Robbers' Roost Redux POD Proof Arrived

My proof for Robbers' Roost arrived last night, and I was eager to open it up and see the results. Here's my assessment, with lots of photos!

What worked well:

- The size is fantastic as I'd fully expected, but it's still super rewarding to be able to order BANG! cards that are in the card size necessary to fit into the BANG! playing deck on demand. It's a giant leap forward for modders.

- New border designs turned out really well.

- Character design looked really crisp.

- Cards shuffle well.

- Did well on border spacing -- which I was worried with as related to the closeness of the borders to the edge in the BANG! cards v. the game crafter's template. I exceeded their recommended area ever so slightly to limit that design variance. Turned out well.

- The rulebook from game crafter turned out really nice too. I'm happy to offer this alongside the cards that you can print out. I caught a couple typos, but that's what proofs are for, right?

What needs work:

- Colors: These always print differently than you suspect on a monitor v. your home printer v. the POD's. And they also differ slightly on printing runs. You can notice some significant differences between the official BANG! card prints in between the expansions -- Wild West Show character borders are lighter, for instance, and their backs have a more orange hue. So I suspected differences here, and knew they would lack the linen texture that the official cards have. That said, I didn't expect the level of variation I saw in my proof. They're perfectly playable, but I'd still like to get this closer if I can. In general, the cards were darker:

- Borders too dark

- Card backs too dark (see far right cards):

- Bullet life points too dark (and a little small; this is on the front of the character card)

- A couple pieces of card art were darker than I'd like (Q&A, Pay Day, Disarm; only Q&A was really too dark, but I should still lighten all of them up)

Other observations:

- The printing, while pretty good in the quality of the prints, is a little blurry in some print areas. It's not a result of the media files, but the printing process itself. This is a minor quibble, but something I noticed.

- Design side -- I should make my icons slightly bigger. Some of the borders of my character art should be more feathered (gradient to white). Spacing between suit and value should be a little larger.

- Tuckbox definitely needed! This will compliment the cards and rulebook really well, so you can store Robbers' Roost and cart it around easier. I'll want a divider too.

I am pretty sure I can leverage this material:

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/publish/product/SmallProBox

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/parts/box-insert-pro-small

I've got 88 cards (44 to each side) plus a 20-page saddle-stitched booklet, which I think will work great. The 128 card limit for the box (64 to each side) gives me a 20-card thickness for the booklet, so I should be good. The wild card here will be how the divider works with the booklet. I'd hate for the cards to be completely loose, so divider is a must. Time to get cracking on some art. I'll make it pretty generic, but at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing.

Ideally here, you can "build your own" Robbers' Roost with all needed components, even if you have to somewhat assemble them once shipped to you.

- Curious if I can create a standardized way for the POD to print all of the "Dying Ain't Living" and then the "That'll be the Day" modules sequentially, so that no card sorting is needed.

Design: Playing Card Stats

Following up on the OO/Excel spreadsheets I created for character abilities, I have created spreadsheets for the playing cards in BANG!. This should be useful for modders, who want to think about what card types/values are used (and for balancing), as well as players of BANG!, helping them recognize card type trends and card count. As with the previous spreadsheets, I have tried to be very meticulous in my descriptions of the cards. The statistics include BANG!, Dodge City, Robbers' Roost orange module (RRO), Robbers' Roost purple module (RRP), and Robbers' Roost complete (RR). It does not cover any of the event cards, such as those is A Fistful of Cards, High Noon, and Wild West Show.

The spreadsheet contains the following information on playing cards:

• Card Names.


• Expansion included in.


• Color.


• Card Type. There are 19 types that I broken the cards into: Basic Attacks, Special Attacks (like Duel, Indians!), Defensive, Life Point Modifiers, Discard, Steal, Draw, Gun, Offensive Sight Modifiers, Defensive Sight Modifiers, Random Damage (Dynamite), Turn Skipper (Jail), Perma-Defensive (Barrel), Duel Modifier (Standoff), Special Defensive, Disabler, Special Steal, Passer, and Swapper.


• Value Trend. This tales you if cards with a specific name tend to have a certain suit, color, and/or number value. For instance, "Cat Balou" tend to be higher-valued diamonds. With some cards I note percentages where suits are heavily split. So I note BANG! are 38% clubs/45% diamonds, and Missed! are 38% clubs/54% spades. This can be useful for a modder in the following ways: (1) When adding cards to balance the new cards he introduces to BANG!, he can be given a good idea of what values he should assign; (2) When adding new cards that are a similar type to cards in BANG!, he is given a starting point for assigning a value them. For players this can be useful in considering, for instance, what cards Apache Kid is immune to.


