I had the privilege of being a sounding board for Ke while he began his work on his Amaranth layouts. We didn't agree on the layout of the cards for the most part, but I super admired his clan backgrounds. Thanks to the miracle of Photoshop, I've been able to remake a reasonable facsimile of his clan backgrounds for a more full layout artwork.
I'm also working on library cards. It's tough to strike a balance between a functional evolution, while still paying respect to previous iterations.
as always, comments and criticism are welcome!
The little dividing bar on Al-Ashrad and Govern are nice. Maybe a little thick, but I like the idea. Magic recently implemented something similar separating rules text from flavor text, which is something I've thought they should do for a while.
I personally think the vampire's title should be on a separate line from their clan and sect. Titles are keywords, clan and sect are not.
Edit. Backgrounds are OK - Toreador needs to be pinker - but why not full art? Why keep the oval frame? You had the 'clan colors' replace the marble stripe on the side. That's way better IMO.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
I really dislike that green bar where the vamp's name goes, especially when it blends into the clan background. I also find that colour green does not work well with most of the (here presented) background colors.
I also find the size of the clan icon a bit too big. And the overlap of illustrations and text boxes looks odd and sloppy.
That being said, i do like that the vamp bacground goes all the way under dicipline icons. And most of the new backgrounds look cool, other than Toreador one...
I like the look with the exception of the green name bar. Maybe it would look better if it extended to the edge? I'm not artistically inclined, so sorry to judge your work, but that part feels "off" to me.
The toreador color is too close to the ventrue and lasombra for my taste.
I've removed the green bar. I wasn't sold on it to begin with, though it's nice to have a unifying element throughout the cards.
Some side by side comparisons:
@LivesByProxy I've already done the sidebar thing, and while it ended up being popular, the idea behind it was for use as an alternate format for premium or promotional cards. I'm trying to advance the design to a more modern feel. after fifteen years the layouts could use an update.
For me, the revised cards look much better. However, I do feel that some kind of top bar (where the name and expansion icon are) is still needed - perhaps a simple, dark one (some colour that is different to all clan background colors).
I don't think top bar is needed. The revised look great.
I might be tempted to move the oval shape to the centre, and make it slightly bigger, and be partially under text box and discipline icons. To be honest, i'm more of the fan of full-size art with just clan-color stripe, but those retro design also work great.
Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.
> Lech wrote:
> I don't think top bar is needed.
>
I kinda agree, but I think that the problem is that without a bar the vamp's name, which IMO should stand out the most, gets a bit lost, especially with larger clan symbols (like Assamites).
Also, for example with Malkavs (and I presume with Trujahs, Daugters and Salubri), the card name might be hard to read, being white letters on light background...
With good black tint around it's easy to read.
Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.
Speculation here, but the old Malk background was probably thought of as outdated and is, IMO, ugly as sin.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
You know the Full Art cards from MTG? Did you think about that?
I don't think you change anything, honestly. You just change object places. Thank god Amaranth web site has the option to the old layouts, still hope for no-Camarilla Edition layouts.
Here's something I threw together. This is how I imagine VTES 2.0
-Borderless cards
-Full art pics
-larger discipline symbols
-less clans and bloodlines, no 'antitribu', fold bloodlines into clans
-every clan gets a unique discipline: daeva get seduction, malks get dementation, etc
-disciplines now come in 3 levels: novice, advanced, expert in order to rebalance card effects and differentiate low-caps, mid-caps, and high-caps
-age and sex are written out on the card; they're stats to be played with
-bolded and italicized 'type' line listing each vampires clan, faith, and party
-symbol in top right, top left, and bottom right corresponding to clan, faith, and party
-ideally a cards color would indicate clan, the framing around their disciplines, name, title, text boxes indicates their faith, and the font indicates their party
-a vampires capacity is no longer their age, but instead the max number of cards they can have on them (i.e. retainers, equipment, plots, Fame, Abbot, etc.)
-capacity symbol is now on vampires where the pool cost is on cards you/they play, same goes for clan, faith, and/or party requirements on cards
-blood and life are now called pool; you have your pool, each vampire has their own pool
-there are no keyword titles anymore, instead each vampire gets a subtitle specific to them (this is something FFG has done with a lot of their unique characters in their games, think of it like flavor text)
There's more but I don't expect anyone to like any of my ideas.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> There's more but I don't expect anyone to like any of my ideas.
>
It looks astounding, and would be grand for another game.
