In minor site update news:
First, there’s the first new post in a long time: GURPS/DFRPG resource: New disadvantages. This is the latest entry in the site’s growing lineup of “places to dump new traits and new weapons and stuff”. (A bunch of entrants in this erstwhile series can be found here.)
Okay, but what’s with the mention of “tables” and “file downloads”? Well, GURPS resource: ST Monster Table gets a new v2 Table that goes even further (ST 100!) and now offers cost of ST, both classic cost and the alternate cost from Rules Bit (GURPS): A better cost for ST and HP. If you’re a fan of that latter cost progression, you’ll appreciate that ST Monster Table v2 gives you an instant cost for any ST score from 1 to 100.
Elsewhere, several articles featuring tables now include not only links to PDF or other image file downloads of the tables but also links to online spreadsheet versions of the tables. These currently include GURPS resource: ST Monster Table, Rules Bit (GURPS): A better cost for ST and HP, STROLL: ST rolls that work in GURPS/DFRPG, and Game design musing: New Damage for ST (GURPS). Hit the link at the bottom of such a page and you’ll be whisked to an iCloud-hosted spreadsheet page revealing tables in all their original, colorful glory.
No, you can’t edit those spreadsheets online, because if Internet strangers could do that, well, I imagine the sheets would quickly get their gaming content replaced with Very Weird and/or Very Bad Things. But you can easily download the sheets, in several formats, to modify or otherwise play with on your own.
A short tangent on a useful digital tool
Dork talk! Because people have asked:
The creator app for all my spreadsheets and tables is Numbers. If you’re a user of this free app for Mac and iOS, enjoy this site’s .numbers-format downloads. If you’re not a user of the app, you can still edit the files online by creating a free iCloud account in any browser, uploading the downloaded files to your account, and playing with the files all you like in the iCloud’s browser-based Numbers app. It’s essentially the same deal as playing with spreadsheet files in a Google Drive account on a browser.
So why not do what a lot of content-posting gamers do, and create and host files online with the widely-used Google Sheets or even Excel? Well, I understand that one or both of those apps may impress when it’s time to do some pivot-table transformation and regression involving the application of obscure financial engineering formulas to your actuarial statistics tables. With the polarity reversed, too. But for simple “Imma make some gaming sheets and charts” purposes, Numbers offers a game-changing difference.
From the ground up, the app is a different beast. A sheet in Numbers is not a wall-to-wall grid of columns and rows, every row’s set height running across the entire sheet and every column’s set width extending down it. Instead, a sheet in the app is a blank canvas on which you can drop anything – including spreadsheet tables. Multiple spreadsheet tables. Each table as big or small as you like, each with layout and styling all its own. All placed to create whatever form or chart you’re looking to make, with none of the other apps’ awful business of “make rows and columns super skinny to create a grid of tiny, tiny cells, then merge cells until you get your layout”.
The difference isn’t too stark in the tables I’ve shared so far; they’re simple things, and wouldn’t be particularly hard to make in Google Sheets or Excel. But when it comes to making, say, a bespoke character sheet, packed with individually styled sections hosting fields of every size… or, when stuffing a single sheet with a whole mess of uniquely styled tables and charts, arranged however you like, just to view them all in one place… the difference in ease is huge. When it comes to making this sort of gaming stuff, there’s just no contest.
Sorry for the nerdy digression. But sometimes people ask why I use a lesser-known spreadsheet tool for stuff, and that’s my explanation. Anyway, the important thing is that, if you view this site’s iCloud-hosted Numbers files online, you can download them in native format or in PDF, CSV, and Excel formats. The latter might be most useful for a lot of people, though I can’t guarantee what the downloads will look like. You may get something less pretty – but it should be something you can easily edit and put to use.
You?
Any problems with downloading or using the files discussed above? Suggestions for doing things better? Any thoughts concerning my goofy digression on spreadsheet tools for making gaming stuff? Kindly leave a comment, if it please you!
Header image: Once again, I ask AI (ChatGPT) create an old-timey town crier image, this time in medieval woodcut style. Gotta say, it delivered what I had in mind…
