Close
Close
Advanced Search

Mutable Deceptions, Vol 1: Jazz Age NewspapersClick to magnify
Quick Preview
/gs_flipbook/flip.php?xml=/demo_xml/110812.xml&w=500&h=354
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.drivethrurpg.com/pdf_previews/110812-sample.pdf

Mutable Deceptions, Vol 1: Jazz Age Newspapers

ADD TO WISHLIST >

Period newspaper props and handouts are a much-treasured staple of Investigative and Mystery roleplaying games, in particular Jazz Age horror games like Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu.

Making your own realistic-looking period newspaper clippings is not necessarily a quick and easy task. There are distinctive typographic styles, including font choice and layout conventions, which distinguish well-crafted period-authentic props from cheap imitations.

So, what’s a Gamemaster/Keeper/Dungeon Master to do when he or she wants to create an authentic-looking newspaper prop for a new scenario? Or maybe craft a quick newspaper report mid-adventure recording the consequences of actions taken by the players ... or which leads them off on a tangent of their own devising?

Mutable Deceptions, Volume 1 aims to make the process of creating realistic-looking newspaper props from the 1920s and 1930s quick and easy. It does this by providing fourteen different article templates, each a fillable PDF form in the style of a fully-editable 1920s/1930s newspaper clip. Bring your own text, or manipulate the bizarre real-world stories already pre-filled into the forms.

As a bonus, a sampling of 1920s photos are provided to embellish your handouts with just the right type of blurry, grainy illustration.

Baffle your players. Have them chasing shadows. It doesn’t get any easier than this ...

This product contains no game system material, simply resources to easily create beautiful custom props. As such it is equally useful for use in any gaming situation where realistic 1920s or 1930s prop newspaper articles are called for. This includes mystery, pulp or horror games set in this historical period, or games set in modern day which use old newspapers as clues.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This product is designed for use with Adobe Reader version 9 or later (on any platform). Because it includes complex PDF forms, highly formatted content and embedded fonts the correct display and operation of the editable templates in this product is not guaranteed when used with other (non-Adobe) PDF reader software, including the default PDF reader supplied with Apple operating systems. Adobe Reader is available for free on all common computing platforms.
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (4)
Discussions (5)
Customer avatar
Dominic M September 19, 2021 3:52 pm UTC
These newspapers look great, but I know they are all based on American examples. Is there any way to edit the text in the stories that surround the central area, to change any USA specific references? My CoC campaign is based in the UK, so I'm looking to create newspaper articles which fit that background. Thanks!
Reply
Customer avatar
Dean E September 20, 2021 2:28 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Unfortunately not with these templates -- the surrounding articles are all pre-rendered as pictures. We have toyed with the idea of making a new pack to support prop making for British/UK campaigns or even for European locales along routes common to popular Lovecraftian RPG campaigns. But for now these are just plans for the future ... sorry that the current templates can't meet your needs.
Reply
Customer avatar
Dominic M September 20, 2021 9:51 pm UTC
No problem Dean, and thanks for taking the time to reply :)
Customer avatar
Toby S June 24, 2020 2:22 pm UTC
PURCHASER
This is great product and I'm excited to start using it in my games!

One thing that I immediately noticed was that the custom text fields don't have the same weathered effect of the filler and surrounding article texts.

Do you know if there are similar styled fonts with this stippling effect or if there is another way to achieve a bit more uniformity in the handouts?
Reply
Customer avatar
Dean E June 26, 2020 6:31 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Toby,

There are a lot of great weathered/stressed looking fonts out there for free download. I would suggest taking a look at dafont.com which has a lot of great fonts, all free for personal use. Their categories fancy/destroy and fancy/retro probably have examples of what you're looking for. I'd suggest just downloading and installing a few free fonts and experimenting to see how they look.

Cheers,


Dean
Customer avatar
Steven A June 24, 2020 5:15 am UTC
PURCHASER
Adobe appears to have, in their latest version of Acrobat, removed the option to edit the properties of these PDFs, making them not terribly useful for me.

See https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/edit-xfa-form.html
Reply
Customer avatar
Dean E June 24, 2020 6:49 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Steven,

The default way of using Mutable Deceptions -- namely to replace the text in the editable boxes and do some simple formatting of text -- doesn't rely on editing the PDF structure itself. That still seems to work fine, even in the latest Adobe Reader (DC). I imagine the same is true for simple content editing in Adobe Acrobat DC.