• Values. This column provides in an itemized manner the values of cards with the same name. NOTE: BANG! and Dodge City values are not separated here. If this is desired, I can split them into another column.


• RR Values. This column provides in an itemized manner the values of cards with the same name in the RR expansion. I recognized that many modders would not want these values included in the BANG!+DC values. This would help them create their own modules. On the other hand, I wanted to include the values to (1) show how RR integrates into BANG!, and also (2) provide the resources for making modules compatible with RR. I hope the BANG! Community will aim at compatibility amongst its modding projects.


• Range. This column explains at what distance seen a card can be played. When it is played on one's self specifically, I give it a value of "N/A." When it applies to any player seen at distance 1, I give it "1." If it can reach within a distance (such as with Toss, Dive, or Push), I put "within [insert distance seen]." When it depends on the gun in play, I put down "Gun-based" (although it is of course modified by the offensive/defensive sight modifiers as well; gun-based is simply a lazy way of putting it). If it reaches all players, all players, or any player at any distance, I put down "Any."


• Impacts. This column notes whom the played card impacts. This typically involves one of the following values: self, 1 player (which could include one self), 1 other player, 1 random player (for Dynamite), all other players, other players in a line of fire (for Cannon and Artillery), and all players. Sometimes it is a combination. For the orange and purple cards the impact value is more specific: attacking player, attacker, defending player, 1 other hit player (for Gaping Wound), player whose turn it is (Confiscate, Hit Me), and player with defensive sight modifier (for Track Down).


• Activator. This column notes which agent makes the card playable: one self (like in Gatling), another (like in Missed!), or both (like in Beer: playable on your turn, or when you lose your last life point due to another player's attack).


• Activating Event. The column describes the specific event that makes this card playable. Often, this is as simple as it being one's playing phase or one being the target of a basic attack. However, this can be more complicated, such as for last chance Beers. This is especially for orange cards, which can only be played at many specific events: when another player takes a hit, when a player targets another player with a basic or special attack, when a player plays a card to avoid an attack, when a player plays any card, another player's drawing phase, and so forth.


• Extra Details. Several cards have extra details about them that are important to note. For instance, only 1 BANG! can be played during a playing phase by default. Beer have no effect if played when only 2 players remain. Jail cannot be played on the Sheriff. Some cards in both Dodge City and Robbers' Roost require discarding a card to play them (Springfield, Rag Time, Brawl, Bandage, Warpath, etc.). Wells Fargo, Stagecoach, Pay Day, and Hit Me activate Wild West Show event cards. In this column, I put in these extra details for playing cards. I also place the benefits of having a specific blue card in play here.


• Outcome of Playing. This column explains what happens when the card is played. This is often just a breakdown of the text or symbols on the cards. Some other items are noted, such as when a gun comes into play it replaces any non-duplicate gun card already in play (if a duplicate, it could not come into play in the first place). I note the initial/latent effects for the purple cards here.


• % Columns. The card data concludes with 6 columns breaking down the probability of drawing a specific card from a specific deck setup. For instance, there are 25 BANG! in the base game, so there is a 31.25% chance of drawing it from a complete 80-card base deck. These deck set ups can vary; hence, the 6 columns. However, in BANG! + Dodge City there are 29 BANG!, so there is a 24.20% chance of drawing a BANG! from a complete 120-card BANG! + Dodge City deck. Quite a difference, no? Since there are several deck setups, I created columns showing drawing probabilities for drawing a specific card in a deck setups for BANG!, BANG! + Dodge City, BANG! + Dodge City + Robbers' Roost orange module, BANG! + Dodge City + Robbers' Roost purple module, and BANG! + Dodge City + Robbers' Roost complete. The last column explains the reason for certain shifts of drawing probabilities in Robbers' Roost.

After the Card Data, I provided another tab for a little "Meta Card Data." This tab only provides 1 sources of information. First, it notes how many cards belong to specific types in the different deck setups. So in BANG!, there are 5 cards with unique names belonging to the gun card type. In BANG! + Dodge City + Robbers' Roost there are 7. Secondly, I note the probability of randomly drawing a certain type from a complete deck setup. The earlier card data probabilities only noted the chances of drawing a card with a specific name, like BANG!. This data notes the chances of drawing the type (like "basic attacks") from a complete deck. It explores the probabilities in the 5 different deck setups like before.

