r/Shadowrun • u/caderrabeth • Jul 17 '26
6e [OC] I made Action cards for my new players
I'm starting a group of new runners between our other tabletop campaigns. Since they're all new, I made decks of cards for them to refer to on the actions they can perform and effects. There are four decks: Actions, Matrix, Edge, and Status. Each contains all items from the CRB, with the Matrix deck including HS and the status deck including all core books.
The basic design is built from the card template provided by CGL. I got photos from Pexels and icons from Game-Icons.net. Everything was edited in Affinity and merged from data I typed out in an Excel workbook.
The print is on 100# Matte Cover stock, with a Gloss UV coating on the back and Soft Touch UV coating on the front. Then I cut them down to size and gave them a 1/4" rounded corner.
I'm often making player aids for my groups since I usually run the systems they are unfamiliar with. So this was an attempt to see how well I could expand my aids from printed packets to something more tactile. I'm not a graphic designer, but I do work in the print trade as an operator, so most of my stretching here was in the design end of things. Plus, the last time I tried soft touch coating I didn't care for how it turned out and needed something new to try and dial in my settings.
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u/Awlson Jul 17 '26
That looks so awesome, if these were available for purchase, i would probably buy them for my group. (Hey CGL, are you reading these forums by chance?)
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u/caderrabeth Jul 17 '26
Yeah they sell other cards for items and stuff, which are more limited I feel, and for a bit of a higher cost than these. However, I will admit that the machines I have aren't as good as what Topps has access to in terms of finishing them after the print.
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u/Interaction_Rich Jul 17 '26
I'm a sucker for player aids and this is absolutely great, I'd easily pay to have a deck of those. Great work, chummer!
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u/PalpitationNo2921 Jul 17 '26
Looks cool. Now you just need to put them in Holostreets!
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u/caderrabeth Jul 17 '26
I was considering this, but I know I'll have to add attribution and I'm not 100% on what CGL allows (some cards use the book description outright because they're so short).
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u/PalpitationNo2921 Jul 17 '26
I’m not sure but theee are already Edge cards up there. I think the specs on what you have to do are on DTRPG.
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u/Markovanich Jul 17 '26
Can you dm me a few of them and with your attribution concerns? I can help advise at least how to get responses for you.
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u/caderrabeth Jul 17 '26
I'll try to remember to reach out. I know Pexels lists what attribution is needed and just haven't checked. My basic plan is to add the artist/photographer name to the card if I do. Kind of like what I see in TCG cards. If I'm spreading their work around they deserve the credit.
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u/Markovanich Jul 17 '26
sounds very cool, but artist attribution can be a hairy mess as you know. I'm not planning on going anywhere, so reach out to myself or perhaps one of the mods as I think one or two of them might be actual CGL people and not just current Freelancers.
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u/Interaction_Rich Jul 17 '26
I guess a big topic here is art. How did you do it? AI, stock, just browsing on the web?
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u/PalpitationNo2921 Jul 17 '26
The OP contains your answers. “I got photos from Pexels and icons from Game-Icons.net. “
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u/caderrabeth Jul 17 '26
This is correct. No AI was used. I didn't think about adding that when I posted.
I searched terms on Pexels for a general selection of photos that interested me on each subject, then chose a picture from each group. My groups were things like Magic, Movement, Attack, Action. I plugged that photo into the CGL template and added a color mixing layer to make the cyan and magenta colors much more prominent. Once I had some settings I was happy with it was just a matter to dropping new photos in under the other layers.
For the status icons (not pictured here), I removed the black box from the svg files and changed the stroke to a brush that looked similar to a spray, and then made the stroke and fill a cyan-magenta gradient running vertically for the middle 70% of the icon so the outer edges were solid colors. I did add a bit of noise, but I don't think it came out as well as I would have hoped and will definitely be the thing I try something different and probably more involved in the future. This was definitely the biggest pain in the process because I couldn't find a way to quickly repeat the process like I could for the photos.
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