Re: [DL] handout's

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Monday, November 25, 2002, at 10:25  AM, Jay Anstiss wrote:

> Brett - do you have any online examples of your handouts? If yes, 
> please let
> me know!

So everyone knows, I sent Jay a trimmed version of my handouts 
off-list, but we're going to keep discussing ideas here... no one will 
complain about some on-topic posts, but a 200+ k attachment is BAD. 
Tell me if you want it, though.

Anyway, here's some tricks from a former employee in the printing 
industry:

* Mess with margins. While behavior was more formal at times, many 
things were much less formal. Even if you don't have the time & effort 
to trim papers to be odd sizes and/or print on unusual stock, you can 
make documents look very different by varying margins... A 1" margin 
here, 1.25 for the next document, and maybe somethng excessive to give 
that newspaper clipping the proper column look.

* play with fonts. Yes, most all documents of the day would be either 
done on a press (allowing for a lot of nice serif fonts (Times, etc.) 
or Typewritten (Early typewritters atarted to appear in the 1860s, I 
believe, and I think I remember reading that the first mechanical 
typewriter with both upper and lower case letters  was released in the 
late 1870s.)
But there's dozens of free-ware typewriter fonts. They may basically 
look the same, but the different weights, levels of fake 'wear' and 
other differences will provide a sense of several different typewriters 
being used. I have a pile of handwritten fonts on my system as well, 
and can 'fake' a range of different scrips, especially if I don't mind 
a few people looking a bit too precise.

* Don't fix all the mistakes. For a lot of stuff, the time wasted 
fixing a mistake just wouldn't be worth it, so most documents will have 
a few.

*Avoid Computer-isms: We're all used to seeing a lot of things that 
just wouldn't have been done in the 1870s. For example, receipts will 
likely be bills-of sale and there's no chance of it being a neat 
spreadsheet, but will instead be a larger form with extra blank spaces 
for additional line items to be added, etc.

* Consider how the document is used: If you're doing official papers 
that would be archived at a courthouse or similar, note that they may 
be concerned with the officialness of the documents. Less casual 
documents are likely to have scribbled notes in corners, etc.

*It's a big world: The Posse is the star of the story, but there's 
always other people going about their daily lives. For example, my last 
set of handouts had a lot of notes to try and make it sound like the 
creators of the documents were going about their daily lives. Also, 
while it doesn't show in my PDF attachment, I had several phrases in my 
handouts censored. After all, information to the MiBD is on a need to 
know basis...

* Have Fun. For any one who gets my attachment, I had a fun time 
working on the summary of Randolph's legal complications. For someone 
in his 70's, he's had an interesting life.

> p.s. Does anyone remember a fellow marhsal called Dez Lambert? His 
> site -
> Marshal Lambert's Deadlands Website - was pretty great a few years 
> back. He
> and I were working on translating the Jonah Hex character into a DL
> adventure. I've been trying to contact him for a long time - if anyone 
> knows
> of him please let me know!

Out of curiosity, where is Jonah hex from? My only real experience with 
said character is the 'Gaming in Hell' story on the PEG website...