"Font size on playsheets" Topic

Just personal observations.

I was browsing through some old rules.
My! those play sheet type sizes are so small! 9 point?
Specifically I was looking at WRG renaissance and Napoleonic playsheets

I believe that all rule sets should have an included or free to download playsheet.

The best rule set publishers give free downloads of playsheets so that a group of players can ALL have a sight of the game mechanisms.

The unhelpful publishers expect players to make their own or hava a group which builds one. Terrible.

My problem with tiny type play sheet might be due to my old eyesight and age?

Multiple play sheets can also be a nuisance.

What are your thoughts on play sheets, size, number, availability?

martin

I'm with you a 2-sided A4 play-sheet is best with the font size easily readily so you can glance at it on the table without having to pick it up. The sheet should be organised in line with the turn sequence and ideally would be laminated card – copies are easy enough to make so one per rule set is not a biggie, but supporting pdf is nice.

Provided playsheets are fine, but I prefer to make my own as it helps me understand the rules.

When I was younger I could read those old WRG ones fine, but a bigger font now please!

Yep, bigger IS better these days.

I'm with you Martin.

Honestly, a lot of the QRS provided by publishers are complete shite. I think there's an obsession with "no more than i page double sided." I see loads of comments about "if it's bigger than that I won't play." Okay, enjoy your 6point times new roman then.

I usually end up with two sheets, four pages total. Sheet 1 is mechanics, laid out in turn order. Sheet 2 is usually for less used rules (end of turn, army morale) and definitions of special rules. What is a berserker? Or a Rending attack? Or a "slow" tank? These are all together in alphabetical order.

In all modesty I'm really good at these and put most of mine up on Wargame Vault for free as they can prove to be quite popular.

Incidentally, I think in part this is a cultural thing, harkening back to the 80s and 90s when printing costs were very, very high, before desktop publishing and the web came along, so smaller typeface meant fewer pages and lower costs.

I used to be able to read all that small type. I was very nearsighted. Then I got cataract surgery. Now I can not read anything small.

So now bigger is better.

Remember that in the 70'to the 90's almost everyone used a typewriter, font size was set, you got what you got.

I get particularly peeved at play aids that have tiny fonts and a lot of empty space and/or fluff illustrations that could have been better spent on a larger font, grrr!

I blame a lot of this on young'uns doing layout on their computer screen where everything looks nice and crisp and legible.

I use 12 point. In a few places I use 10.

Wolfhag

Oh, why stop with free extras, Martin? Insist the whole rule book be free: it doesn't cost you anything.

More seriously, I shoot for two pages--that is, one sheet--of QRS at an 11 pt font. But really, I don't like a convention game or anything not played regularly to exceed four pages. Different if there's heavy GM involvement. Different if we play the same game every Saturday all year. But total strangers? Either get the rules down to four pages or the GRS down to two.

QILS is one page front and back. No sure what I would condense. ;)

For other games, I'm with Martin Rapier. I like to make my own sheet. I can organize it the way that makes sense to me. It's nice to review the rules before you play too … making your own sheet helps that. And if I am not fielding paratroopers, I can skip the paratrooper insertion bit.

Scenarios are really where I think this should focus. Every player … or at least team … should have a kneeboard/PACE card/aide-mémoire, etc.

Mixture of 14 font for headings, 12 font for text, mainly to keep things to as few pages as possible

I regularly create my own QRS even if one is provided as it forces me to read the rules and clearly understand them.

I always aim for 2 sides of A4 and so have settled on 8 Tahoma as my preferred font, with bold for headings and to pick out key terms in the rules.

I see the QRS as having two purposes. One is to enable players unfamiliar with the rules to take an effective part in the game without constant reference to an expert player (slowing down the game for both) or the rulebook (which will generally be in limited supply and so also stop play). The other is minimising disputes – players need to have access to the same information so that when they turn to the rulebook or an expert player the grounds for any dispute is clear.

I'm with Frederick on font sizes.

Too small (7*9) is a pet rage of mine. Usually they do that for the sacrosanct stupidity of wanting only two pages of QRS. On top then they omit a bunch of things. Better to have 4 pages (and most historical players are getting old-need big letters) even repeat something overleaf all being put in order of use for the game sequence.

I generally find that playsheets are limitedly useful. They contain the basics, the usual stuff you quickly pick up, and not the unusual interactions and other oddities you actually need to look up.

There are two partial exceptions: participation games you come to without knowing the rules, where a good playsheet is much preferable to having to ask the umpire for the third time what the penalty for moving across boggy ground is, and games with plenty of tables. I'm not very fond of games with plenty of tables, though …

Our finance team used to print out spreadsheets using 6 point font. I said if they didn't use sensible sizes that old people could read that I would bring a graduate trainee with perfect eyesight to meetings to read the paperwork for me. Thay thought I was joking…..

Finance teams are normally staffed by some variety of humanoid reptile that can't understand human emotions and physical limitations. Or urgency.