Designing Pamphlet Games (With Shitty Printers in Mind)

My printer is in its dying throes, so before I replace it I wanted to use up the leftover toner. Character sheets for all upcoming games were a no-brainer, but there was still a bunch of toner left, so I turned to printing out some zines and pamphlet games that I wanted to try anyways! That was easier said than done, though. Okay, okay, this is definitely not the games’ fault, my printer is really old. And most of them did turn out nicely. But it got me thinking: a lot of RPGs are designed digitally first and maybe for professional printing, but not all of them are easy to print at home. In this article I’ll collect some thoughts on how to design games in a way that makes it easy to print them DIY. The games I printed were mostly CBR+PNK and Mausritter adventures, alongside some zines. My printer is a laser printer; other printers might have different possible issues. Printers Don’t Print Perfectly AlignedWhen printing a front and a back, those do not always perfectly align. Give some…