The hope is that this spreadsheet will enable you to both mod and play BANG! better. As with the character ability stats, I would love to get some feedback on this spreadsheet. It has taken a good chunk of time to put together, but I am sure there are typos, inconsistencies, and some poor labels. Feel free to post comments here.

Like before, I have made the spreadsheet available in both Open Office Calc and Microsoft Excel formats.

Design: Character Ability Stats

In an effort to help modders (those wishing to make their own custom expansions for BANG!), I have created a spreadsheet that expounds the intricacies of each character ability in the official BANG! card game and its expansions, as well as in Robbers' Roost. Such a spreadsheet should be useful for modders in both thinking of new characters and balancing the abilities that they think of by comparing them with characters in the game already.

The spreadsheet contain the following information on characters:

• Character Names.


• Expansion included in.


• Number of Life Points.


• Character Type. As with the character guides, I have broken these up into 3 general categories: offensive (i.e. Slab the Killer), neutral (i.e. Black Jack), and defensive (i.e. Elena Fuente).


• Ability Type. I have provided several hopefully helpful labels of character abilities that should allow you to sort characters together by their ability type. Thus, Rose Doolan and Paul Regret are both given the ability type of "Sight Modification." Sid Ketchum, Elena Fuente, José Delgado, Doc Holyday, Uncle Will, Porter Rockwell, and Crazy Wolf are labeled with the ability type "Card Transmutation," since they can play a card(s) as something else/for some other effect.


• Mode of Operation. This column has 2 values: optional or necessary. Generally speaking, it identifies whether the ability can be activated by the character's choice (Chuck Wengam) or if it is forced (Claus the Saint, Paul Regret).


• Activator. This column describes who brings about the ability's activation. Sometimes this is done by oneself alone (Slab the Killer when playing a BANG!), by others (when Jourdonnais has a BANG! played against him), and by both (Suzy Lafayette, when playing her last card, or by having another player discard the last card from your hand), and sometimes this does not apply (Pixie Pete when he draws his 3 cards; he didn't bring it about, it occurred from the normal course of his turn).


• Activating Time or Event. This column explains when the ability an be used, such as during a specific phase of a turn, when the target of a specific card, when "drawing!", etc. Sometimes, the ability is continuous (Sid Ketchum, Apache Kid).


• Cost. This column notes if the ability has a cost to activate it, such as discarding/playing a card(s), losing a life point (Johnny Pope), using a card out of turn from one's hand (Molly Stark), not drawing cards from the deck (Pat Brennan), giving up copied abilities (Greygory Deck), and so forth. Often, there is no cost to use the ability, and this is also noted.


• Outcome. This column observes the outcome of the ability after all else is considered. Thus after playing a brown card and discarding a BANG! during phase 2 of his turn, the outcome of Lee Van Kliff's ability is that the effect of the brown card is replicated. Some of these outcomes are complicated (Crazy Wolf, Claus the Saint), but I try to express them as best I can.

The hope is that this spreadsheet is that you will be able to group together characters with a similar ability type to a character you are considering to create. If his ability tends to be stronger than characters of his ability type, this should suggest to you that the ability needs modification.

I would love to get some feedback on this spreadsheet. It has taken a good chunk of time to put together, but I am sure there are typos, inconsistencies, and some poor labels. Feel free to post comments here.

I have made the spreadsheet available in both Open Office Calc and Microsoft Excel formats.

Robbers' Roost: Card Colors 2

After looking at a color blindness simulator, I wasn't really happy with any of the color choices! I decided that I had to do something more to the card border, like how Dodge City added a gradient to the green cards. I added some slashes across the card border and made it more of a reddish orange. I have yet to decide whether it should have bullet holes or not. What do you think?

Robbers' Roost: POD Progress #3

Now that I have firmed out the accessory cards, I have decided to follow some fan's suggestions and just add them to the core of Robbers' Roost. This will of course require me to update the Guidebook (yargh). In the meantime, I have figured out their suits and added the appropriate cards for balancing. Thus the 16 new cards are:

• BANG! (3)


• Beer (1)


• Missed! (1)


• Sombrero (1)


• The Flop (1)


• Indians! (1)


• Cat Balou (1)


• Panic! (1)


• Cold Deck (1)


• Bear Trap (1)


• Lasso Rope (1)


• Iron Knuckles (1)


• Lucky Dice (1)


• Ammo Belt (1)

There are 2 replacements:

• Cowboy Boots (Accessory version) for Cowboy Boots


• Spyglass for Rattlesnake

Many of these new cards are in the cardsheet above. I hope this will appease many of the fans bummed out by the cards I removed from Robbers' Roost. Expect more updates soon.

