I've continued to refine my oversized villain cards, making them even easier to scan during a game so you don't have to fully re-read each line on the card each round just to know what to do. These changes are only possible because of the additional space available on the oversized cards -- there's no way changes like these could be done if I had to cram everything onto a normal-sized card.
Here's how they're looking now:
1) I still have an encounter title and short description of what the villain is up to. I like the way it brings the story of the encounter to life and gives me the option of making alternate versions of villains with different encounter titles.
2) I use "SV" and "EV" icons to make it easy to see what happens at the start and end of the villain turn.
3) I've given each ability or item on the card a name in bold. So as you scan down the card you'll see, for example, "Shielded: Reduce damage done to Grand Warlord Voss by 2 for each minion in play". The first couple of times you play, you'll likely read the whole thing, but after that, seeing "Shielded" is enough to remember what the ability is and know if you need to do anything about it this round. It really reduces the amount of re-reading you need to do each round.
4) I've moved all the "setup" info to the bottom of the card. This is stuff like "the villain starts with this side of the card up, with X hp" and "find 4 minions and put them into play". Since you only need to read this info once, it really helps to get it out of the reading flow for the stuff you need to check each round.
5) I've moved the Advanced rules off the card completely and made it its own normal-sized card. If you're not fighting the Advanced version of the villain, then that text is just unnecessarily taking up space. So now, if I want to fight the Advanced version of a villain, I pull out their Advanced card and lay it on the table next to the oversized card. If I'm not fighting the Advanced villain, then I don't have to read the Advanced text at all.
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
Nice work! The titled abilities and separation of set-up text from gameplay ability text are really nice touches.
That is a grat idea! I think I might implement it as well :D
Maybe it's just me, but I forget to use the advanced rules about half the time, so I'm always applying them retroactively. The seperate card should serve as a good reminder that we are playing on advanced.
Where do you get the artwork?
Ok, I decided to go with a heavily modified version. It works with the way we play a little better. I designed placement mats to help keep things organized. I'll post up some pictures later. I also added a "FV" box which calls out what makes the villain flip. And I collored each box differently.
Thanks for the idea though! This is going to help big time.
Can't wait to see them.
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
... Not sure if this will work. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/aq3ikbrz20e7gi5/3-1m4ke3ih
Under what circumstances do you tilt a minion sideways like you did with the Murder of Crows in your pic? Or is that just a way to save space on the mat?
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
I got the impression it was just for multiples/repeats. That way you could see you had more than one of the card, but not take up too much space.
"See, this is another sign of your tragic space dementia, all paranoid and crotchety. Breaks the heart." - Mal
Unicode U+24BD gets us Ⓗ. (Thanks, Godai!)
Exactly.
I wish the mats were a bit prettier, but alas, I do not have the art skills.