spells all the way from 3rd to 9th level.

Yes, I am insane. Moving on.

My issue is that I plan to print this whole thing (~30 pages?) in landscape form, and then fold it all together and bind it with twine inside of a cover made from a manila envelope (properly ages, of course). Well, I realize now that the order will be totally screwed up if I just print the whole thing and fold it together.

tldr: Making a book by typing landscape style, and then folding together. How do I fix the sequence so it looks like a legit book? Is there an easy way to format this sort of thing in Word? Have I finally lost what few wits I possessed?

Also, Prop Thread!

[Sidmen]

When you are making a landscape folding book the pages will need to be like this:

[ 8 ] [ 1 ]
[ 2 ] [ 7 ]
[ 6 ] [ 3 ]
[ 4 ] [ 5 ]

You can only really do even numbers of pages. You need to start on the right side of the first page, then alternate left, right, left, right on the following pages. When you get to the mid point (in the example, page 4) it will NEED to be on the left in the sequence, then you put the next page on the right and go backwards up the pages. The highest numbered page will be at the top.

Create yourself a 4-wide table (no borders) with the central two being the margins - typically around .25 inches to .5 inches wide each - wider for the thicker booklets. the wide columns on the right and left are your page space.

[1337 b4k4]

If you're printing from Word, you can choose to layout the pages when you print in "book fold" which should do what you're looking for. Definitely make sure you have margins, and since you're not using professional printing and cutting, you might consider using the "pages per book" setting to limit it to say 10-16 pages. This will result in 2 - 3 booklets that you will need to bind together, but it will make folding easier.

Also, if you want to "age" your paper, I suggest the following (after you've done all your folding, though you could probably wait on the binding if you want. Brew up a mug or two of tea or coffee (preferably coffee, as you get darker results and can use the grinds for spotting). Optionally crinkle and ruin the pristine paper. Soak your papers in the brew for a few minutes until the paper is discolored. Remove and allow to dry thoroughly on a baking rack or other such item. Place wet grounds or tea bag contents in various spots to induce darker spotting. When throughly dry, your paper will have an old and brittle look and feel (and will be a bit brittler so be careful). For a finishing touch carefully (and in a fire proof container) burn the edges and corners with a match or lighter

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I second the ageing process - but I'd add that coffee leaves your paper stinking of Starbucks. Also, burning the edges is only really appropriate if the book is meant to have been in a fire.

[EccentricCircle]

You can print a booklet from a pdf or a publisher document. It will figure out which pages need to be printed next to each other and on the reverse of each other for you. One of them, I don't recall which also adds appropriate "guttering" the margins that need to be there so that the thickness of the book is taken into account when folding. It takes a bit of care to put the sheets back into your printer in the correct order to print the reverse sides, so don't worry if you mess up the first printout.

As to aging the paper my preferred method is to dissolve some sugar in hot water, then paint that onto the paper. Then place that sheet under the grill of your oven (keeping a close watch on it so it doesn't get too well done!). It will brown and crinkle as the water evaporates. The result looks and smells really cool.

I frequently make props for my games, and will often make a small booklet of setting information to give to the players at the start of the game.

[Jay R]

Get a piece of paper and fold it as you intend to fold the real one. Number the pages. Then unfold it, and you have a template.

[DrMartin]

you get the option to do a booklet print straight from your software (indesign, word, acrobat all do it) and some printers offer the same setting as well. So just write your book linearly and get the printing order puzzled out at printing time. If your number of pages is uneven most software add a blank page as last or second-to-last to make the spread work.

Tea is also a good way to age paper. spread some with a brush or "paint" the paper with a used tea-bag

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Well, thanks for the advice. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to correlate the pages in Word, and I couldn't find a cheap online source, so I did it manually. It was exactly as awful as you'd expect. But the finished product is here:

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s231/sithlord7/IMG_1384_zps3tnknktd.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s231/sithlord7/IMG_1383_zpsqretrak7.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s231/sithlord7/IMG_1382_zpsqt8igrsb.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s231/sithlord7/IMG_1381_zpsabvomukd.jpg

So, ah. Rate my prop? Pics might be weirdly orientated.

[Maglubiyet]

So awesome!

Want to DM my halfling rogue's induction into the Streetwalkers' Guild?

[GoblinGilmartin]

For aging paper, use tea instead. It smells better.

[Maglubiyet]

Love the pics, it turned out really great!

Is it actually translatable from another language or did you overlay the fonts (Quenya and Younger Futhark?) on English text?

[Ailowynn]

Looks awesome! Love the fonts you used (especially if the elvish and dwarvish is actually a font and not just an image). And the pages look really nicely aged.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

So awesome!

Want to DM my halfling rogue's induction into the Streetwalkers' Guild?

I don't know what that is, and I haven't played or run a session by forum in a decade. Sorry!:smallredface:


Love the pics, it turned out really great!

Is it actually translatable from another language or did you overlay the fonts (Quenya and Younger Futhark?) on English text?


