Basic Typography Concepts

Most of the readers who’ve bothered to download this study will be Note that head spacing gets tricky if you’re setting your body text
acquainted with some of the basic jargon of typesetting and book to a baseline grid. If your head’s leading is 14 points, for example,
design. For the benefit of those who haven’t been spending an un- and your body text’s leading is 12 points, then setting it to a grid
seemly amount of time cursing at a layout board, however, there are will make a big empty space after the head as that 14 point leading
a few basic concepts that should be defined before you go on to the gets put into two 12-point gridlines. If you’ve only got one gridline
rest of the study. before it on the page, you can then end up with more space between
the head and the body text than there is before it, which is wrong.

TYPEFACES, FONTS, BASELINE GRIDS AND LEADING To deal with this, make your head’s leading plus its following space
equal to an even divisor of gridlines. This means it’s better to have a
A typeface is simply particular collection of hopefully-coherent let- 10 point subhead set in bold or small caps, which makes a 12 point
tering. Garamond is a typeface, for example, as is Comic Sans or leading, which fits neatly into a single gridline. For major section
Avant Garde. There can be multiple versions of a typeface, such as heads, you could use an 18 point head with 6 points of following
the many different cuttings of Garamond over the centuries. These space, thus creating a neat, even fit into two lines.
versions share the same general style, but can vary in character width,
details of each letter, and other subtle differences. Thus, the versions
of Souvenir or Avant Garde that TSR used in their books may not MARGINS AND INDENTATIONS
be the exact same typefaces as those you use now.
Margins have a traditional scale of size. The inside, spineward margin
A font is technically a particular size and sub-style of a particular is always the smallest, after which is the top margin, then the outer
typeface. Thus, you might say that the Futura typeface you’re using margin, and then the bottom margin. For classically-composed books,
comes in book and italic fonts. For most practical purposes these days, there’s always a mathematical relationship between the margins, just
the word “font” is treated as synonymous with “typeface”, though as there is between the page itself and the size of the text block; you
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pedants will point out the difference. Font sizes are measured in might have a quarter-inch inside margin, half-inch top, three-quarters
points of 1/72 of an inch. Most RPG book body text is set in 10 outer and full-inch bottom, for example.
point fonts, though you’ll occasionally see them as small as 8 points
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or as large as 12. As you’ll see in the study, TSR’s book designers didn’t exactly agree
with that. In most of their books, in fact, they exhibit a vigorous
A baseline grid is, in its simplest form, just a series of invisible hor- dislike of margins and try to shrink them to nothingness, with the
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izontal lines down your page, just like the lines on notebook paper. exception of BECMI’s gigantic headers.
Each line of text rests on a gridline, ensuring that with multiple
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columns on the page, each line always matches up with its partner Indentations don’t appear much in TSR-era D&D books, as most
in the adjoining column. The height of your baseline grid is derived of them use whitespace lines between paragraphs. As a general rule,
from the point size of your chosen body font by way of the font’s if you’re putting spaces between your paragraphs, you don’t indent
leading. A skilled designer uses a baseline grid for a lot more than them, and vice-versa. If you do indent a paragraph, you usually do
evening up lines of body text, but this use is the one that will be so by the width of a capital M, or an “em space” as it’s called. As
most relevant in the study to follow. will be seen, TSR often preferred much deeper indentations in the
books that used them.
Leading, (pronounced “ledding”), is the space between baseline grid
lines. InDesign automatically sets a paragraph’s leading to 120% of As a special note, indents never appear after a head. The first paragraph
the text’s point size, which is usually a good choice; if you’ve got 10 after your head is always flush with the left margin, even if the para-
point text, you want 12 point leading. The smaller your text, the graphs that come after it are indented. You see a lot of people making
tighter the leading can be, while bigger text needs more leading to this mistake in their books. I certainly did in one of my early efforts.
remain legible. You can override the automatic leading in an InDesign
paragraph style if you want to tweak things.
STROKES AND FILLS

