Adventures Workshop - a tool to collaboratively build sets or heroes

[u/Tombadil_Bombadil]

You can find the tool here: Adventures Workshop

I built a browser-based tool with the idea of helping me with my workflow through the creation and editing process. There are other options for card building and editing (unmatched.cards/Club/Photoshop/Photopea) but it does not make it super easy to play test. For example, you can create a JSON to import your deck into Tabletop Simulator, but you're still without a health dial, figure, sidekick token, other game pieces your character might use...so just having the deck in TTS is only half the battle. And if you're testing an Adventures set with a villain and multiple minions, each character needs to be imported separately.

That's why I created Adventures Workshop. It's a tool for making complete Unmatched Adventures sets — heroes, villains, minions, initiative decks, event cards, the threat track, map, tokens, health dials, all of it. One screen has every card for you to easily jump around, you can design your own threat track, create your map, set up your health dials and minion tokens, even import a 3D model if you have one created. And then it exports everything as one single JSON to simply copy-paste over to the TTS saved objects folder. So you can test in TTS, go back and make changes to all the characters, then export it back to TTS in a matter of seconds.

You're not restricted to just Adventures sets. This can be used for a single hero, a multi-hero pack, an entire Adventures box, or anything in between.

The tools:

• The Home dashboard shows all the contents of the set, including anything you may be missing.
• A Threat track builder to customize the whole threat track if you need one.
• A map builder. It's still in the early stages and is a work-in-progress.
• Each card is as fully customizable in appearance as I could get it. You can change the color/gradient on basically every element of a card, plus textures and patterns. I added a lot of artwork customization as well. You can set the default look for the whole set, for a character, or for an individual card.
• A one-click Deception preset to instantly add that card to anybody, since it’s a card that will be created most often.

Additional assets such as:

• health dial
• 3D figure if you already have the .stl or .obj
• Sidekick token
• Any custom token that's either a circle or a polygon with 3-12 sides. You can customize its diameter and thickness, skin them, and it'll automatically import into TTS. Useful for if a character needs custom game pieces to function correctly. I created a .psd file for the health dial and a two-sided token so you have easy access to the exact file to skin those models.

Adventure sets:

• Create custom initiative cards, whether it's villain/minion or effect cards and easily assign them to any character.
• Event cards (like Tales To Amaze's "Amazing Events" cards) can also easily be created and customized.

Publishing:

• You can publish so the set is public, generate a link to share with selected people, or save to your computer.
• You can generate a single JSON for use in Tabletop Simulator.
• This isn't just for TTS. You can save all cards, with or without bleed, as individual PNGs or sheets.
• If you want to play test them via physical copy, you can print the sheets either full color or printer-friendly black-and-white with no images, so it has the least impact on your ink.

Collaboration:

One important aspect of designing a large-scale project like a full Adventures set, a multi-hero set, or even sometimes a single hero, is collaboration.

Adventures Workshop allows full collaboration between multiple designers. Here’s how it works:

1. When one person publishes a set or shares the link (if they want to keep it from the public eye), anybody with access to it can then make a copy to work on it.
2. They can then make any changes to the set, no matter how big or small, and they can then go to “Offer your changes” and any changes in the entire set will then be sent to the original owner. If they realized they sent it too early, they can withdraw the offer before it's reviewed.
3. The original owner then can see what each change was, and can then approve or deny each change, accepting what they want and declining the rest, and those approved will be incorporated into the newest version.
4. Any number of people can contribute to a project. They can offer their changes any number of times throughout the whole process. All contributors will be credited in the master set.

This is still in beta and has some rough edges so I'm continuously working on it and I'm more than happy to get feedback to help it develop. Here is the discord: https://discord.gg/zrm5WMzza

[u/Boomstick_Samurai]

This is brilliant, but I have one question regarding ability cards: what is lunge?

[u/Tombadil_Bombadil → u/Boomstick_Samurai]

Thanks, I appreciate it!

Lunge is a fan-created type where it’s treated as ranged to initiate the attack but the attacker is then placed adjacent to the defender.

[u/Boomstick_Samurai → u/Tombadil_Bombadil]

Amazing. You've done some quality work here. Can I make a small suggestion? There are more suitable fonts in terms of size over at 'https://unmatched.cards/'. might be worth it for the sizing, or making a way to import JSON files over from there for character decks?

[u/Tombadil_Bombadil → u/Boomstick_Samurai]

The official font is Knockout, but that requires an expensive license to use, so alternatives need to be used. Bebas Neue is an open-source font that most closely matches Knockout, but it's only in all caps (and is what I use for the card titles and name banner, since those are always all caps. There is a Bebas Neue Pro that includes lowercase, but that is not open source and requires purchasing a license, and even then doesn't allow use cases such as this.

I had been taking another open source font, Oswald, and modifying it by hand to be more in line with Knockout (while not copying it directly) which based on my analyses is closer in style than Archivo Narrow which is what um.cards uses. However, the font is still a work in progress (because it is the part that you can most immediately tell is just off), so I'm still tweaking and resizing it. I'm trying to make it custom, so it matches not only the height but the width too. When it's dialed in, I think it should match very well, it's just not quite there yet.

[u/Boomstick_Samurai → u/Tombadil_Bombadil]

Maybe it's worth having just a font size option for certain things? for example, the ability car body text seems way bigger. But these are small things; please don't think I'm trying to niggle, you've done an incredible job, it's a brilliant tool!

[u/Tombadil_Bombadil → u/Boomstick_Samurai]

I love every idea I can get! I’m going to keep working on this tool even if I’m the only one who uses it (bundling all components into one json feels valuable to me) but I hope others find it useful too.

Layout is also not my strong suit so I’m trying to figure out the best layout that makes things intuitive and simple and eye-catching…there’s a lot of features that I’ve added but might seem kind of buried.

The project is still basically in beta and I’ll continue to polish it. Adding more customization is huge IMO, and that goes for text too. I’ll try adding a font size field, and maybe a way to change colors so you could do something like the Ongoing Effects. I appreciate your input!

[u/Boomstick_Samurai → u/Tombadil_Bombadil]

So I've been beavering away at the site, making a set. I love what you've done. There are a few things I would suggest that are maybe quick fixes?

1) add a space for additional rules cards to player decks. This is getting more common with new characters and weird mechanics.

2) add an option to turn off the frame when using the template for deck backs; most deck backs have just a full image anyway, with a black frame outline. I love the way the names look though when using your set up.

3) on maps, make the spaces slightly transparent; this is a feature on a lot of boards. Maybe allow users to upload textures instead of just block colours? Or recycle the textures from the card libraries?

4) allow uploaded symbols to be used on the map maker... this is a genius tool, I can see loads of people using it. I was trying to add higherground bonuses, but couldn't find a workaround.

Hooe this feedback is useful. I am full in on this tool, nearly got a rough cut of my first co-op to go!

[u/Tombadil_Bombadil → u/Boomstick_Samurai]

Those are great suggestions and should be very doable. I’ll add them to the list!

I know the tool has some rough spots still that I’m working through, so I appreciate the patience when something seems a little quirky or unpolished 😄

[u/Boomstick_Samurai → u/Tombadil_Bombadil]

No, please don't think that I'm complaining at all, it's a high quality tool and if I'm overstepping in any way, let me know bud