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Problem #18: Organizing Your Game
150 Plays13 days ago
https://hancluster.comThis week, Tracy and Kristian tackle the daunting topic of organization. First we dive into the challenges of organizing your initial thoughts and ideas about a setting including what to work on first, and how to bounce between different aspects as you develop your world and the the rules that govern it. After that is where the rubber meets the road. How do you organize your book? What comes first? What comes last, and how do the organizational decisions you make affect understanding, familiarity, and clarity for the GM and players. Finally, we lightly touch on how organization of content affects crowdfunding and marketing.
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Transcript
Introduction to Organizing RPGs
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Designing Problems RPG Podcast, where we explore RPG development and all the intentional and unintentional problems we create along the way. I'm Christian Serrano.
00:00:15
Speaker
And I'm Tracy Sizemore. We're your hosts for this recurring nightmare. And this week, we're going to talk about problem number 18, organizing your games.
00:00:45
Speaker
And that's not like, you know, you've got no game and we're know you're trying to organize yourself, although that could be a separate issue. like That is, we can refer you back to the imposter syndrome episode.
00:00:55
Speaker
Yes, right. Exactly. that's That's where that was discussed. No, we're talking about, um well, two phases that we're going to get into, right? The first is the phase of organizing things. the ideas, right, in the creation process. And the second is actually organizing it for presentation.
Avoiding Rigid Organizing Lanes
00:01:11
Speaker
yeah So this is this is where we've we've talked about like writing for yourself and then writing for others. So so the first phase we're going to talk about is like, okay, you got your idea.
00:01:21
Speaker
You're oh, I want to do this thing. How do you start organizing those thoughts and those ideas? What do you put it into? How do you make sense of it? right yeah Go from like the miasma in your brain to something at least workable you know on the digital page, so to speak. Yeah. So in a practical way, it's like, what do you write first?
00:01:45
Speaker
Do you write lore? A lot of people will write lore because it's the easiest thing to write for some people. Do you write what character creation is like? Do you write rules first?
00:01:56
Speaker
Do you start with adventures first? Like any of those and all of them are valid. ways to go, right? But the the I guess my point, and we're going to get into sort of like the the tools of this and what Christian and I think about the tools of this, but i want to i think I think the best approach is to not force yourself into any individual lane going in because you know a lot of people will say, all right, I'm going to organize myself. I'm going to write this stuff. The first thing I'm going to write
00:02:32
Speaker
is rules i'm gonna do rules and then all of a sudden you don't you can't come up with anything that you think is good blah blah blah and then you're not willing to move out of that lane and do so and and and write some lore or or write some character stuff or or whatever right it's it's going to be sort of like differing lanes that are moving in tandem with each other And you're going to write a little bit for this, and then you're going to switch over and write a little bit for that and move a little bit on another lane, and they're all going to eventually you know move forward. Right, right.
00:03:08
Speaker
But i I think it's probably not the best method to try to write all in one lane at once and then go back to other lanes to...
Game Ideas as a Mixing Board
00:03:20
Speaker
fill those in based because you're going to have to go back to that first lane eventually, whether you've written, you know, tomes and tomes about it, or you've only just started, you're going to have revise all this anyway. So it's all going to be coming back.
00:03:34
Speaker
That's, that's just my initial thought on it. But what is yours? christian No, I, I, so I think of it as like, um
00:03:42
Speaker
I guess the metaphor I would use is it's like a mixing board. Okay. Right. Where you're, you know, you got your dials, you get your, you got your levels, your pots as they call them in the biz. Yes.
00:03:54
Speaker
And you know, if you focus all your efforts on, you know, say that guitar track, Oh, got it nailed down. And then like, okay, let me go bring in these other tracks. Okay.
00:04:06
Speaker
Oh, that that doesn't blend well. Now I got to go back to that guitar track and make some adjustments. It's kind of like that. Yeah. Right? So you get in a lore, you focus all your lore, then you're like, okay, now it's time to write an adventure. Oh, well, that doesn't make sense. Yeah.