Once again: make it happen, and I'll be the first one to show an interest.
But, sure enough, it's not VtES.
When are you putting up a development blog or something? Would love to chime in.
"Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!"
-Nalia De-Arnise
garourimgazette.wordpress.com/
www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines
> LivesByProxy wrote:
>
> Here's something I threw together. This is how I imagine VTES 2.0
>
second go, because my browser ate my post.
I'll start on a technical note: you have a lot of elements of the card (discipliones, clan icon, 'faith' icon, sect icon) that are super close to the edge of the card. A bleed area is usually left to cover up variances that are inevitable in the printing and die cutting of a card. If you've ever punched out cardboard tokens for a board game you might have seen that the printing overlaps where the token is cut out. typically about 1/8th of an inch (3mm) is left as a 'safe zone' for the finished product, and a further 1/8th inch is printed but discarded. This is likely the reason that Vtes cards have black borders, to protect the actual content of the cards.
As for the actual look and layout of the card, It looks great and has a very crisp and modern feel to it! But as Kraus points out, it doesn't look like a Vtes card. I get that you're adding a bunch of elements you'd like to see in a hard reboot of the game and i'll comment further on that, but that's a little outside the scope of what I'm trying to do. I'm aiming for a redesign of the cards for the current game, with minor changes for clarity of the information on the card, not to also make changes I'd like to see made in the mechanics of the game (because there are some that I'd love to see). The colors of your border element are super bright and vibrant, which I like, but they're also very monochromatic and lacking in contrast. There's not enough variance in the texture that makes me say 'This is a Daeva vampire' aside from the fact that it's very pink.
Basically, it doesn't meet my expectations as someone who's familiar with the game. A part of my attraction to any game like this is the card frames. I fell in love with the lush and busy backgrounds featured in the early printings of Legend of the Five Rings CCG back in '96. I like my busy backgrounds, and your ideas just don't do it for me.
I do appreciate your efforts, though! I'd like to see what you come up with for the game as it currently is. I can also send you some fonts that may be helpful for you. hit me up at self [dawt] biased [partypartyat] gmail and i'll send you some resources.
I'll respond to this here, but if you have a development thread post I can move it into that'd be preferable as it's not exactly on topic. I'm okay with a digression, but I don't want to completely derail the thread with the discussion.
I can see that you're very inspired by Vampire: The Requiem. In many ways that setting is a more fitting one for how V:tes plays and you have a lot of ideas that i've had myself years ago when I was involved with the Mind's Eye Theater global larp back in 2010 and wanted to make a sort of spin-off game that used a lot of elements from Vtes. However, the Requiem setting just wasn't as popular as the Masquerade setting, though that's a very muddy puddle to splash in with a whole lot of reasons why things ended up the way they did. Requiem continues to do well with Onyx Path Publishing, which is nice because I really do like the setting.
However, the bottom line is that we have Vampire: The Masquerade (v5) as our setting for V:tes and not Requiem. I'm going to try to frame my replies to your ideas from the perspective the Masquerade setting and V:tes as it is. I'd be more than happy to discuss V:tes as you feel it ought to be in another thread.
> Borderless cards, Full art pics, larger discipline symbols
>
In general, I'm in favor of these things. Indeed, my own efforts have been focused on these things.
> less clans and bloodlines, no 'antitribu', fold bloodlines into clans
>
I'm half with you on this. For the Vtes as it is I think we can fold antitribu clans into their counterparts without too many things getting crazy. However, doing so requires a significant errata of hundreds of cards. I'm against folding Bloodlines vampires into their 'parent' clans. In the Requiem setting, Bloodlines are openly accepted as members of a parent clan, but In Masquerade they work a little differently. In Masquerade, it's not always clear (or thematically important) what parent clan to fold the bloodline into. In Masquerade Bloodlines are often small clans that are distinct enough from their parent clan (not to mention Abominations). Folding bloodlines into parent clans for V:tes feels like it misses the point that these are small, but unique clans.
> every clan gets a unique discipline: daeva get seduction, malks get dementation, etc
>
this is probably the biggest design flaw of the Masquerade setting that I feel Requiem gets right. Discipline spreads on vampires are an unfortunate legacy issue faced by a game that's drawing from five different versions of its source material. Personally, I'd love to see each clan have a unique discipline! I think it would add a lot to the game. But I don't see a way to change things to reflect this outside of giving clan 'enhancements' on certain cards in the same manner as Aire of Elation.
