A few people have asked what I’ve used to create the pdfs for the dungeon delver theme and the origins that I’ve written for Gamma World. I’ve just been using Microsoft Word, but I’ve put some effort into getting the document styles to resemble the books published for their respective games. While Word definitely isn’t the best program for doing layout, it can do a decent job for short documents if you’re willing to put in some time. The biggest trick I’ve had to learn is using styled tables for power stat blocks and other highly structured sections of text. Other than that, it’s just a matter of picking a basic layout, fonts, and colors that look right.
I’ve uploaded two sample docx files based on the origins and theme I have written. Feel free to use them for your documents. If you have any questions about using them, please let me know.
D&D Character Theme
This is a three-column, letter-sized document meant to contain a single character theme similar to those recently published in Dragon magazine. I used Palatino as the text font and Calibri for the power blocks. [docx] [doc] [odt]
Gamma World Origin
This is a single-column, almost-digest (6 × 9 rather than 5.5 × 8.5) document meant to contain a single Gamma World origin. I intended the smaller page size to both match the rulebook and allow the printed version to fit in the game box without folding. The headers are Arial Black and the text and powers use Calibri. [docx] [doc] [odt]
Scott's Game Room 
6 replies on “Origin and Theme Templates”
Thanks for this! At some point I want to finish writing up my Gamma Rifts conversion, and that template will come in extremely handy. (As a note, though, it probably would have been friendlier to save it in the .doc format instead of .docx. Among other things, OpenOffice can’t handle .docx yet.)
Good suggestion. I’ve added legacy Word format and OpenDocument download options.
I opened the document in word processor and wrote in all the text, but how do I save it as a pdf like you have it?
Both Word 2010 and 2013 have the option to save as a PDF file. If you don’t have one of those, then there are several free PDF print drivers, such as CutePDF, that will let you print to a PDF file from any program.
And that one really is virus free? Sorry if that sounds paranoid, but I just recovered from a particularly bad virus…
As far as I know CutePDF is safe to use, but I’ve never installed it myself since I just use Word to save as pdf. If you’re worried, then I’d recommend doing some searches to see if you can find either some reviews or an alternative pdf print driver.