00:04:19
Speaker
I got to go back over there anyway. Yeah, exactly. um For me, I like to start with, and I think I've talked about this before, the with the experience. Yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker
Right. what's What's a thing I want to be able to do in the game? And so i might even start with some mechanics like, oh, it'd be cool if you could like, you know, like herbal alchemy was kind of like that. Oh, it'd be cool if you could like harvest things from the from the natural world to create concoctions. Okay. Well, what that would look like, you know, like how would we, how would we structure that and, and you know, and kind of grow from there.
00:04:52
Speaker
And I think it is a lot of going back and forth among those different channels. Yeah. you know, and and, and tweaking and adjusting, ah rather than trying to do, like you said, that sort of singular thing where, yeah, you're going to have to go back to it anyway.
00:05:07
Speaker
That one thing at a time thing, which it's fine. Like you can approach it that way, but just know that eventually you're going to have to sort of mess around with all of them, all of them, right. To get them all fitting together. Right. Mixed well.
Tools for RPG Organization
00:05:21
Speaker
And I think what happens organically too, is as you're working on a thing, You're gonna have ideas. Also that you're going to want to, you know, make those, make notes about those things, those ideas.
00:05:34
Speaker
And you're going to have to put them in a section of some sort or some sort of some kind of pot. Like you said, yes you're like, Oh yeah, this is yeah I'm working on this, this mechanic, but Oh, I have this idea for the story. Let me go write that down in that sort of collection of thoughts.
00:05:50
Speaker
You know, sure I think the hardest thing for me is the, those creating the digital spaces for those pots. And how to how to keep those organized in a way that you know where you know where you put that pot.
00:06:03
Speaker
yeah And you know what's in that pot. you know ah That's where i've I've struggled in the past. um and And I think that's where you know where we get into like the tools, right? yes what What's available nowadays.
00:06:18
Speaker
what's What's your tool of choice? What's my tool of choice? it's These days, I mean, even before, it's it's always been the same. i use Word and I use InDesign.
00:06:33
Speaker
That's what I use. Wow. It's not sexy. Yeah. But... ah i'll get into I'll get into some of some of the the whys and wherefores about that after after we talk about what's out there first, which I know that Christian has a lot of thoughts on.
00:06:50
Speaker
But um that's what I use is Word and InDesign. And I've i've tried OneNote in the past, and I actually have a whole um notebook
Challenges with Digital Tools
00:07:01
Speaker
or whatever the heck the file is for a one for a OneNote file for HanCluster that has a whole bunch of stuff, a stream of consciousness of of yeah old campaign adventure stuff. It's all in there.
00:07:14
Speaker
i put it all in there at one point. And it's still there. It's something I go back and reference now and then. But now it's it's so old, and I've i've mined it.
00:07:25
Speaker
to the point where there's not much ah left. um So it's now if I lost it, I wouldn't lose anything. right but um But for a while there, yeah i was relying on it to go and say, okay, now I need to move on to this adventure.
00:07:40
Speaker
I did that adventure. I have OneNote for that adventure, so I'm going to use that as a basis for the adventure, et cetera. But that really is it. I know that there's lots of other tools out there that other people try to use, but I'll like i'll defer to you on that.
00:07:55
Speaker
Well, so that's sort of like my my white whale. Okay. You know, there there was a tool that I i used for Savage Eberron that I absolutely loved, but it kind of feels like it's it's dying, like it's it's on its last legs and and it's um Super Note Card is what it's called.
00:08:11
Speaker
And it's a web-based tool that you have like virtual cards, you can nest collections and so on. What I loved about it... was that you can then export everything to a singular document in the order that it's nested in.
00:08:25
Speaker
So I could take, for example, like edges, right? and I can create clusters of of cards with, you know, here's the title of the edge, here's the description and so on.
00:08:36
Speaker
And that the each edge is its own card. I can reorganize them. I can relabel them, you know, whatever I need to do, I can literally drag and drop them around and put them whatever order I need to. And when I was done, i could just export the whole thing as as that singular document or as chapters or or however I wanted to do it.