HEADS AND SUBHEADS A stroke is a thin line under or around something. The line around
boxed text is a stroke, for example, as is the thicker line underneath
Heads are headlines and other emphasized text used to set off a a table’s title. As a general rule, you should be parsimonious with
topic. The line above this paragraph is a head, for example. Usually strokes. Every row in a table does not need to be stroked. Let the
you’ll have a main head for a topic or page, and then “subheads” for text guide the reader’s eye on narrow tables, and fills on wide ones.
individual subtopics. Heads should always be spaced out from the
surrounding text, and there should always be more space before a Fill is the coloring inside a box or cell. Tables with alternating light
head than between it and the following body text. For text set to a and dark rows have an “alternating fill”, for example. Fills are most
grid, this is simple; put two lines before, and one after. useful on wide tables that need hints to keep the eye on a line.
Using and Modifying These Styles
All of the styles and tables in this document are intended to be easily tions. Using crude tricks like manual hard returns between paragraphs
stripped for use by other small publishers or people who just want to create spaces just means that everything’s going to be pushed out
to create their own material. The tips on using and modifying these of alignment the first time the text changes. Instead, you want to
objects refer to Adobe InDesign, as that’s what I use myself, but the control everything with styles, because it’s faster, more reliable, and
basic ideas are applicable to Scribus as well. It’s my understanding easier to change things later if you decide to do things differently.
that the .IDML file with this document should be importable by Just change the style, and everything that’s currently using that style
Scribus and some of the more recent versions of InDesign made will change to match accordingly.
before the current Creative Cloud release.
This document contains dozens of styles that have already been set to
The tips here are no substitute for a few hours spent on the Adobe emulate their respective TSR book design origins. I’ve set a number
help pages for InDesign, but they should tip a reader off to some of of fussy little details with them, such as line-keep options, glyph size
the most important concepts to master if they’re to use these styles wiggling, and other such minutiae. If you want to make your own,
and objects in their own publications. the easiest way is to pick one that’s close to what you want, copy it
by dragging it onto the “new style” icon at the bottom of the window,
and then make your alterations in the copy.
THE VIRTUE OF CHANGE
You’ll also notice a number of object styles as well, under the Ob-
I would strongly discourage commercial publishers from using these ject Styles workbar button. In its simplest form, an object is just a
styles and layouts unchanged. Aside from questions of copying trade rectangular space on the page where you put text or art. You can
dress, the simple fact is that a lot of early TSR books weren’t put draw one with the Type Tool on the left-hand workbar. By default,
together very well. Part of it was due to the natural difficulty of text boxes will be “Two-Column Text” style. You can change this by
book design in a pre-digital age, and part was due to the fact that selecting the object and picking a different object style, if you need
RPG books are extremely hard to lay out well, whatever tool you a single-column object.
file
might be using.

Instead, I’d encourage you to use these styles and objects as starting MASTER PAGES
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points for your own creativity. You can make callbacks to classic
gaming products in your choice of styles and designs, but you can A master page is the “background” of a layout page. It’s where you
remedy some of the issues they presented such as stingy margins, put your page numbers, your running heads, and other universal
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a lack of baseline grids, and body text font choices only a 70s-era page elements that appear on almost every page. You can find the
mother could love. master pages at the top of the list given in the Pages button on the
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workbar to the right. To apply a different master page, highlight the

pages in the Pages list, right click, and select “Apply Master to Pages”.
USING STYLES IN INDESIGN
Occasionally you’ll need to tweak something on a page, such as a
To get any meaningful use out of InDesign, you’re going to need running head to reflect the page’s topic, or clearing out running
to be comfortable with using paragraph styles. A paragraph style heads on a chapter title page. To do so, select the page in the Pages
is a kind of automatic formatting for the raw text of a paragraph. It list, right click, and select “Override All Master Page Items”. This
defines everything about that paragraph – what font, what leading, will let you delete or edit them on your page.
what indent, what justification, what following spacing, right down
to giving specific ranges of acceptable glyph size wiggle for smoothing
hyphenation. By nesting character styles inside a paragraph style, you PREPARING THIS DOCUMENT FOR USE
can make it do things like “Put everything in this paragraph in heavy
all-caps Futura up to and including the first colon you find. Then Now that you’ve got the basic ideas in hand, how do you start laying
put the rest in Adobe Garamond, but with a quarter-inch outdent.” things out? The easiest way is to first save this document as a new
InDesign document. Delete all the unwanted master pages and all
Once you’ve created a paragraph style, you just click somewhere in the excess document pages, clearing everything out. Now open up the
a paragraph, select the style from the pop-out menu on the workbar original file, and use it to copy-paste in tables and other objects that
to the right, and it automatically is applied. If you’ve got this file you want to use from the original document, editing them around
open in InDesign you can play with it now, selecting styles from to fit your preferences.
the various paragraph style folders and seeing how this paragraph
changes in appearance. Note that it’s best to copy the objects in, change the styles to fit
what you want, and then copy your new version elsewhere where
Styles are enormously important in setting a book correctly. It would it’s needed. Otherwise, each import from the old document will also
be ruinously difficult to set everything just right by manually high- bring along the old styles with it, forcing you to change it over to
lighting text and choosing fonts and particulars from the top bar op- your new, edited styles.
LBB Elements
The example elements here are drawn from the WotC reproduction MULTI-COLUMN TABLE TYPE A:
of Book 1, titled “Men & Magic”. The physical dimensions of the
booklet are 7.5 inches tall and 5.25 inches wide. The text block on Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4
each page is single-column, with half-inch margins on all sides but Item 1 2 3
the top, where a quarter-inch margin was used.
Spacing distinction was not always maintained between heads Item 1 2 3
and body text. In most cases there is properly larger amount of space Item 1 2 3
after the text that precedes a head than follows it. Other times there
remains only a single line’s spacing both before and after a head. Item 1 2 3
Paragraph indents are also very deep, and could be made shallower. Item 1 2 3
For the sake of accurate reproduction I’ve left the head styles
as-is with only one line following. If you set the final paragraph of
Item 1 2 3
a passage in “LBB Body Final” style, however, an additional line of Item 1 2 3
blank space will be added after the paragarph. Item 1 2 3
Typefaces Used Item 1 2 3