> disciplines now come in 3 levels: novice, advanced, expert in order to rebalance card effects and differentiate low-caps, mid-caps, and high-caps
>
Another great idea! I had this very idea for my Requiem themed knock-off game. it's a simple change that would add quite a bit of needed depth in terms of design space and makes up for having a smaller number of disciplines. Unfortunately it requires a VERY hard reset (which we are equally VERY unlikely to see) of Vtes that would require errata for literally thousands of cards.
> age and sex are written out on the card; they're stats to be played with
>
A vampire's chronological age and generation are two very different things. Age/capacity comparison is currently an underutilized mechanic that probably has some good design space to explore. I don't really see the need to broaden the mechanic any more, though. As for sex of a vampire, as I noted in your other thread I am vehemently against adding a completely new mechanic whose implementation has the potential to be mind-bogglingly problematic to ensure that marginalized groups are well represented in the game: it's a can of worms best left unopened.
> bolded and italicized 'type' line listing each vampires clan, faith, and party
> -symbol in top right, top left, and bottom right corresponding to clan, faith, and party
> -ideally a cards color would indicate clan, the framing around their disciplines, name, title, text boxes indicates their faith, and the font indicates their party
>
I think adding Icons for Sect would be a great idea, provided they free up space in the text box. Adding faith as what is effectively a keyword seems to be a bridge too far. Clan and Sect are already ubiquitous keywords. Representing clan by color isn't a great idea because colorblindness is a thing. Changing the font of the text based on the vampires Sect also seems like a nice detail touch But when I take that with just how many different variables you're putting into the design space it feels like it clutters the design down by adding too many variables to it, and it would lack a certain elegant simplicity in how the information is presented on the card.
> a vampires capacity is no longer their age, but instead the max number of cards they can have on them (i.e. retainers, equipment, plots, Fame, Abbot, etc.)
>
As I mentioned previously, A vampire's Generation is unrelated to their chronological age. I'm also not understanding what this is intended to fix, as it feels like it's rare to see a vampire with more than 5 cards attached to it.
> capacity symbol is now on vampires where the pool cost is on cards you/they play, same goes for clan, faith, and/or party requirements on cards
>
so, by your design, If there's a card that requires a particular 'Faith,' i'd have to look at the top right of the card, but if a different card required a Clan it'd be in the top left? why is this information scattered around the card face? that feels like it would contribute to a cluttered layout. I'm okay with moving the capacity over to the other side of the card. it's effectively a cost, and that's where they're usually located.
> blood and life are now called pool; you have your pool, each vampire has their own pool
>
I see what you're trying to do with this, and I half agree with it. Cards would have to be carefully calibrated so there isn't any confusion as to where the bead goes.
> there are no keyword titles anymore, instead each vampire gets a subtitle specific to them (this is something FFG has done with a lot of their unique characters in their games, think of it like flavor text)
>
so you want to add keywords but take away the equivalent? I'm super confused here.
Overall, you're purporting a large number of changes to Vtes as currently it is. There's some good ideas there, some of which would be easier to implement than others. I feel that several of your suggestions delve into territory that i feel is far more detailed than is really appropriate for the scope of the game. Abstracting concepts for the sake of mechanics isn't necessarily a bad thing, and having very intricate details isn't always a good thing. I feel that expanding the detailed elements of the game opens up enough design space at the end of the day to ultimately justify it. I feel these detailed elements are much better suited to be explored in the corresponding roleplaying game than in the format V:tes currently has.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
>
> Here's something I threw together. This is how I imagine VTES 2.0
>
> -Borderless cards
> -Full art pics
> -larger discipline symbols
> -less clans and bloodlines, no 'antitribu', fold bloodlines into clans
> -every clan gets a unique discipline: daeva get seduction, malks get dementation, etc
> -disciplines now come in 3 levels: novice, advanced, expert in order to rebalance card effects and differentiate low-caps, mid-caps, and high-caps
> -age and sex are written out on the card; they're stats to be played with
> -bolded and italicized 'type' line listing each vampires clan, faith, and party
> -symbol in top right, top left, and bottom right corresponding to clan, faith, and party
> -ideally a cards color would indicate clan, the framing around their disciplines, name, title, text boxes indicates their faith, and the font indicates their party
> -a vampires capacity is no longer their age, but instead the max number of cards they can have on them (i.e. retainers, equipment, plots, Fame, Abbot, etc.)