00:08:53
Speaker
And it was great for that because, you know, i could just move things around really easily. It wasn't that linear document format where if I'm copying and pasting and trying to move stuff, things get weird and because everything's a discrete chunk, right? Yeah.
00:09:08
Speaker
But like I said, it's it's kind of like it hasn't evolved in a long time. There haven't been updates to it. And there's I don't think there's a lot of users using it. I don't know how long it's going to last. um And you can't you can't do collaboration with somebody else.
00:09:22
Speaker
a You can't have two accounts accessing it at the same time. That's a big limitation. um Unlike Google Drive yeah right or Google Doc. So that's been... That's been a challenge. And I have Scrivener's similar.
00:09:35
Speaker
yeah you know ah jen Jen loves Scrivener. She thinks it's great. But again,
The Obsession with Perfect Tools
00:09:40
Speaker
collaborating in it is really difficult. It's great for one singular author, really hard to collaborate with.
00:09:47
Speaker
I think there's potential with OneNote, but it's it's not perfect either. it's For OneNote, for me, is more of an initial collection of ideas.
00:09:58
Speaker
And then you extract from that to create something. That's how i used it. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's great. You got these little pieces of information all in a page that are you know floating around. But as far as like trying to create a structure from that, it's it's really hard to do. Right?
00:10:15
Speaker
um Yeah. i I think the only other tool i I've been looking at that's not a word processing, you know Word document type of thing like Google Drive or or or Google Docs or Word is something called Living Writer.
00:10:29
Speaker
um But I haven't had a chance to really kick the tires on it. And supposedly I think it it has like real time collaboration You can nest content, things like that. um But I haven't, haven't a chance to play. So I haven't found the perfect tool, the the one that's perfect for me yet.
00:10:45
Speaker
ah So we're, we're, you know, for Explorer, we're just using Google docs. yeah It's doing its job, you know, So my thought, and this is what I see, ah and and this is not just confined to writing tools for games or game designers. It's also the truth of anybody who's doing any writing, anybody who's doing anything.
00:11:10
Speaker
that they want to they want to get into and learn and do, right? Yeah, yeah. Is they start to get more worried about the tools they're going to use than they are actually doing the work.
00:11:24
Speaker
It's true. You can fall into a trap, right? You can. And and what and it's such it's an easy one to fall into because what it is, is you're scared to do the work. You don't know how to do the work. You need to learn to do the work.
00:11:39
Speaker
And you look for solutions in the tools that are used to do the work when that's really not the solution that you need. i think I think that could be a
Choosing the Right Tools
00:11:51
Speaker
a factor. I don't know if it's the factor.
00:11:54
Speaker
like um but I don't think it's the only factor. It's not the factor. Yeah. For me, it was it was literally like mentally organizing the chunks with... you know, helped me when I had those discrete chunks. It literally that. And i don't I don't discount those those tools.
00:12:08
Speaker
But at the same time, i also know that it can be ah big trap because you're like, well, i Scrivener doesn't work for me, so I got to find something else that works for me. Something, maybe something cloud-based or something like that. But really what you need is to just sit down and write the thing. Right, right, right. Yeah.
00:12:28
Speaker
It doesn't matter what you use. Well, i think I think it matters only in the sense of what's important for the project. If it's just you and Scrivener does the thing it's supposed to do, just go with that.
00:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. For us, it was, we need ah we need a way to collaborate. Oh, yeah. Co-authoring. Yep, yep. And and that's that's why we went with Google Docs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that awesome. Awesome. I've seen it so much though, where there's a, it's not universal, but there's a difference between the people who are just going to find a way to do it.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah. And the people who... will get hung up on every little problem on the way. Right. Where but even if it's just like, okay, I'm using this piece of software and it's got a bug.
00:13:15
Speaker
Well, this bug is driving me crazy. How do I get past this bug? How do I how do i how do i fix this bug And the people who are just going to do it are going to figure out the workaround as fast as possible and just do it.
