Frog God on vacation and other news

[Bill Webb]

Frogs On Vacation!

Hey all, its mid February, and the cold weather is making us all go dormant. The Frog Family vacation is near, and it is IMPORTANT that everyone realize we will be gone for the next month. All orders processed after Tuesday night will not be filled until mid-March (that’s right, a whole month in Costa Rica!). Paizo orders are unaffected.

In the news Tsar 14 is in layout, which means Greg only has to complete the bonus chapter, and we will be off to press in early April. We are sold out of Northland Saga 1, however, when I return, I will have limited reprints available. Castel Baldemore (Saturday Night Specials) and Hex Crawls 5-6 are also in layout for when I am gone. Rappan Athuk is progressive nastily, and I imagine I will get some great ideas while visiting the venomous snakes, frogs and other critters in Central America for the next 5 weeks.

I apologize in advance for those of you who read this late, or have to wait for books, but the Frog God has not had a month off work since 1976, and he needs it badly. We appreciate your business, and I look forward to returning and getting everything caught up with all that restored mana (e.g. energy) that I will have following this trip.

I still have limited numbers of Tome of Adventure Design, Black Monastery and Tome of Horrors SW version; get them while they last!
I shall miss you all, and look forward to hearing from you when I return. Again, the order deadline is 2/7/12 at midnight!

[bigkilla]

Gonna go see any of the awesome pyramids?

[Kolokotroni]

Have fun on your vacation. Hope you come back happy, refreshed and ready to give me all sorts of new ways to torment my players... i mean adventures... really, I meant adventures.

[Kthulhu]

Have a great vacation. Can't wait to see the newly expanded Rappan Athuk.

[Elorebaen]

Thanks for the update and have a great vacation.

[Gururamalamaswami]

Tsar 14? What happened to 13?

[Alzrius]

Gururamalamaswami wrote:

Tsar 14? What happened to 13?

13 just came out.

[Dawn R Fischer]

Not only is Tsar 13 out, but every subscriber should have received an email letting them know from Bytes Interactive.

[Chuck Wright]

ST13 has been sent out to the printers and the PDF is available through the Frog God Website (and is already available to Slumbering Tsar subscribers).

ST14 is out now for final edits.

EDIT: Out for final edits, not layout... D'oh!

[Daeglin]

Dawn R Fischer wrote:

Not only is Tsar 13 out, but every subscriber should have received an email letting them know from Bytes Interactive.

Yep, received email couple days a go.

[Chuck Wright]

Dawn ninja'ed part of my post! :p

[Dark Sasha]

Chuck Wright wrote:

Dawn ninja'ed part of my post! :p

:-)

[Boerngrim]

Have all the preorders of Black monastery shipped? Mine has not arrived yet....

[Dawn R Fischer]

Boerngrim wrote:

Have all the preorders of Black monastery shipped? Mine has not arrived yet....

Neither I nor Chuck have any way of finding that out as the Frog God is currently on a long overdue vacation and will be unavailable until mid March. (See the first post of this thread)

However, if yours was shipped via Frog God games it may not have arrived yet, depending on a number of factors over which we have no control. Some have arrived at their destinations and some have not.

[Dr. Johnny Fever]

Just as kind of a general Frog God Games question (although it is mostly a factor for Slumbering Tsar, in my case), would it be possible for you guys to 'layer' your maps in the .pdfs, such that, when a user copies the map image and pastes it into MS-Paint, the text doesn't come with it?

Here's the situation, I run a weekly Pathfinder game over a VTT (www.d20Pro.com), so every adventure that I DM needs to have its maps imported into the tool, which I generally do by 'copy image' in the .pdf and pasting into MS-Paint. Now, in newer .pdfs, most notably in Paizo's .pdfs, the text does not come over with the background map. This is a HUGE time saver because, as you can guess, wiping room numbers, secret doors and marked traps off the map is a long, painful process.

Unfortunately, going through the .pdfs for the Slumbering Tsar, I'm running into the whole 'room numbers/traps/secret doors' issue again.

I don't know how much effort it would take to restructure the maps in the pdfs so that the text was on a different layer, but it would be an immense aid to those of us who run games over VTTs if the final, collected version of the Slumbering Tsar pdf (and future FGG products) could do this.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

DJF

[Dawn R Fischer]

We don't have the capability the big boys have to layer maps.

I'll bring up the topic with the Frog God when he comes back from his vacation. No promises though.

[Dr. Johnny Fever]

Dawn R Fischer wrote:

We don't have the capability the big boys have to layer maps.

I'll bring up the topic with the Frog God when he comes back from his vacation. No promises though.

I can't ask for more than that. Thanks Dawn!

DJF

[Chuck Wright]

Dr. Johnny Fever wrote:

Dawn R Fischer wrote:

We don't have the capability the big boys have to layer maps.

I'll bring up the topic with the Frog God when he comes back from his vacation. No promises though.

I can't ask for more than that. Thanks Dawn!