> -capacity symbol is now on vampires where the pool cost is on cards you/they play, same goes for clan, faith, and/or party requirements on cards
> -blood and life are now called pool; you have your pool, each vampire has their own pool
> -there are no keyword titles anymore, instead each vampire gets a subtitle specific to them (this is something FFG has done with a lot of their unique characters in their games, think of it like flavor text)
>
> There's more but I don't expect anyone to like any of my ideas.
>
Wtf, Daeva with superior auspex and no vigor? Also, expansion symbol is too big. I like capacity on that side of the card btw.
Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.
I really like the little blood dots that bleed into the text boxes! And the small splatter on the fringes.
Also large font is definitely a plus.
Finnish Politics!
I didn't expect such an... in-depth response.
I'll will email you shortly, but about your take on the combat card:
Having the blood effects be part of the framing / background skin of the combat cards is a cool idea. I think you could take it a step further. I'll mock up something real quick. Also, I think it could be full art easily, as I see a lot of 'wasted' space bordering the art.
Also, you mentioned the borders of a card acting like a safe-zone for variabilities in cutting the cards and such, which is probably why VTES cards (and MTG among others) have borders. I just wanted to point out that I play several of FFG's LCGs (L5R, ANR, Arkham Horror) and all of them have borderless cards and I've never once seen a printing or cutting error. IDK if it is quality control or some secret technique, but by contrast, I own VTES cards with mis-cut borders.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
Ally card.
I have a conundrum, though. I didn't put the disciplines in the side bar for the combat card, because it's really not necessary to have that reminder on the side. However for clan requirements, the precedent is to have them on the side. There's a few cards that are playable by two clans, and there ain't enough real estate to have both icons on the side.
also, I have no idea what to border the picture and text box with at the moment (ideas would be welcome for this.
> self wrote:
> I have a conundrum, though. I didn't put the disciplines in the side bar for the combat card, because it's really not necessary to have that reminder on the side.
>
I disagree. That upper left band is the only part that is visible when the cards being held in a tight fold, so disciplines there are very useful to get a quick glance of one's hand. That is the reason why poker cards have their numbers repeated in the corners.
> Non-existant user wrote:
> I disagree. That upper left band is the only part that is visible when the cards being held in a tight fold, so disciplines there are very useful to get a quick glance of one's hand. That is the reason why poker cards have their numbers repeated in the corners.
>
I get what you're saying, but it's still a redundancy that's been a legacy hold-over from the Jyhad days. The first 3-5 letters of the card name are generally visible in a tight fold, and there's still the card type and cost visible. Those elements could probably do the same job as extra discipline icons taking up space in that area. This also isn't something that totally breaks the design, either.
Someone mentioned that they wanted to see what a centered portrait looked like. I also took the liberty to update the Assamite (Banu Haqim?) background to include a sort of callback to the original design with an Arabian style lattice pattern (I've always thought it weird that Assamites were the only one who had their clan icon integrated into their actual background).
Followers of Set (The Ministry?)
Banu Haqim
Cao Nguyen looks okay, but Rebekah looks off balance to me. Compare to these:
for whatever reason these just feel more harmonious than the centered portraits. Additionally, in the previous iteration the portraits felt out of proportion to me, and i've gone back to the original proportions.
I was going to say that the centered does look teeny bit better but forces the disciplines to horizontal positioning (which I'm not sure if I like better than the vertical or not. Kinda like it, kinda not.)
When vertical they are kinda more distinct as they are not superimposed on anything else than the card background. While horizontal they also go on top of the picture and I'm not totally sure how well that will always work.
Also horizontal might cause some spatial problems with some fatties with a giganormous discipline threads.
Finnish Politics!
I personally prefer vertical positioning for the discipline icons. They are more distinctive when not overlapping with anything else, and also not being covered by blood counters when not in center of the card.
With the exception of the horizontal disciple icons, these last images look really, really good.
Smoking craters tell no tales.
—Tex talks Battletech
I think centered with vertical icons would worki best. Horizontal just look meh.
Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.
I think the textures are too abstract or not representative of the clan. The 1st Tzimisce vaguely implies skin and blood, maybe? It also looks rusty to me. The 2nd Tzimisce is green which I think should be the Gangrel color but the texture doesn't mean or tell me anything. The Lasombra has a skin that resembles snake scales when it's yellowish, but the purple is a good color for darkness and shadows, but then the snake scales don't work with it IMO. Never been a fan of the Brujah denim background, Toreador is just OK, Caitiff is... what is that even suppose to be? Gangrel one is probably the most accurate to what I personally would like to see: green color scheme, implied camouflage theme, but the texture looks too stoney, should probably be more leafy (implying forests and woodlands).