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah. They don't care about the bug. The bug is like that's that's whatever. it InDesign does this weird thing when you do this. You know, the people who are just going to do it. are going to just, they don't care. They're going to move past it. They're going to work around it and they're going to do it.
00:13:43
Speaker
Right. But then especially new people will just get hung up on that particular problem and then sort of go into a rabbit hole its and it's use it as an excuse not to actually do the work. Yeah. It's really interesting you say that because,
Approaches to Writing RPGs
00:13:57
Speaker
uh, obsidian, i don't know if you've heard of obsidian. I've heard of it. Yeah. yeah It's been really hyped up a lot. a lot of people are really into it for organizing their campaigns and you know, whatnot.
00:14:08
Speaker
I considered that as a tool, but I was like, this is very DIY and I do not want to have to waste time troubleshooting trying to, is this the right plugin to use? yeah Is this the optimal way to, or you know, I didn't want to mess with that. I just wanted to write and put information down.
00:14:27
Speaker
Yeah. it It becomes more of a project in, know, And playing around with the tool, then becomes actually writing the stuff. And that's fine. That's like some people love that.
00:14:39
Speaker
Some people really think they want to explore their hobby because the tools they get to use. Yeah. Awesome. Fantastic. Right. But I am the type who is just wants to get the stuff done.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like there are, and certainly along the way, I'm going to learn the tools. Yeah. But if i again if I run into a roadblock, I won't say, oh man, this this bug is is debilitating. I can't use this tool now. I got to find another tool that does the thing that I need.
00:15:11
Speaker
The other trap, I think, is is also becoming obsessed with the features of the tool. you know not Not necessarily a bug, but like, oh, I could do this now. you know Yeah, OneNote has tons of features, but I never used them.
00:15:23
Speaker
So, yeah, like I remember I tried World of Anvil, and I remember at first like, oh, this is really cool. I can do organizations and places and all you know all these discrete fields for these things and make connections to them and references.
00:15:37
Speaker
And then I realized very quickly I am spending more time with the tool than I am with actually creating. Yes. And I'm like, I don't need that.
00:15:47
Speaker
I don't need that distraction. And that's, I just, I just want to emphasize like, it's okay if you do that. It's okay. Sure. If that's, if that's what's important to If that's part of what's making fun for you. Right. Like, great. But if you need to productive. But if you want to be productive, you find the tool that not going to get in your way. Yeah.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah. Find the tool that is, um it it doesn't have to have all the features. Maybe it does for you, but find that, that happy medium, that balance, because otherwise you're, you're not going to be productive. You're going to be too, yeah too worried about how to use this thing, this cool, awesome thing.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, so ah lay on a tangential note related, right like dealing with tools, i'm I'm having a similar experience with Foundry. Yeah, so it's like, you know, it's so easy to get caught up with like the animations and the automations and the scripting and this effect and these modules and whatever.
00:16:44
Speaker
And then i I'm like, I'm spending more time playing Foundry than i am playing Savage Worlds. Like, I need to back off. all Right? So now I'm like, I'm um kind of in a pendulum swing toward, let me just use it for maps and tokens and we'll roll dice and all that kind of stuff.
00:17:03
Speaker
so So I think i think that's it's very similar. It's easy to get caught up with the tools. It's easy to become obsessed and and play. And you're just distracting yourself from being productive. on ah Just one more thing about the – before we move on to organizing your game, yeah right, which we're still sort of organizing your creating or or just the – before you start organizing for the book, for the presentation, um is about editing yourself as you go.
00:17:32
Speaker
um There are a couple of schools of thought on this. and independent of the schools of thought, there are i think that that some people are more predisposed to some things than others, right? So i have a hard time just throwing out stream of consciousness first drafts until it's done and then going back and fixing the millions of problems. Yeah.
Clarity in Instructional Writing
00:18:01
Speaker
I have a hard time doing that. It's, it's, that's probably the better way to do it. I'm telling you right now, finish the first draft as fast as possible. This is what a lot of writers will tell you, finish it as fast as possible and then go back and fix because revising is way easier than writing initially.
