The troubling trend of two pages for one scenario…

RobZagnut

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Anyone else becoming irritated with the trend of scenarios taking up two pages instead of one? Last night I was looking thru the Forgotten War scenarios and LFT 14 – The Italians. There were numerous FW scenarios on two pages and NINE of the LFT scenarios took up two pages, mostly for the SSRs and Aftermath. So, I was having to page back-and-forth through my notebook to read the scenarios, which was getting annoying. Obviously, some scenarios with large OBs for both sides require two cards, but most of the extra space was just text.

What to do?

This can be solved by removing the picture that’s seemingly required on every scenario card. Do we really need a picture on every scenario card? Would you prefer your scenario pictureless on one card or would you rather have the picture and it split onto two cards?

Can anything else be removed to free up more space? Maybe the turn track. Turn tracks are on most of the historical maps. Maybe print out or use a basic one (laminated), so that frees up space and only requires a single line of text. Something like; 7.5 turns. U.S. sets up first. German moves first.

Any other ideas?
 

jrv

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Scan them, reduce and print two pages on one. There's plenty of software that will do that for you. If you get ambitious you can print four sides on a page.

JR
 

Evan Sherry

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Here's the Schwerpunkt answer. As editor, I tell my designers that if they cannot get a scenario on one page, neither can I. The bottom line is that I will not design nor will I print a scenario that will not fit into one page.
For me as a player, the multi-page scenario is the kiss of death. I usually will not even read them, let alone play them. Perhaps I'm missing out on some great scenario but I do not care.
When I see those multi-page scenarios, I always wonder why the editor did not do his job.
 

Justiciar

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You can photocopy the other page, or scan it and print it off....

You will find other TPP also have two page cards as well...

MMP outside FW does as well AP56, 77, 87, 102, 103, 104, 119, 129 (brief selection dive...)

I don't have a problem with it...why jam a design to conform to 1 page? A designer has a nice new challenge for us ASLers and he is not allowed to do it b/c it does not fit on one side of what is an arbitrary sized piece of paper...US Letter or A4....?

Next, you will limit design to no bocage (oh wait you have already outlawed that)...other TPP producers have what is effectively a no overlay rule...no night....yup, soon we will just design and play vanilla. What next..no more than 3 SSRs each of no more than 3 lines...

Maybe SK is your safe place?

No thanks...I need a 2 page scenario to help balance out a rule book that runs to over 100 pages...with an ancillary technical Chilton's manual that does likewise.

Nothing to fret about here folks move along...
 

Mister T

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I agree that having a few lines on an otherwise blank sheet is slightly annoying.

I would not remove the pic though.

A solution, i think implemented by BFP, is to duplicate all infos (VC, SSR, historical blurb, the pic), only the OB changes so that it relates only to one side.

That way each player has all he needs to setup.
 

boylermaker

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I'm fine with 2-page scenarios, although what is taking up the two pages matters--if it's OBs, then bring it on. If it's one really big SSR (a la that scenario about Germans on motorcycles trying to catch the Danish royal family), then I'm intrigued. If its 10 SSRs, then I'm looking at the scenario askance.
 

zgrose

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If you're looking for ways to condense the scenario card, the current setup group layout (big sentence and then some counters) is a real space killer.

But I think I'm with Evan. I hate laying out scenarios with 4+ setup groups on a side or every variant of multiple AFVs in a setup group.
 

Justiciar

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My gawd, no wonder this forum is slowly dying. Old farts like you who discourage discussion, because they don’t like the topic.

I recommend that if you don’t like the topic, ignore it and move your puckered ass along somewhere else.
While I am old...I am not discouraging discussion I merely pointing out where another old guy (though much fitter than I am...wish you safe climb of Kilimanjaro) gets an "irritated" stomach for a scenario that runs over two cards. You asked an open ended question "anyone else irritated"...I merely said no...I can handle that form of card.

I see what you think is "discussion" what you really mean is a following... followers just follow...they don't question...discussion is for those with a mix of views...on any given topic. To include suggesting you need to be less of an old fart. If you can handle thin air you can handle a scenario on 2 cards.
 

Sparafucil3

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What to do?
...
Any other ideas?
Five point font. I need glasses already. We could go to microfiche but the viewer is a bit bulky. :) The whole pack could be delivered on a single page! -- jim
 

Sparafucil3

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A4 paper has larger area than letter. Perhaps we should switch to A4 paper.

JR
With microfiche and A4, I think I can get all 5000+ scenarios on 3 or 4 pages. Problem solved. -- jim
 

zgrose

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Condense the setup groups into named/numbered blocks and put the "Elements of... " down by the SSR. Will save you lots of room and can be used only when "needed"
 

jrv

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The text could be zipped then uuencoded. Text generally compresses very well. Uuencoding would be necessary to avoid unprintable characters, but it would not increase the resulting size as much as would be decreased by the compression. Of course the players would have to uudecode and unzip the scenario as they read it, but I think that is a small price to pay to get everything on a single page.

JR
 

Pitman

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I don't care for two-page scenarios, especially multiple two-page scenarios in the same product. It gets really irritating when you pull out a scenario card you had brought because you were interested in playing it, only to discover that it was a two pager and you only brought the first page. And when there are multiple two pagers in a product it gets more difficult to keep track of what's what and how many scenario cards there are total, etc.
 

Ric of The LBC

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The text could be zipped then uuencoded. Text generally compresses very well. Uuencoding would be necessary to avoid unprintable characters, but it would not increase the resulting size as much as would be decreased by the compression. Of course the players would have to uudecode and decrypt the scenario to play it, but I think that is a small price to pay to get everything on a single page.

JR
a lady at the county fair could do it on a piece of rice
 
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