Shadowrun TCG MSE Template - First Beta Version

Fan-Made Card. Illustration by Larry Elmore.

Hoi Chummers,

so I'm finally finished with a first version of a Magic Set Editor Template for the Shadowrun: Trading Card Game, originally published by FASA in 1997/8. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and start making your own cards! I will not upload more than this one exemplary card, seeing that I'm afraid of lawyer-hell. Speaking of which:

Disclaimer:

Shadowrun is a registered trademark of The Topps Company, Inc (© 2001-2012). All Rights Reserved. Used without permission. Any use of The Topps Company's copyrighted material or trademarks on this blog should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. Card images produced with the program Magic Set Editor are created strictly for entertainment purposes and are in no way being used as a way of monetary gain.

Install Instructions:

• Download and install the Magic Set Editor (MSE) 2.0.0
• Download and install Wordman’s Shadowrun Font. Unpack the “Shadowrun-12.zip” and install the four TTF files, starting with “SHADRG__.TTF” (right click them and select install). You don’t need the other files.
• Download and install my Shadowrun Template (updated Version 2012-07-29 available). If you’re having trouble with the installer, read this forum post.
• Run MSE, select “New set” and then select the Shadowrun template with the default style sheet. On most displays, the card will be displayed too large. To fix this, open the edit menu, select preferences, go to the display tab and change the zoom to either 75% or 50% of normal size. You need to restart MSE after.

Notes on Using the Template:

• Card Type: You can change the card type (e.g. from Challenge to Contact) by clicking on the colored frame of the card. If you want to create a card with a different orientation (e.g. a Location or an Objective card), you have to change to the style tab, select the landscape style sheet and then return to the cards tab.
• Sleaze Requirements: To insert the skill icons, use the first three capital letters of the respective skill (e.g. STR for Streetwise). “Or” is automatically replaced by an “or symbol”, while you can simply use the number keys for the skill exponents. Alternatively, you can also make use of the format menu and then use insert symbol. Note that it looks best to use one or two spaces between the skill icons.
• Auto Replacement: For convenience, (C) is automatically replaced with the copyright symbol, TM with the trademark symbol, (Y) with the Nuyen symbol, (O) with a dot symbol, and --- with a dash in all text fields.
• Rarity: Shadowrun TCG cards don’t make use of rarity icons. This is why the rarity field to the lower left, right next to the copyright line, only uses invisible black symbols. Note that changing the rarity WILL show in the statistics tab and in the card list.
• Set info: In the set info tab, you can change the rarity symbols, give your set a title and a description, as well as enter the default copyright line. The text you enter here will display as the default copyright on all newly created cards.
• Rules / Flavor Text: The text boxes for the rules and the flavor text are combined, use up and down arrows to switch (sometimes one of them may be invisible). Font size will adjust automatically to the amount of text.
• Image: MSE’s built in image function is wonderful! If you chose custom size and uncheck the fix aspect ratio box, you can resize any image you want to use on the card. No need for manual resizing in advance.

Known Issues:

• Text Masking: In order to prevent the text from overlapping with the Nuyen symbol, the Sleaze Requirements and the Threat Rating, most cards use text masking. Sometimes this doesn’t work properly! Simply use soft line breaks (shift+enter) to manually format the text appropriately. This is an issue with MSE and something I cannot fix.
• Style Sheet Change: When changing style sheets from portrait to landscape, the default card type doesn’t  automatically adjust. So you get the challenge frame drawn on an objective card, or vice versa. Simply change the card type manually by clicking on the card frame (remember that you first have to change back to the cards tab).
• Keywords: Usually the keyword of a card (e.g. Challenge or Gear) is bold. On Runner and Objective cards, this is different. I’ve done this so that the user can add text right next to the keyword that isn’t bold (e.g. “Troll Runner. Stamina”). There is a way to script this, but I didn’t manage.
• Keyword Statistics: Currently, under the statistics tab, all possible combinations of keywords are listed (so “Challenge (Street / Electrical)” would be different from “Challenge (Electrical / Street)” etc. Ideally, I’d like to count every occurrence of every keyword and give the statistics of that. In the example above, you’d get “Street 2x” and “Electrical 2x”. I don’t know how to implement that yet, however.
• Unusual Card Layout: Some unusual cards, such as Longhorn (with his massive rules text), or Impossible Mission (an Objective with skill icons) cannot be re-created using the current template.

Please let me know of any other issues you may find. If you want to help me code, join the discussion. Enjoy!

- Greadle