00:18:20
Speaker
Right. have a hard time with that. I do too. I will, I will be much more meticulous than that. Yeah. Which makes me slower. Yeah. But,
00:18:33
Speaker
I'm trying. i really am trying. i try I try to do it the other way and and just forget about it and put my put my blinders on and just move forward even though I know that what I just wrote is not going to work.
00:18:50
Speaker
I just move forward anyway, but I, I just to get the idea down. Yeah. right Yeah. I can't do it. I can't do it. If what, if what came before does not make sense to me, yeah i can't go forward because I feel like I'm just wasting my time.
00:19:04
Speaker
For me, it's a, it's a, it's, it's kind of a bit of a pride thing, I think. Mm-hmm. I don't know if that's the right way to phrase it, but it's it's i it helps me. when i When I look at the words and I craft the wording, right the phrasing, the wordsmithing, all that, while I'm writing, that fuels me.
00:19:23
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah, this is good. yeah they Keep going. you know um Even if I go back and revise it later, at least it's good as I'm writing it. If I'm writing just whatever...
00:19:35
Speaker
then i actually find it harder to go back because I'm like, what was I even thinking here? you know like It's just stream of consciousness. I'm like where was I even going? I'm just all over the place. yeah But if i if I think in terms of structure and and and and the the word choice while I'm writing, then when I go back to read it, I'm like, okay, I understand what I was trying to do here. i understand what the idea was supposed to be.
00:19:57
Speaker
Also, being able to to engage with that structure, I think this is true of me too. When i engage in that structure of yeah expressing the thought in a coherent and clear way before I move on to the next thought, it helps me organize the thought in my own head. Yes. So that I know so i know what I mean. Right. Because if it's just stream of consciousness, whatever, blather. Right.
00:20:20
Speaker
It's probably not a well-developed idea yet Exactly. Yeah, that's how I feel. And therefore, it it i just i have a hard time moving on from that. Well, and there's times too that because i I'm spending the time on that,
00:20:34
Speaker
that i i'll I'll even realize sometimes as as I'm writing it, I'm structuring it and thinking through the idea. i'm like, wait a minute, this is this is a waste. like This is already done. Or you know like I really start thinking critically about it and either I'm making it overly complicated or it's already been done or i' rehashing an idea and and ah you know Or I'm like, this is way too complicated. i could simplify this, you know doing it this way instead.
00:21:00
Speaker
yeah yeah you know and and i so i It's just how I operate. It's just how my brain works. I can't i can do stream of consciousness, and I have, yeah but going back to it is a nightmare.
00:21:11
Speaker
It's like, oh, God, what is this? like you know I don't know. Some people, I've i've i've definitely heard writers say, Who are very good and, you know, like very famous and just like, I don't know, just spit it all out into a big old mess yeah as fast as you can because revising is easier than writing.
00:21:31
Speaker
And they're right. Revising is easier than writing. But... I do think it also depends on what you're writing. If you're writing fiction, let's say, absolutely.
00:21:43
Speaker
I think that's fair. If you're writing something like, you know, we talked about instructional technical writing, that's where you really got to think through it, right? Like, what am I saying here? Is it meaning, is it saying what it's meaning and is it meaning what it's saying?
00:21:57
Speaker
And is it comprehensible? Right. And that, that takes more than just, I'm just going to get the idea out and then I'll come back
Structuring RPG Books
00:22:04
Speaker
to it. How do I incorporate the players into this? Yes. Right. Right. Their interactions with what I'm writing. oh Or if it's like an actual mechanical thing, am I writing this edge or this power or whatever it is in a way that, you know, it's intentional and it's meaning.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah. and Right. Yeah. It's those, it's like you say, it's the, it's the potentiometers on the mixing board. It's, it's, it's yeah one change on one will necessitate many changes on others. Yeah. You're constantly adjusting constantly, you know, and that's okay.