Design: BANG! Card Game Symbols Pack

As part of the recurring pattern of me disclosing my design files, I have enclosed today a pack of BANG! card game symbols. Not only does this include the original BANG! symbols, it also includes a few I introduced, such as the symbol referring to a dead player in Death Mesa, the line of fire symbol used in Robbers' Roost, and a few that I never ended up using such as the discard a card from your hand symbol, and the "draw!" a club symbol. I believe I have compiled all of the symbols (except the Book symbol, and distance modifiers that I will add soon) from the original BANG! card game. If there are any others missing, feel free to inform me. You can see the majority of the symbols contained in the pack in the image above. All the symbols, at the moment are in Photoshop format (.PSD), but I will probably release a .JPG format soon.

Download the BANG! Card Game Symbols Pack

Design: BANG! Card Game Custom Character Art Pack

I wanted to keep adding to the BANG! card game modding community by offering a zip file containing 87 sketches of western characters with character borders and bullets as well. Some examples of these sketches are in the picture above. This should help you along in making your own BANG! card game characters. To modify these characters so that they look more like the BANG! card game characters, I recommend looking at the first part of my tutorial on making your own BANG! character cards. I should release another art pack this coming week for BANG! playing cards. If I collect more western characters, I will also release another character pack in the future.

Download the BANG! Card Game Custom Character Art Pack

Design: BANG! Card Game Borders (Original)

EDIT (8/2/11): I am no longer hosting the files on Adrive. The Google Docs method is working once more, and does require biweekly updates. It should work fine now. Yesterday I provided a pack containing 2.5 x 3.5 BANG! playing card borders. The sizes of those borders did not match the original BANG! cards, but were designed for making cards with a POD. The borders I have released today are designed to match the original BANG! cards. As with the other pack, I have provided borders for gun, blue, green, orange, character, grey, and brown cards. If you print with them, however, you will have to trim the cards yourself (or have someone else do the trimming) and use a corner rounder to have the cards match the size of the original BANG! cards.
Download the BANG! Card Game Border Pack (Original Size)

Design: BANG! Card Game Borders (2.5 x 3.5)

EDIT (8/2/11): I am no longer hosting the files on Adrive. The Google Docs method is working once more, and does require biweekly updates. It should work fine now.

EDIT: A character border is now included in the pack.

As I have started to chip away at making a POD version of Robbers' Roost, I thought I would also release some of my design files to the public. This way, interested persons could use them to help them make their own custom BANG! cards. It will also help me upload the necessary files to finish some of the tutorials I want to make. Today, I will be releasing BANG! card game borders for 2.5" x 3.5" cards. Note that this is not the standard size for BANG! cards. Rather, this is what would be used by a modder wanting to use a card template or POD and isn't concerned about card trimming. I will release borders that are identically sized to BANG! cards tomorrow. Both border packs include borders for:

• Gun Cards.


• Blue Cards.


• Green Cards.


• Character Cards.


• Brown Cards.


• Grey Cards. These are used in Death Mesa, and if someone wanted to add their own to the Dead Men's Deck, they could do so.


• Orange Cards. These are used in Robbers' Roost, but modders should feel free to make their own orange cards.

I am aware that there are other borders for the event card decks. I will get to adding these later. Since they are not used in Robbers' Roost or Death Mesa, getting those files up is a detour from my current project.

Download the BANG! Card Game Border Pack (2.5 x 3.5)

Robbers' Roost: Handcut Cards Examples

I wanted to give a preview of handcut cards I made for a prototype of the Robbers' Roost expansion using the plaincards.com templates with printing on my Canon ip90 printer, cutting using the Fiskars Premium Paper Trimmer 12", and rounding the corners with a Paper Shapers' small Corner Adorner. Eventually, I will include a tutorial of how to do this in the productions section. I have already given a tutorial on how to create your own image for a custom BANG! character.

Here is an example of some prototype blue cards from the Robbers' Roost expansion with a Barrel from the original game to the left of them as a comparison.