Here's a combat card I mocked up:
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> I think the textures are too abstract or not representative of the clan. The 1st Tzimisce vaguely implies skin and blood, maybe? It also looks rusty to me. The 2nd Tzimisce is green which I think should be the Gangrel color but the texture doesn't mean or tell me anything. The Lasombra has a skin that resembles snake scales when it's yellowish, but the purple is a good color for darkness and shadows, but then the snake scales don't work with it IMO. Never been a fan of the Brujah denim background, Toreador is just OK, Caitiff is... what is that even suppose to be? Gangrel one is probably the most accurate to what I personally would like to see: green color scheme, implied camouflage theme, but the texture looks too stoney, should probably be more leafy (implying forests and woodlands).
>
Personally, I can accept that there's going to be an abstraction somewhere along the way and not everything is going to line up with my expectations as to how things 'ought' to be. case in point: you don't like the original Malkavian background or Brujah backgrounds, despite the fact they pretty effectively convey a theme. That's okay, too, but having there be a distinction and contrast to other backgrounds being used is important in the overall feel of the cards.
The purple Lasombra and red Tzimisce backgrounds are based off the originals found in Sabbat War and use elements that were in those backgrounds. The gold and green backgrounds are an attempt to reflect what the current color pallets are, while still paying homage to the original designs. Mileage may vary from person to person.
> Here's a combat card I mocked up:
>
It looks nice and is a very fresh and modern take on the idea. I realize that it's a basic mock-up, but I'm not sure it jives with me personally because it looks like it came from some game that isn't V:tes. hitting that sweet spot between old and new is super challenging.
> SelfBiased wrote:
> It looks nice and is a very fresh and modern take on the idea. I realize that it's a basic mock-up, but I'm not sure it jives with me personally because it looks like it came from some game that isn't V:tes. hitting that sweet spot between old and new is super challenging.
>
I understand that. I was inspired by some of the graphics I saw in the V5 demo. I'm not exactly sold on it myself, I feel like it needs more of... something. I forgot the white borders around the discipline icons too. The artwork was taken from the canceled WoD MMO. I was also trying mimic FFGs graphic designs.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
Master
Event.
one of the things that's perplexed me is that there's no icon for Master cards, and the icon for Events doesn't follow the established format for every other library card type, not to mention that Events are basically red Master cards without a distinct texture for themselves.
Event mk 2
@LivesByProxy In that you were successful in capturing that feel, but I'm not a fan of everything being at angles. Just my personal tastes though.
This seems to be a recent topic about custom cards. So I'm new here but an old user of our friend 'tochop. Our game is good but the templates are old school. So I'm searching for material and more specially for library cards layout .
My request is : does anyone can share the material ? or tell me where I can find some pieces ?
It takes me a little bit more time than I think but the result is under here. I just miss a proper material for the left bord (card type/ clan). I also have to remake some material as the Sabbat mark or the blood capacity seal.
There's something wrong with the disciplines on Scalpel Tongue, and I'm not a big fan of the other icons getting out of the side frame.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
I like crypt design (varied text box aside), but when it comes to library, separators are ... not so good (especially crosses) and discipline marking in textbox are not great either. Also, i'd like to have bigger sidebar, as you don't know which type of card it is when glancing over your hand.
Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.
> Ankha wrote:
> There's something wrong with the disciplines on Scalpel Tongue,.
>
What do you mean by "something wrong" ?
> Lech wrote:
> Also, i'd like to have bigger sidebar, as you don't know which type of card it is when glancing over your hand.
>
Concerning the sidebar, I'm working with the material I have (thank's to self biased, without him, I will have worst). But I do agree : the sidebar could be better.
> Stéphane81 wrote:
>
> > Ankha wrote:
> > There's something wrong with the disciplines on Scalpel Tongue,.
> >
> What do you mean by "something wrong" ?
>
They straddle the sidebar and the cardtext. And they are not aligned with each other.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Regarding the sidebar: it looks like you're using a gradient mask to have the sidebar fade away into the artwork. IMO, you should stretch out the gradient to have sidebar fade gradually and not just fall off so sharply.