DJF

I've already brought it up for discussion with Greg.

The main problems are

A) I don't get the maps from our cartographers layered.
B) I don't know how to do it and I may not have the programs to do it properly.

My solution would be a map booklet available for download with all of the writing removed.

DJF - Are you the same one who brought it up on the Necromancer Games Boards? (just wondering)

[Dr. Johnny Fever]

Greg,
Honestly I'm not sure. I know I've brought it up on other forums, so it might have been me.

I should probably also do a little more leg work on my part and see if Acrobat Professional (which I own) can strip out text from a non-layered pdf or if I need to invest in a full license of something like Photoshop.

DJF

[Dr. Johnny Fever]

LOL! Sorry, Chuck, that last post was meant to be addressed to you, not Greg...

DJF

[Chuck Wright]

Acrobat pro can't because it's a sing .tiff or .jpg inserted into a .PDF

That's why we're looking at booklets sans words and we have to get the original cartographers to send us files without them.

Or make your players draw their own maps. :p

[Endzeitgeist]

I'd LOVE a map-booklet without numbers - I hate them witha fiery passion in my player-handouts. Maps without tell-tale Secret-door-"S" and sans numbers - that would be the ichor-icing on the blood-pudding of horrific awesomeness that is ST....

[Shem]

Question is. What program are the cartographers making the program in.

If it is adobe illustrator or photoshop it is easy enough to add a layer for the room numbers and the secret door and traps lable. Actually, it would be easy to do a different layer for each one.

Now, for the person who wants to take those things out of the map. I would use photoshop and I would not worry about room numbers. Those mean nothing to the players but just take out the traps and secret doors. That would cut down significantly on the work that needs to be done.

[Greg A. Vaughan]

Shem wrote:

Question is. What program are the cartographers making the program in.

If it is adobe illustrator or photoshop it is easy enough to add a layer for the room numbers and the secret door and traps lable. Actually, it would be easy to do a different layer for each one.

Now, for the person who wants to take those things out of the map. I would use photoshop and I would not worry about room numbers. Those mean nothing to the players but just take out the traps and secret doors. That would cut down significantly on the work that needs to be done.

In the playtesting and my home campaign, we loaded all the maps through MapTools and simply erased secret door and trap symbols. The room numbers aren't great (my juvenile players could never stop laughing when there was a big "Number 2" on the floor) but it worked pretty well. So if we're unable to get them stripped out, that is what I would suggest. We'll see what we're able to do from our end, though.

[Elorebaen]

Endzeitgeist wrote:

I'd LOVE a map-booklet without numbers - I hate them witha fiery passion in my player-handouts. Maps without tell-tale Secret-door-"S" and sans numbers - that would be the ichor-icing on the blood-pudding of horrific awesomeness that is ST....

+100

[Kthulhu]

If you do end up doing something with a GM map and a Player's map, please make sure that the Player's map removes more than just the S for secret doors. If you see a passage that doesn't connect with anything else, but two ends are against two other corridors, it doesn't take a genius to think "Maybe I should search for a secret door right about...HERE!" Hide ALL the things that should be secret, not just the things that tell you that the (for example) door itself should be secret.

[Dr. Johnny Fever]

A map booklet that had maps minus text, if you guys decide to go that route, would be awesome. I would have no issues at all paying a little more for a product that included something like that.

DJF

[BV210]

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

(my juvenile players could never stop laughing when there was a big "Number 2" on the floor)

Hey we aren't juvenile, YOU'RE the one who wrote the bhut temple with the crack in it . . .

[Squeatus]

No symbol maps would be very cool. Looks like the cartographer only sends flat files, though. Hopefully it wouldn't add too much to the cost to get a symbol-free version to boot.

As a possible alternative, what's FGG's stance on community created material, like VTT maps and stuff?

[Greg A. Vaughan]

BV210 wrote:

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

(my juvenile players could never stop laughing when there was a big "Number 2" on the floor)

Hey we aren't juvenile, YOU'RE the one who wrote the bhut temple with the crack in it . . .

There is no bhut in Slumbering Tsar. However, the Magitect does have some junk in the trunk. No, literally, he...oh nevermind.

[Greg A. Vaughan]

Squeatus wrote:

No symbol maps would be very cool. Looks like the cartographer only sends flat files, though. Hopefully it wouldn't add too much to the cost to get a symbol-free version to boot.

As a possible alternative, what's FGG's stance on community created material, like VTT maps and stuff?

If you're just posting not-for-profit stuff on messageboards or blogs, or whatever, with proper citations of the source, I believe we're cool with that. I know some fan threads with that sort of thing have sprung up on the Necromancer Games/Frog God Games messageboards.

From talking to our cartographer, it looks like we may be able to do the tagless pdf map booklet to go with the Tsar superbook. Either way, we're not looking to add additional cost to the book for customers.

[Shem]

Sound Awesome Greg....