You should notice some things right off. First, the blue border in my prototype cards is a little darker, but this isn't that important. The titles are much smaller on my cards, since I poorly assumed that the font size for the character cards was equivalent to the font size of the playing cards. I didn't recognize this problem until after I had printed the cards. Silly me. I have fixed this since, as you can tell in the card sheets I have realeased. To deal with the bigger font size on the playing cards, I also had to hack the text descriptions, which I think ended up being a good thing. The font for the card values in the left hand corner I never could identify, but I tried to find a similar scripty font. However, one playtester for Death Mesa said he had trouble reading the values in this font, so I changed to a more legible Microsoft Himalaya font. That is used in both the Death Mesa POD, and in the Robbers' Roost cardsheets now. Matching the colors for the backs ended up being more problematic:


While not terribly off, the woodgrain between the original card (the 3rd in the row) and the Robbers' Roost prototypes in clearly different. The discerning player could tell if a card on top of the deck was a Robbers' Roost card or not in good lighting. This could/could not be so bad, as that means he knows that it is one of 56 new cards in the deck, but since some of those cards are from the original game (BANG!, Missed!, Beer, etc. to balance out), he cannot infer too much. One way of dealing with the color management issue was for me to make the orange cards necessarily placed in front of other players. That way everyone would know that it is an orange card from the expansion anyway, so it undercuts that discerning knowledge.

Now for some tan and orange cards:



Nothing really new to explain about these cards beyond what I said about the blue cards. I apologize for the blurry/darker picture of the orange cards. Of note, I renamed "Old Nag" to "Wild Stallion" (tribute to Bill & Ted), and the values of these tan and orange cards I have mostly changed.

As for character cards:


Fanny Porter, the second character in the row (and now Maggie Mae in the official release), is the prototype character. Gary Looter from WWS is on her left, Uncle Will from the Bullet on her right, and Paul Regret from the original game is at the far right. I placed these characters in a row to show some of BANG!'s own variance in color throughout the expansions. Paul Regret's border is clearer the darkest, with Uncle Will lightening up some more, and Fanny Porter and Gary Looter are nearly the same hue. These borders have a lot more flux in them. Character images too: Uncle Will is far lighter than Gary or Paul, with Fanny somewhere in between. The strokes on Fanny Porter have a more magenta tint however. The font sizes are correct across the board. In terms of text, both use Palatino Linotype, but Fanny only includes an English description (also italicized as in the others). As for the backs:


The colors are closer here, but again the woodgrain is off, having more of a magenta than orangey tone to it. Getting this back right is less problematic for gameplay as the characters are all dealt at the beginning of the game. Nonetheless, it is aesthetically pleasing to get things as close as you can.

I hope this gives you a good feel for the custom cards you can make using the plaincards.com templates and your own printing/cutting tools. Mod on!

New Blank BANG! Cards for Purchase

DV-Giochi has started selling blank BANG! playing and character cards for a reasonable price (€1,90 that is roughly the equivalent $2.50). The problem is that at the moment the cost of shipping is about $47.00 (€33,80)! I am sure (or I hope) this is only a temporary problem until a supplier in America starts selling them. When I find one, I will let you know.

The blank playing/character cards come in a pack of 20: 10 playing cards, and 10 character cards. They look to be identical to the blank cards that were provided in the BANG! the Bullet. Unfortunately, due to this I doubt that there will be any 3-bullet life point cards. Sure, you can just only "color in" the 3 bullets, but many like myself would like a superior aesthetic element to them. Also, the borders will have the outlined border around them, but I don't see any easy way that they could have gotten around that.

I am curious to know how well printing on top of one of these cards works with the glossy coating it will almost definitely have over it. I suppose I could try printing over 1 of my blank BANG! the Bullet cards and letting you know. I am definitely not going to buy a pack to figure that out while shipping is as high as it is. My hunch, however, is that it will only work well for drawing over it, in a very "home made" style as in this image below.

This may work for casual modders, and that is fine, but many of us will want something that has a superior look.

Anyway, I am grateful on the whole to have them, and look forward to win shipping costs drop!

Design: BANG! card game fonts

Those who go about making their own custom BANG! cards will want to get the right fonts:

1. Title font: Perdido

EXAMPLE:



2. Description font: Palatino Linotype (Book Antiqua is close too)

EXAMPLE:



3. Scenario/event card font: Playbill (This font isn't exactly right; but it functions as a nice alternative)

EXAMPLE (with an embossed effect to it):

Production: Playing Card Stock

When you are making your own custom cards for BANG! it is important to consider the card stock you are printing on. You want your cards to general fit in with the original game cards and you want them to be durable, work well for shuffling, and be able to handle a good print job (the ink sticks to them and the paper doesn't jam). You can of course get your cards professionally made through a service. But most of us don't have that kind of money to throw down. As far as I can tell, the only real option is to print them yourself unless you have some buddy. Card stocks for printing that you can grab from Michael's, Office Depot/Office Max, Staples, and Hobby Lobby really don't do the trick. I visited all my local stores and was unimpressed. Even copy stores like Kinko's don't have that heavy of stocks for printing. I turned to looking online. You can probably purchase heavy stock yourself and make your own custom guides to cut them with. I went with playing cards from PlainCards.com, and bought their kit.



