Aargh!
Matt Jackson has VERY pretty geomorphs here. I love ‘em! I printed them, cut them out, and arranged them on the table as I was working with my geomorph stocker, ending up with a very satisfactory 12 geomorph exploration environment, story, monsters, treasure, etc. in a matter of half an hour. So far so good.
Then it came time to put that into a format, so I could run a game or share the scenario, as I did here with the Dungeonmorph set. And that’s where I hit a wall.
Trying to insert individual pictures into Word in a table form? Disaster. Trying to build a table-like background in Photoshop and populate it with consistently sized and amply rotated geomorphs? I lack the skill, and my graphic designing wife gave me THAT LOOK when I told her what I was trying to do.
You know. The look you give people when they grip a skunk by the tip of its tail to shave that annoying white stripe off. The look that says I should know better than to try to salve the badger’s rash so it will be a happy badger. The look you give stupid people. Or, more charitably, smart people doing stupid things.
This is why Dave’s Mapper is so cool; it does the heavy lifting of putting geomorphs together for you. When I try to do it, I end up spending time better used for design work in slamming my head repeatedly against the limits of my designing skills and tools, ending up having drained my free time into the depthless morass of failure and non-productivity.
So rather than unveiling my cool stocked Matt Jackson Geomorph scenario on Maptacular Monday, instead I’m whining on a Setback Sunday entry.
Geomorphs have been out there longer than computers, and lots of people have participated in making them in the last couple years. Presumably, the people that lovingly craft the geomorphs actually use them. Advise me! How do YOU take geomorphs then record their configuration in a useful way so you can run an adventure based on what you dealt out on the table and arranged one rainy afternoon?
