| NOTE, read first: this post is going to get very unwieldy if I keep adding file links and cover images to it, and also a lot harder to find as I continue to post here and it gets buried. Therefore, I’m adding this content to a PAGE called Digital Rules. See the tab up at top there? Go there for Epub wargame rules. Got it? Otherwise, there’s the direct link. Thanks! |
First of all, I must tender apologies for not posting in a while. I haven’t had the mojo and have been more concerned about my workaday world job than my hobby. So it goes.
Secondly, I’ve been playing with SIGIL lately, the Epub editor that Google recently acquired and are distributing on one of their Google Code pages. I’m finally satisfied that I’ve found a decent editor that can clean up sloppy Epub conversions. Sigil does an excellent job and has tons of features.
Looking around the various resources on the internet, there have been plenty of free, good rule sets available over the years. Mostly these get distributed as PDFs, webpages (HTML) and sometimes text files. EPUB and MOBI formats are becoming the gradual standard in digital publishing for mobile platforms, and is even showing up as a format for distributing rule sets, as I reported in March of last year. I think this is a great trend– I’ve been running games using only an Ipad lately– which works if the game isn’t TOO complicated.
That had me thinking.. there’s a ton of older, established easy rule sets that have been hanging out in various corners of the web here and there for decades, almost. As a learning experience, I’ve downloaded a few and converted them in various ways– text to epub, html to epub, pdf to epub, etc. Then I’ve gone back in in Sigil to tidy up the resulting mess. It’s time consuming (especially for games with lots of tables), but anyone with a little XHTML experience can do it. So I’m going to start making a few of these projects available as I create them, figuring that somebody somewhere with a table or other device might find them useful for gaming.
The first two are A HOTTER FIRE, a simple ACW Ironclad game by Alan Saunders and available on the Staines Wargame Group website. The other is RENCOUTER, a simple skirmish game by Ed Allen that’s been on Web-Grognards.com for almost fifteen years. The last is THE FOUR EYED DOG IS DEAD, another great Staines wargame club game, this time on the Taiping Rebellion. I didn’t request permissions to do this, but I figure my efforts to be just another version of an established web presence for these files, and in keeping with the designer’s desires to distribute his work freely. So I hope the authors don’t get to waspish about it. If you are the creator of anything I post and have the slightest issue with an epub conversion, contact me and I’ll take it off the website immediately. On the gripping hand, if you want me to convert something of yours, contact me and I’ll see if it is a good candidate.
If you want to get a copy, click on the cover pictures to access the raw epub files.
Note: Four Eyed Dog has a Quick Reference Sheet HERE as a separate file and a set of Order Counters on the source page. Since these are “print once and done” files designed to be printed out, I didn’t jam them into an Epub, where they would be somewhat useless.
2/7/2014 Update:
I may end up moving these to a page on this blog, rather than just this post. In any event, here’s MUNERA SINE MISSIONE, one of my favorite simple gladiator sets by Mr. Alan Saunders of Stronghold & Staines Wargame Group fame. I like his work.
09 Feb Update:
I’ve moved the content to the DIGITAL RULES page. See the tab above.
Enjoy! Let me know how these work out for you. I plan on converting more. I’m likely to create epub files for my own THE MAGI and BIG DANGED BOATS.
Possible future projects will be VIKING LOOTERS, my new man to man Nappy game, and maybe some decent civil war land battle rules. Suggestions welcomed– the criteria being they shouldn’t be too complex, have too many tables and pages and are light on the illustrations.
Have fun and enjoy the game.
DISCLAIMER. I did the best I could with what I had, but some of the times, a table will carry over to the next page or the pagination isn’t 100% clean. I’m not responsible for the consequences of loading epubs on your tablet. Use at your own risk.
Third Point of Singularity 
A great idea – thank you for selecting one of my sets for the experiment.
I think it’s about 12 years since I last even played ‘A Hotter Fire’ 🙂
Thank you, good sir, for your approval. I have big plans to convert my absolute favorite rule set of yours, MUNERA. It’s a low-end PDF as is, but I found I was desiring a quick searchable table of contents when I was running fantasy gladiator games from the tablet I was using at Game Camp last Summer. No paper (other than index cards) and the kids loved it!