Their small kit comes with 18 sheets of playing cards, with 8 cards a sheet (144 total), and also a can of playing card coating, 2 plastic card boxes, and an edger. It cost $20.50+ shipping. A little pricey, but not terrible. Each of the card sheets is microperforated for where the cards are to be printed. So you can print the cards on a template to match the sheets. After the printing, the cards can be spray coated and then popped out. Edge the corners, and then you're done. Well, if only it was that simple. That would work in some games, but not BANG!. There are some complications with the PlainCards.com card sheets. For one, you can't get microperforated cards that are the same size as BANG! cards (the two available options are 2 3/8" x 3 1/2" or 2 1/2" x 3 1/2"). So this requires card trimming and corner rounding, as I have discussed in previous posts. It also makes you have to be real careful with resizing the card template you make for the cards, so that the graphics are centered after the trimming. Second, you have to use an inkjet printer to print on these sheets. I tried doing a laser printer at Kinko's, and while half came through, the other half jammed, smeared, or what-have-you-that-could-be-bad. Wasting card stock is a bad idea when it is pricey too. I was able to calibrate a home printer to do a great job, but remember that the ink adds a new cost. Kinko's would have been cheaper. Overall, the PlainCards.com card stock is really nice, and the coating is good to get. It just takes a lot of extra work to get the cards to be the right size and shape. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any easier options.



I read on some forum that EAI Education has some decent playing cards. Their cards are better sized at 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", but they will still require some trimming if they are to match the BANG! cards and get into card sleeves. They are also a cheaper option at $1.65 for 50 blank playing cards. However, there are some downsides. The EAI Education site requires you to spend $15.00 for an order, so you may have to purchase 500 cards from them to get a good rate. Of course, you may find some other items on there that you would like to purchase to offset this. Second, the cards do not come in sheets, but are precut. While this saves you the headache of punching out, it makes printing more difficult. One, your inkjet printer probably does not have two manual guides to keep the playing cards from slipping around. You may be able to tape it to something to keep it in place, but this clearly removes much of the benefit of having them precut. Second, from the image on their website, it isn't clear that the cards are meant to be printed on. Markers are shown all over them. This makes me wonder how well ink will stick to the cards, and what kind of finish they will have. I haven't yet bought these cards, but I may try them out. I just have my concerns. If anyone has tried these or other cards out for printing let me know. It might be best to just buy really good, heavy card stock on line and make your own from scratch. It will take time to make the goods and cut them out, but when you have to trim the other cards down anyway, is it really that big a deal? You will probably save money in the long run.

Production: Cutting Cards

Regardless of which cards/card stock you print your custom cards, it has always been the case for me that you will need to trim your cards some (which also required printing the cards off-center, so that when you cut the sides they become centered). Otherwise the cards will not be the same size as your other BANG! cards, nor will they fit in the same card sleeves. Using scissors is a bad idea, giving you some poor edges that will be easily identified as not belonging to the original game. I recommend using a paper cutter instead. It will have a ruler built in that will help you cut the cards at the same, consistent spot.



For this job, I recommend the Fiskars Premium Paper Trimmer 12". If you click on that link, prices range from $29-$41 for total price (shipping include). I think scrapbook.com's prices are almost always better. Another good bet is searching your mail for a Michael's, Robert's, or Hobby Lobby coupon. They usually have a coupon for 40-50% off any item of your choosing that is not on sale.

An even easier option might be to just on their website and find their local ad coupon and print it off (Links to this for Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Roberts). Grab/print this and go into your local store and buy the paper trimmer to save yourself some cash. Then go about cutting your cards to the right size (I'll get into more detail on this in the future). Then round the corners on the sides that have been trimmed (and other corners that need it), and then use an edger to smooth the edges.

Storage: Card Sleeves

When you're done producing your cards, you will likely find out that your cards have a different feel than the others (if not also a visual difference in terms of some color outputs and gloss). You can help balance this out by sticking all of your cards in card sleeves. This also has the benefit of protecting your custom prints, keeping your cards clean, and helping them last longer.