I also think the text-boxes should be the same uniform size, and font-size adjusted accordingly.
I would also recommend clan symbols be in the upper left corner preceding the vampires name.
I would also, also like to see the blood cost symbol have similar lighting and shading as the capacity cost does, rather than the flat red icon it is now. Not sure how this would look in practice.
Just my thoughts, I may contribute something here of my own soon.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> Stéphane81 wrote:
> It takes me a little bit more time than I think but the result is under here.
>
The Crypt cards look very much eye candy.
But especially the Library cards look somehow odd. Perhaps the side bar should be wider and the symbols larger?
And text definitely should be larger!
I've been reorganizing my collection and been loving the new font size introduced in Lords of the Night! Coupled with the clearer background it makes reading of the cards much easier a job. <3 <3 <3
All in all, the cards look extremely nice, but I feel that somehow the vampire feel to it has been lost (probably partly, but not fully, due to the choice of illustrations).
Finnish Politics!
So, I had made my homeworks on this topic
.
CRYPT
I'm using guide lines to align elements with each other. The sabbat blood stain is the larger clan mark. Then it is the one I used as a reference. As you can see, the title is set on the other side of the line and the upper-left corner can "breathe" with some space.
The disciples are place regarding the center of the symbol. I do not like the position on actual cards. The designer just keep the space between each discipline and that give a flat feeling about the basic ones . The advenced symbol is also set on this line.
I like varied text box and keep the font size. I do agree that the style is important but the first fonction of a card is its text. And I do have difficulties in reading some cards like the Jessica ADV or Touch of Clarity . (And yes, I'm wearing glasses to read ^^)
Concerning the fade away, a more gradually mask give a mess of pixels effect with some art. So I keep it short.
.
LIBRARY
As before, I used the Sabbat stain to place the main guide line. We've got a lot of elements with different forms on this sidebar. They're all align with the main line and the same in-between space. They never are all on at the same time so the result is not too heavy.
A larger text box is a good idea so the sidebar goes on top and gives more space to the text. I also change the separator. I have to admit that the cross wasn't a great idea. Fortunately, Vampire is also a rpg and the character's sheet provide me the perfect one (I think).
The required disciplines are no longer in the sidebar but are kept in the same vertical space that the other signs. The center of the under symbol is align with the left corner of the upper one. I know it's odd but in this way, the symbol is big enougth to be "read".
I keep the bolt font to write the conditions text. The blood drop habe been remake as was the blood capacity seal.
What is your goal with this?
The staggered discipline "cost" in Spirit Claws looks bad IMO.
I've never been a fan of the side-bar, even though it makes VTES identifiable as VTES... nor am I a fan of the really weird abstract "skins" for different card types: Master cards are the green marble of the VTM rpg book, and combat cards get a red "skin" OK, but what about the rest of them? Why are action modifiers a mosaic? Why are allies this abstract purple, yellow mess? Reaction cards are an abstract white-black something?
The old political cards used to look like parchment with a red wax seal, and the newer design kind of tries to hint at that, but it's just kinda "meh."
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
I am a big fan of the sidebar. It is that part of the cards, thats visible when you fan them out on your hand, so you can easily see what you can play.
In all those new designs, I am missing the flair of playing an ancient vampire. I dont mind a solid frame if it gives the cards the mood of the rpg. The world in the rpg is described as a gothic punk version of our world. On the old Jyhad cards the textbox and frames had sometimes something of a stone table. While the design of those had its flaws, i liked the theme and feeling they were trying to transport.
The crosses in the textbox already helped in that. Maybe some elements from gothic architecture either in stylized form or as border would also help giving those cards a less Sci-Fi-ish look. As would any stone or weared down materials.
On a completely different note, these cards seem so flat. Maybe add some shadows to the elements that overlap others to lift them from the layer under it?
> cmdrKEEN wrote:
> I am a big fan of the sidebar. It is that part of the cards, thats visible when you fan them out on your hand, so you can easily see what you can play.
>
This. For the same reason, card titles should probably be further left than they currently are on library cards.
Not sure why some sect titles aren't in caps and some are. It's bothersome. I'm a firm believer that all bold information should have a capital letter. Also not sure why information like Black Hand is at the end of information in the ability section. I feel all lore information should be at the top and game information should be at the end .
Sabbat Bishop. Black Hand:
This vampire does stuff.
+1 Strength. +1 Bleed.