Only three typefaces were used in the sample chosen – one for the
body text, one for the game itself, and one for the title of the book
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on the title page. Modulations of the body typeface were used to MULTI-COLUMN TABLE TYPE B:
provide subheads.
Body text for this edition of the LBBs is in Futura, here represented Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4
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by Futura PT, which is available through Typekit for subscribers to

Adobe CC. Heads are done in the same typeface in Heavy style, Item 1 2 3
all-caps. Subheads are in Heavy style at the same point size as the Item 1 2 3
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body text, with normal capitalization for their text. Note that other
printings used Univers in place of Futura.
Item 1 2 3
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The Futura used in the booklets evidently did not have an italic. Item 1 2 3
Instead, underscoring was used wherever an italic would normally Item 1 2 3
have been employed. For more modern sensibility, avoid underlining.
The title of the game itself appears to have been Quentin EF or Item 1 2 3
some close relative. For highly decorative fonts such as this, avoid Item 1 2 3
using them at anything smaller than 60 points, and 72 is perhaps
better. Most decorative fonts lose their distinction at smaller sizes. Item 1 2 3
The title of the individual book was in Chisel D, which along with Item 1 2 3
its close equivalents appears to be unavailable for use in PDFs. The
Nauert used above is a marginal substitute and lacks a clear license.

Table Design Title Here Multicolumn Table Type

Table text was slightly larger than body text and did not appear to Item 1 2
have been set to a baseline grid. Few of the tables had cell strokes of Item 1 2
any kind, relying on whitespace and centered content to keep the eye
oriented on the tables. A few elements did have light cell strokes along Item 1 2
the bottom of the column header cells when long lists were involved. Item 1 2
If the contents of a cell are numeric, they are centered in the cell.
Item 1 2
If they are text, they are usually left-justified in the cell. Column heads
are justified in the same way as their contents. Most are Futura in Item 1 2
Heavy style, usually underscored, though some are Book style. Try Item 1 2
not to let a page end with a table, if it’s possible to avoid it. Because
the tables have no real footer to them, it can lend a page foot an Item 1 2
unfinished look if it trails away in a table’s whitespace. Item 1 2
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REWORKED CLASS DETAIL TABLE:

Spells & Level

Hooligan XP Needed Hit Dice Attack 1 2 3 4 5 6
Mook 0 1d4 20 1 - - - - -
Thug 1,000 2d4 19 2 - - - - -
Brute 2,000 3d4 18 2 1 - - - -
Cad 4,000 4d4 17 3 1 - - - -
Savage 8,000 5d4 16 3 2 1 - - -
Riff-Raff 16,000 6d4 15 4 2 1 - - -
Ruffian 32,000 7d4 14 4 3 2 1 - -
Goon 64,000 8d4 13 5 3 2 1 - -
Hooligan 128,000 9d4 12 5 4 3 2 1 -
Legbreaker 256,000 9d4+1 11 5 4 3 2 1 -
Revolutionary +128,000 9d4+2 10 5 5 4 3 2 1

SAVING THROWS: file

Polymorph,
Poison & Paralysis & Breath Staves &
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Class & Level Death Spell Wands Petrification Weapon Spells

Hooligan 1-3 12 13 14 15 16
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Hooligan 4-6 12 13 14 15 16
Hooligan 7-9 12 13 14 15 16
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Hooligan 10+ 12 13 14 15 16
Nimrod 1-5 12 13 14 15 16
Nimrod 6-10 12 13 14 15 16
Nimrod 11+ 12 13 14 15 16

ATTACK MATRIX:

Armor Roll to Hit by Level

Class 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 13-15 16+
9 11 9 7 5 3 2
8 12 10 8 6 5 3
7 13 11 9 7 6 4
6 14 12 10 8 7 5
5 15 13 11 9 8 6
4 16 14 12 10 9 7
3 17 15 13 11 10 8
2 18 16 14 12 11 9
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Example Pages
DESIGNING THE PAGE:

Lines run the width of the page, which is acceptable on a booklet-sized page
but should be avoided for sizes larger than 6 x 9 inches. Initial paragraphs are
flush left with the margin, but following ones are indented by two-thirds of an inch.
This paragraph is set in “LBB Body Text”, a style that automatically applies to
the next paragraph after an “LBB Body Initial” style. This style will continue until
you change a paragraph to something else.
To ensure the proper spacing for headers and other elements, set the final
paragraph in “LBB Body Final” style to add an extra line of blank space, which
will combine with the space before header styles to give the right distance between
them and the prior text. If for some reason you don’t want the extra space, leave
the final paragraph in LBB Body Text style.
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MONSTER ENTRIES: begin with all-caps underscored heavy monster names
terminated at the first colon. The “LBB Body Monster” paragraph style automat-
ically applies this format to a paragraph. These entries always have one blank
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line after them, with multiple entries thus stacking up with a line of blank space
between each. Because of this spacing, indents are not appropriate for them.
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Spell and Magic Item Entries: use heavy, non-underscored body text that
also terminates at the first colon in the paragraph, and like monster entries forgo
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indentation in favor of line spacing after the entry.

EXAMPLE TABLE:

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4

Item 1 2 3
Item 1 2 3
Item 1 2 3

Subheads Need Room

As you can see, the subheads should have 2 lines before and 1 line after. While
you could theoretically drop the heads directly on top of the text and leave just
1 line before it to save space, that would be inadvisable on such a dense page.
White space is not your enemy. It should be used to distinguish the page elements.

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AN ALTERNATE PAGE LAYOUT

This page demonstrates how you might use this set of styles on a
conventional 8.5 x 11 inch US Letter-sized page. The most obvious
difference is the presence of two columns of text. As soon as your
page gets bigger than 6 x 9 inches you should start employing mul-
tiple columns in your design. It’s too burdensome to the reader to
make them scan a line of text almost eight inches long. By the time
they get to the right-hand edge of the text block, they lose their place.

You also need to add more whitespace. Solid, relentless blocks of

10 point text are very hard on the reader, even if you break them up
into multiple columns. Using a spaced paragraph style adds a little
breathing room for the reader’s eyes.

Using a larger page does give you more room for tables and art
elements, but try not to go overboard with very large tables. Because
the table styles used here don’t have strokes or fills to help discipline
the reader’s attention, it’s easy to lose your place in the table if you
can’t easily see all of it at once. Use alternate row fills for large tables.

You’ll note that these paragraphs are set in “LBB Body Columned”, a
style intended for use in multiple columns of text. The paragraphs are
not indented. Instead, a line of blank space is provided after each
one. As always, indents and paragraph spacing are a “choose one”
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sort of choice. If you have one, you can’t use the other.
REASONS FOR ZOMBIE JUBILATION
If you decide to use these styles with a full letter-sized page, you’ll
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also want to adjust the LBB Header and LBB Subhead styles so that d00 Reason Reason Reason
their “next style” setting is set to LBB Body Columned instead of LBB
Body Initial, the better to save yourself time when setting text. 01-05 Brains Brains Brains
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06-10 Brains Brains Brains

11-15 Brains Brains Brains
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LBB Design Strengths

16-20 Brains Brains Brains
While the design of the “Little Brown Books” is utterly lacking in the 21-25 Brains Brains Brains
flash and color of more modern efforts, there are a number of very
creditable qualities about it. Futura is a good typeface, and the way 26-30 Brains Brains Brains
the LBBs use different weights and styles of it to provide for all the 31-35 Brains Brains Brains
books’ needs ensures that their fonts will always be in harmony. You
don’t really need multiple typefaces for your book, if you can weight 36-40 Brains Brains Brains
and style the same face in sufficiently distinct ways. 41-45 Brains Brains Brains
46-50 Brains Brains Brains
This trick doesn’t work for every typeface, however. If the one you’re
using for your body text only comes in one flavor, don’t try to force it 51-55 Brains Brains Brains
into serviceability by changing its size or applying software-based 56-60 Brains Brains Brains
alterations to it. Look for another font in the same family.
61-65 Brains Brains Brains
The choice of a slightly larger font for table text is also a good move 66-70 Brains Brains Brains
because there are no cell strokes or typeface differences to visually
cue the reader to the table’s presence. The larger body text immedi- 71-75 Brains Brains Brains
ately alerts the reader that they’re looking at a table. 76-80 Brains Brains Brains
81-85 Brains Brains Brains
With these styles, however, you’re going to have to be careful to
be extremely disciplined about their usage. If you use a particular 86-90 Brains Brains Brains
weight and style to indicate a particular type of element, like all- 91-95 Brains Brains Brains
caps underlined heavy for monster entries, don’t use it for anything
else. The styles are all you have to cue the reader, so don’t mix them. 96-00 Brains Brains Brains