[Kthulhu]

On a short-lived PBEM campaign, I used GIMP (It's like Photoshop, but FREE) to edit a maps I copy/pasted from a Frog GOd Games PDF to erase a few thingis that didn't need to be common knowledge. I'm FAR from an expert user, and it still came our looking alright.

[Kthulhu]

Maybe you could talk to the guys over at 0one Games...they make more advanced used of layers in their maps than any other products I've ever seen. At the very least, they would be able to tell you what software you would need, exactly.

[Elorebaen]

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

From talking to our cartographer, it looks like we may be able to do the tagless pdf map booklet to go with the Tsar superbook. Either way, we're not looking to add additional cost to the book for customers.

Hell yea!

[Dr. Johnny Fever]

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

From talking to our cartographer, it looks like we may be able to do the tagless pdf map booklet to go with the Tsar superbook. Either way, we're not looking to add additional cost to the book for customers.

Greg, this kind of dedication to customer satisfaction, coupled with the amazing adventures and settings, will keep me buying FGG products for a long LONG time to come.

DJF

[Chuck Wright]

Shem wrote:

Question is. What program are the cartographers making the program in.

If it is adobe illustrator or photoshop it is easy enough to add a layer for the room numbers and the secret door and traps lable. Actually, it would be easy to do a different layer for each one.

Now, for the person who wants to take those things out of the map. I would use photoshop and I would not worry about room numbers. Those mean nothing to the players but just take out the traps and secret doors. That would cut down significantly on the work that needs to be done.

Yes, I know how they can fix it. I was saying that I couldn't because I don't have the layered files.: :)

[Chuck Wright]

Kthulhu wrote:

Maybe you could talk to the guys over at 0one Games...they make more advanced used of layers in their maps than any other products I've ever seen. At the very least, they would be able to tell you what software you would need, exactly.

How come there are no helpful suggestions that require someone besides ME to take a master-course in yet another program?

(And in case i haven't indicated it, I'm currently a full year without a "real" job, so it's not really a matter or finding out what programs to use, I'm flat-ass poor.)

[Boerngrim]

Chuck Wright wrote:

Kthulhu wrote:

Maybe you could talk to the guys over at 0one Games...they make more advanced used of layers in their maps than any other products I've ever seen. At the very least, they would be able to tell you what software you would need, exactly.

How come there are no helpful suggestions that require someone besides ME to take a master-course in yet another program?

(And in case i haven't indicated it, I'm currently a full year without a "real" job, so it's not really a matter or finding out what programs to use, I'm flat-ass poor.)

There is something wrong with the world when a talented person like you is out of work.

[ericthecleric]

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

BV210 wrote:

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

(my juvenile players could never stop laughing when there was a big "Number 2" on the floor)

Hey we aren't juvenile, YOU'RE the one who wrote the bhut temple with the crack in it . . .

There is no bhut in Slumbering Tsar. However, the Magitect does have some junk in the trunk. No, literally, he...oh nevermind.

Thanks for the laugh, Greg! :)

[Chuck Wright]

Boerngrim wrote:

Chuck Wright wrote:

Kthulhu wrote:

Maybe you could talk to the guys over at 0one Games...they make more advanced used of layers in their maps than any other products I've ever seen. At the very least, they would be able to tell you what software you would need, exactly.

How come there are no helpful suggestions that require someone besides ME to take a master-course in yet another program?

(And in case i haven't indicated it, I'm currently a full year without a "real" job, so it's not really a matter or finding out what programs to use, I'm flat-ass poor.)

There is something wrong with the world when a talented person like you is out of work.

I moved out of Polk County, Florida, so that should help.

Thanks for the props! :D

[Greg A. Vaughan]

Boerngrim wrote:

Chuck Wright wrote:

Kthulhu wrote:

Maybe you could talk to the guys over at 0one Games...they make more advanced used of layers in their maps than any other products I've ever seen. At the very least, they would be able to tell you what software you would need, exactly.

How come there are no helpful suggestions that require someone besides ME to take a master-course in yet another program?

(And in case i haven't indicated it, I'm currently a full year without a "real" job, so it's not really a matter or finding out what programs to use, I'm flat-ass poor.)

There is something wrong with the world when a talented person like you is out of work.

I concur with this assessment, Boerngrim. It's often not the talent pool that is lacking, but rather the talent search.

However, if we can manage to sell a couple million copies of the Slumbering Tsar book, Chuck's search probably becomes a moot point. So tell all your friends to buy it...plus another couple million people*. :-)

*This is in no way meant to imply that the reader may not already have a couple million friends, but rather that we estimate on average that only about 50% of said friends will buy on such a recommendation. - Legal Dept.

[Chuck Wright]

The talent is huge, the pool is not.

[HolmesandWatson]

What? With the thriving metropolis of Plant City there on the border? Though I suppose there are only so many ways to draw a baseball-centric logo..

Good luck job hunting.

[Kthulhu]

Best of luck to you, Chuck. Hope you find something soon...something that still leaves you enough free time to work on the FGG stuff.