When it comes to card sleeves, I recommend Mayday Gamers' Standard 2 1/4" X 3 1/2" sleeves. They fit BANG cards like a charm, and should work for your custom cards if you trimmed and rounded them correctly. The sleeves come in a 100 pack, and cost $2.25 on the Mayday site. As always, check Google shopping for the sleeves. When I checked both Fair Play Games and CCG Armory were selling them for $1.50 per 100 pack. I got mine for around that price at the local comic book store, so you might want to check there yourself and see if you can avoid shipping costs for something as small as this.

Shuffling with card sleeves is a little irritating, but you'll get the hang of it. Check out this video, which makes it seem a little worse than it really is (at least for me):



If anyone else knows of any better card sleeve options, feel free to post a comment here.

Production: Rounding Corners on Playing Cards

Since BANG! cards are a strange size (something like 3 13/32" X 2 7/32"; I can't remember off the top of my head, I will correct this later if I am wrong), you will almost always have to trim the custom card stock that you print on if they are precut, microperforated, or what-have-you. However, after you trim the sides of the cards the corners will no longer be rounded. You will have to make up for this yourself. I would strongly recommend against doing it by hand; you will not do a convincing job. I dropped by local stores like Michael's, Robert's Crafts, Hobbytown USA, and Hobby Lobby to find a corner rounder that was small enough for playing cards, but it was to no avail. The smallest thing you'll find is 1/4". I would suggest ordering online a small 1/8" corner rounder that matched the original cards decently well. I ordered the Paper Shapers small corner rounder and was very pleased with it. Here is a picture of it:



You can easily order this online, just check Google shopping for the corner rounder. The cheapest option right now prices total price (shipping include) at $6. That's very affordable. I am sure there are some other options, but this is the one I recommend.

Storage: Custom Tuck Boxes for Cards

As you mod BANG! by adding new character and game cards to the deck, you will soon find that your cards exceed the room in the BANG bullet. You may store the cards in bags, plastic boxes, or make your own custom tuck box. If you are interested in the latter, here is a cool link that provides a generator for tuck boxes. Here is a sample:



There is another site that provides PDFs for tuck boxes exceeding 2 inches in thickness if the generator is not to your liking. Anyway, you will have to find some way to manage your excess cards.

Statement of Purpose

This blog is intended for fans of, or people interested in, Bang! the card game. As an avid fan of Bang! for its variety in gameplay and strategy, as well as flexibility in terms of players, I have wanted to provide a site and hopefully create a community for Bang! players and potential players that will:

1. Discuss and Promote BANG!. This is the most obvious place to start--to explore the game and its mechanics, and help people understand it and the rules. The Wikipedia page already does a great job, so there will probably not be too much to add here. I will, of course, also place resources online for purchasing BANG! and its expansions, and for playing it online.

2. Create a Modding Community and Explore BANG!'s great customizability. I will provide the resources that will show how to create your own custom BANG! cards that can work functionally with the rest of your BANG! deck. This ranges from mod conceptualization to design templates to printing and production (purchasing the right card stock, which printers to use, what tools to use to cut and round the corners on cards) and explaining reasonable prices for producing these cards. While some mods do not need to worry about matching the look and feel of the original cards too much (Character cards for instance are dealt out randomly at the beginning of the game and everyone will know who they are, so it does not matter if the cards look different), cards added to the main deck do need to try to match it. Think of cat balouing cards from people's hands when you know what card it is already, or watching people draw cards when you already know what card they have drawn. This can impact the modded game in a very negative way. Thus, it is important to match cards that have this gameplay issue as much as possible, or create innovative ways to avoid this problem. I will provide graphics, art, and resources to closely match the style of the original game, so that you can make classy looking mods.

Another big important part of modding is including stats for modders who are honestly concerned with keeping cards and characters balanced. BANG! contains many mechanics to be aware of when creating cards:

A. The need to balance suits and their numbers. Think of how dynamite would be affected if many cards of 2-9 of spades were added to a deck, or how the game could become unbalanced for Apache Kid if many offense diamond cards were added.

B. The need to keep certain card types to suits. BANG! was very thoughtfully made; many card types only belong to a single suit or intentionally do not have any of 1 suit.

