How to Create Custom Cards for Your Game Prototype

I create quite a few prototypes of card games and board games of my own design. I am often making custom cards for these prototypes. Here is a simple rundown of how you can create custom cards for your own game prototypes, easily and economically.

[GM Resources] [D&D 4e] A Medieval Tournament

Knights jousting, c.1445-c.1450. The British Library, Public Domain

In the last session of my current roleplaying campaign of D&D 4th Edition, one of the heroes participated in a medieval-style tournament. The competition took place over six rounds, with competitors being eliminated in each round until there were only two left to face off in a climatic final confrontation.

[D&D:ATFF] Character Backgrounds

The last bit of prep I needed to do before my gaming group gets together to make characters for our new campaign was come up with some choices for character backgrounds. Not every published background would suit my campaign, and I had a few ideas for some backgrounds of my own that would help flesh out some parts of the setting. Below are the backgrounds I created or selected for this campaign.

[D&D:ATFF] Playable Classes in My Campaign

Another limit I am putting on player characters in my new RPG campaign is which classes they can play as. The purpose of this is to reinforce my ideas for the setting. Below is a list of playable classes. Each one is listed with its source/version and its combat role, along with a brief note on some of them.

A few of the classes are marked for "multi-class only". These are classes with more magical abilities. I don't mind if player's heroes have a touch of magic about them, but I want to keep this a low-fantasy setting to begin with. So if a player wants to make use of one of those classes, they'll have to choose one of the other classes as a base and then multi-class into one of the "multi-class only" classes by way of the appropriate feats.

Also of note, character options from the "Player's Option" and "Power" series of supplements are fine if they apply to classes on the list below.

[D&D:ATFF] Playable Races in My Campaign

I’ve decided that I want all player characters to be humans in this campaign, to reflect the idea of a world based on medieval Europe. However, for the sake of diversity, I’m allowing players to create characters using a few different D&D races. In this case, these different racial stats and abilities will just be representing different tribes or cultures of humans. Below are the D&D races I’m allowing, and a quick explanation of who they represent in the setting.