It seems like you're trying to do something more advanced with the templates -- drop me an email at dean @ cthulhureborn.com and I will see if there's something we can do to get a version that will do what you want to achieve.

Cheers,


Dean
Reply
Customer avatar
Steven A June 24, 2020 3:49 pm UTC
PURCHASER
You're right, I made an error. I thought the rich text field was available for the headlines as well as the body. It's not the change in Acrobat that's the problem, then.

The lack of formatting in the headlines is tricky for me as my headline lengths don't match up well with the length of the existing ones (sometimes too long, sometimes too short). Thus, despite the desire to keep the "look and feel" to make them look appropriate, since they just don't fit well in the space, they don't look good unless I rewrite the headline text to match the existing length closely. If I could tweak the font size and baselines that would help me a lot. Honestly, I feel like the article body look matters as much as the headline, so it's a bit surprising that I can tweak one and not the other.

I appreciate the effort that went into these and I'll to work within those limitations. It really does look quite good when I can rewrite my headline to fit the space.
Reply
Customer avatar
Dean E June 26, 2020 6:27 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Steven,

When the Mutable Deceptions templates were designed I never considered people might want to tweak the headlines as Rich Text items ... but since (at least some) folks obviously do, I have gone back and created new versions which support that.

The files here on DTRPG now have the v1.1 PDFs for both colour and B&W templates. These are the ones which are Rich Text for every field. You should probably get an email informing you of the product update, but if not I'd suggest checking your library and nabbing the new files.

I hope these revised files help you customize things the way you'd like.


Dean
Customer avatar
Kerry J February 06, 2018 2:33 pm UTC
PURCHASER
This product does not include a license for commercial use. What is the best method for contacting you to obtain such a license? (I sent a message using the contact form on the Cthulhu Reborn website.)
Reply
Customer avatar
Kerry J February 06, 2018 2:34 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Could add a new product listing that includes the commercial licensing in price?
Customer avatar
Eddy F March 31, 2017 5:52 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I just downloaded this thing for my latest Call of Cthulhu scenario. It seemed great but Its not very clear how you can change any text font once " dropped" into the text boxes. There seems no instruction on how the font style fits. So it looks rubbish, a bit disappointed really.
Reply
Customer avatar
Dean E March 31, 2017 11:12 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi, So sorry to hear that you're not entirely happy with how the newspaper templates are working for you. From your description it sounds like perhaps you are trying to cut and paste text from another application into the Rich Text fields of the PDF forms, and finding that some of their formatting comes along with them. There are a number of ways to avoid this, either by copying "without formatting" or using the in-built "enhanced text properties" tool in Adobe Reader or Acrobat (which lets you change fonts and formatting; hit Ctrl+E on a PC or Mac+E on a Mac to open). There is some information about this in the instruction booklet that comes with Mutable Deceptions, but if you would like some additional support you can either check out the product support page over on Cthulhu Reborn or drop us an email at support [at] cthulhureborn [dot] com. The support page is at: https://cthulhureborn.wordpress.com/support/support-mutable-deceptions-1-jazz-age-newspapers/
Reply
Customer avatar
Eddy F April 01, 2017 3:29 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Yes you are totally correct. It took me a bit of time messing about but have managed to mock up a decent looking newspaper article. I am sure this will become easier as time progresses. Hitting Ctrl+E is the only way to bring up the toolbar. Once this was discovered it was plain sailing really. So yes I would happily recommend this.
Reply
Customer avatar
Dean E April 01, 2017 11:21 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Ok, glad to hear that you were eventually able to get Mutable Deceptions to work to your satisfaction -- I agree that the interface for bringing up formatting options for form fields certainly *could* be more intuitive, but that's how Adobe designed it's reader software so that's what we have to work with. Once you know how it works, though, it is pretty easy.
Narrow Results
$ to $
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!















Product Information
Gold seller
Author(s)
Pages
32
Publisher Stock #
cr7001
File Size:
18.17 MB
Format
Original electronic Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Last Updated:
June 26, 2020
This title was added to our catalog on February 01, 2013.