C. The need to balance the ratio of certain cards to others. You probably have noticed how the original game characters have dropped in their usefulness with the Dodge City expansion. As Slab and Jourdonnais'--many others too--abilities depend on a specific card type "BANG!," adding several non-BANG! attack cards and other cards not only reduces the probably of them drawing or having played against them useful cards, but they also make their abilities less useful. 2 Missed! do not have to be laid for a Punch, nor can Jourdonnais "Barrel" for it. Potential modders might have noticed that Dpdge City added Bang!, Missed! and other cards from the original game in the expansion. Any modder who is going to add a substantial number of cards to the game will need to examine how his additions effect the probabilities of drawing original game cards and how this effects character abilities.

D. The Need to Balance Characters. From poking around in the BANG! community, I have noticed how many new characters are created without thinking about how they relate to other characters in the game. This creates huge imbalance issues. I think it is best to classify characters as Offensive, Defensive, of Neutral (their abilities are useful from either perspective; think of Calamity Janet). Then group characters in their classes. When you are thinking of adding a new character of one of these class types, compare it to the others in the class. If the new character with his/her ability is downright better than other characters regardless of strategy or gameplay, you have a problem. You might think of ways to nerf the character: Having the ability be conditional upon a "draw!" or a certain card or suit type, creating an activation cost (they have to discard a card from their hand or in play in front of them, or a life point to use it), or lowering their overall health (think of the 3 health and 4 health variation amongst characters). Besides this, there is also an overall character balancing issue. The original game had a good ratio of Offensive to Defensive to Neutral characters, which helped the probability of drawing a character that accommodates the role you are randomly dealt. If too many Offensive or Defense characters are added to the game this overall balance is upset. Lastly, you need to consider if a new character is imbalanced not from a general perspective, but when placed in a specific role (see my discussion on Gary Looter as Sheriff below).

Anyway, there are many other items to consider in modding BANG!, which I am sure many others have thought of. I look forward to discussing with others how to tackle these issues, and benefit from their contributions.

3. Discussing Strategy. Each role in BANG! has different objectives, which can be achieved in a variety of ways, especially depending on the number of players available and the characters dealt. Hopefully, posts will explore how to use characters in effective and novel ways to achieve the goals specified in the roles.

4. Balancing BANG! Expansions. Although many of the BANG! expansions were carefully thought out, some parts of them clearly were not. Many of Wild West Show's characters are ridiculously imbal, especially depending on the role. Think of Gary Looter as a Sheriff (6 life) when he has 1 or 2 Deputies in play. Whenever they discard any card over their limit it goes straight to the Sheriff! It's just not fun. Other characters like Lee Van Kliff, Flint Westwood, and so forth can have similar complaints made against them. Wild West Show sadly seems like one of those expansions where they think bigger and stronger is better. I think this is a mistaken way to look at a game. The original is so wonderfully balanced that I get upset how much Wild West Show shakes things up with its characters. However, there is no need to throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of these characters can have additional constraints on their abilities to make them more balanced.

5. Examine Alternate Gameplays. Instead of modding the game through adding new cards, characters, color types, and so forth, BANG! can be altered by using the cards you already play with. For example, many of my friends and I do not enjoy the randomness of the global effect or "scenario" cards played at the beginning of each round in High Noon and a Fistful of Cards (Wild West Show cards are similar, but these scenarios do not occur at the beginning of a round for a round, but rather begin and end when certain cards are played). However, we still enjoy the idea of these scenario cards. Our solution is to pick the deck(s) we wish to play with at the beginning, shuffle this deck, and flip these cards over in a sequential order. At the beginning of the second round, the effects start to occur each round in this sequential order. When a card is used up, it is flipped face down to indicate that it has ended. This way players can prepare for future rounds, and yet still have variety added to BANG! with these cards. Anyway, this is just one way to create an alternative gameplay. There are many others to explore I am sure.

6. Exploring and Posing Solutions to BANG's problems. BANG! is a great game, but there are clearly a few problems with it. Think of those players who don't play with their characters when they are jailed for 2 rounds in a row. The game doesn't have the pace of UNO, so this can be really boring for that player. In fact, even waiting a whole round to do something is sometimes very irritating, depending on who you are playing with. A bigger problem, however, is the down time for eliminated players, who may have to wait over an hour for the BANG! game to end. Frankly, I think the global effect round cards that can bring a player back for a turn or even the game make things worse. Since they may never show up in a game or only show up far later into the game, it makes the eliminated player feel obligated to stay for the duration of the game instead of go do something else. Of course, these cards can simply be removed from the deck, but the point is they still failed to answer the problem eliminated players were having. These are clearly flaws in BANG!'s game play, and I think it could be useful to explore alternative gameplays and customized cards that provide practical solutions to these problems.