Looks awesome! Love the fonts you used (especially if the elvish and dwarvish is actually a font and not just an image). And the pages look really nicely aged.

The Elvish and dwarfish fonts are available on a lot of font sites. I wish that I had a link to give you. Most of the text in the prop book is lorem ipsum, though a few pages have been oddly formatted to resemble poetry, and in a few cases I took the English text and converted it into the new font. Not sure if the pictures show it, but in several places in the book I have made nonsense scribbles and notes, as if several generations of necromancers have been modifying the text and keeping track of changes to the knowledge within.

I also had to create a double layer of covering for the book. I used a dark envelope, but it was too thin. Also, the string used to bind the whole book together was partly on the outside, and another layer of cover would both thicken the book itself and cover up any unsightly string. The only place the string is still visible is in the very middle of the book. It holds together surprisingly well.

Now I only need to figure out what sort of fun props I can come up with for my Tiefling criminal fence, a sorcerer nobleman who probably should be a paladin, and a mounted winged hussar folk hero. Joy! Anyone got a suggestion?

[LokiRagnarok]

For the nobleman/paladin, a pendant or similar with his coat of arms/symbol of his god? Alternatively, if he is really into the nobleman thing and you are really into making books now, a book to trace his family history, with genealogy trees and pictures of the deeds of his forefathers (and foremothers!), how his grand-grand-father slew the Great Dragon Of Shadarakh, just as the beast is being slain, stuff like that.
The book would obviously have different handwriting all over the place, because the historians would have been different... and then he discovers with an appropriate perception/history check that the handwriting has been conspiciously staying the same for the past two hundred years :smalleek:

....I need to make this at some point.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

I don't know what that is, and I haven't played or run a session by forum in a decade. Sorry!

If you've ever read any Terry Pratchett, another name would be the Guild of Seamstresses. If you've not, then go with ladies (and potentially gentlemen, but mostly ladies) of the night. :smallwink:



Now I only need to figure out what sort of fun props I can come up with for ... ... a mounted winged hussar folk hero. Joy! Anyone got a suggestion?
How about a feather, as a feather from the wing of his mounts legendary great-great ... ... great-grand-sire, dating all the way back to the founding of his order of hussars.

I second the pendant idea for the nobleman. Or if you're willing to go to an extreme, maybe something like a tabard with their family arms on.

[Mutazoia]

I don't know what that is, and I haven't played or run a session by forum in a decade. Sorry!:smallredface:





The Elvish and dwarfish fonts are available on a lot of font sites. I wish that I had a link to give you. Most of the text in the prop book is lorem ipsum, though a few pages have been oddly formatted to resemble poetry, and in a few cases I took the English text and converted it into the new font. Not sure if the pictures show it, but in several places in the book I have made nonsense scribbles and notes, as if several generations of necromancers have been modifying the text and keeping track of changes to the knowledge within.

I also had to create a double layer of covering for the book. I used a dark envelope, but it was too thin. Also, the string used to bind the whole book together was partly on the outside, and another layer of cover would both thicken the book itself and cover up any unsightly string. The only place the string is still visible is in the very middle of the book. It holds together surprisingly well.

Now I only need to figure out what sort of fun props I can come up with for my Tiefling criminal fence, a sorcerer nobleman who probably should be a paladin, and a mounted winged hussar folk hero. Joy! Anyone got a suggestion?

For mystical writing I tend to use the Glyphis (http://img.font.downloadatoz.com/download/imgs/g/l/y/glyphis-1-character.png) family of fonts, and save the Dwarven and Elven fonts for ...well...Dwarven and elven writings. I tend to find that printing in a dark brown ink on parchment paper looks good. When everything is printed and before it's bound I'll stack all the pages together in order and paint just the edges with a light coating of brown paint to simulate aging/water seepage. Paint just enough that the first quarter inch or so of the outside edges of all the pages acquire a natural, ancient water stained look.

Edit: This isn't one I made but this is pretty much what it looked like. (http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/121/b/4/cthulhu_cult_talisman_by_mrzarono-d4y88w8.jpg)

Haven't made one of those in a while...but the last one was fun...I wish I had pics to show how it looked. The last prop I made for a game was for a Star Wars game. I sat down with Adobe Premier and made an entire opening craw with the SW theme song and had everybody watch it before we started play.

[Gavran]

Awwww. I wish I'd found this before you finished - I find Markov Chains (http://projects.haykranen.nl/markov/demo/)* to be preferable to Lorem ipsum. I did something similar (though digitally only, you're cooler than me there) for the tome of a Great Old One Warlock character I'm idly developing. I like what you've got though. If I was remotely likely to ever actually play said Warlock (let alone in a meatspace game) I'd be tempted to do to the same.

* I seeded mine with selections from this site (http://www.sacred-texts.com/grim/index.htm) which has the text of a surprising number of old books. I think I threw some of the predictions of Nostradamus in there too.

p.s. Markov Chains are fun and I encourage everyone to play with them. :p