00:22:37
Speaker
That's okay. I don't think I, you know, i don't have the answers on that one. i think I just have my way. It might be in not a great way, but yeah I like the stuff I write, so I guess it works.
00:22:52
Speaker
you know Let's say, okay. We've written the words. Yes. we've We've written the words. We've got some ideas written. Now now we're like, okay, how what's the best way to present this?
00:23:04
Speaker
How do i organize this? Especially, again, that instructional technical side, right? Yes. You want it so that whoever's reading it knows where to find the material. They have the proper you know landmarks and milestones within the book.
00:23:18
Speaker
you know It's intuitive where they can find the thing and you know whatever related information is necessary. i mean, that's what you want. That's what you want. and as As we have discussed with the other thing, like a ah decision made in one direction is going to mess up stuff yeah in another direction, in another way.
00:23:43
Speaker
And I'll say this, and nobody's discouraged, I have seen... settings from publishers that I love that I think probably could have done it better.
00:23:54
Speaker
Not that I would have known to do it better myself, but just like I look at it in hindsight, I'm like, ah would have been, I think that have been better if they were, had done this. And that's just my opinion sometimes, but. Right.
00:24:05
Speaker
So I think, I think everybody's still figuring that out and, and it and it varies from product to product, like how you approach publisher to publisher, publisher to publisher. And you know, what makes sense to the author versus what makes sense to the reader and and so on. It's, there's no magic bullet. There's no right answer.
00:24:20
Speaker
It's, you know, we're all just trying to do what we think is best, you know? So give us an example of what we're talking about, Christian. What do you put first in the book? Oh, well, I've talked about this before.
00:24:33
Speaker
my My new favorite thing is putting the setting rules first. Okay. And that is because i have gone, like, so many books do the character creation first. I only need to read that once or twice.
00:24:47
Speaker
right Once I'm done with that, i' I don't need to look at that again. But it's right there front and center and at the beginning of the book. And I'm constantly going to page 100 something to find the gear or to find the power like back toward the back of the book to find the powers or whatever. And I'm like, ah oh why is that not closer to the front? you know and It's a proximity thing, think, versus you know it being buried in the back. So right now, you got the table of contents. That helps. You got the index. That helps.
00:25:16
Speaker
those are Those are valuable things. Now we have ribbons in our lovely Savage Worlds books. That helps, right? You can bookmark. Oh, there's more the powers. Bookmarked PDFs. Yeah. Bookmarked PDFs. Yeah. If the bookmarks are well-organized, which not always.
00:25:30
Speaker
But um you know I think, um yeah, like setting rules to me are important because it not only informs What is the feeling? How is this savage world setting different from others in terms of the feel, the style of play, what rules are in play, and but also what rules are going to be governing the character that I'm going to create?
00:25:56
Speaker
And so what choices do I make? What, what edges, you know, do I want to pick what, you know, oh, arcane backgrounds work like this. Let me, let me look at the arcane backgrounds that are available or whatever, whatever might be, you know?
00:26:08
Speaker
Oh, rituals are an important thing. Let me read up on rituals. oh there's some edges related to how well I can do rituals, maybe. I don't know, you know. um So I think those can inform, you know, character choices and whatnot.
00:26:19
Speaker
And also in the middle of play, remembering, i was i was in a game with Clint at Mythic this weekend. He was running Feinelle. Loved it, by the way. I'm i'm so excited for that setting.
00:26:33
Speaker
And I was looking, he had printed out the setting rules for reference, which was nice. But even there, I was like, I was looking at the setting. I was like, oh, wait a minute. We're in this situation. There's a setting rule about synergy and the environments. And so on I'm like, hey, would this come into play in this scenario? Like, you know, we're on ah on a beach where there's a bunch of sand. i doing elemental manipulation. Do I get a plus two synergy for manipulating the sand? he's like, oh yeah, that's a good point.
Balancing Lore and Gameplay
00:26:55
Speaker
But it's because it was right there, yeah ready to, you know, easily accessible. And I feel like that's why I feel like setting rules being closer to the front of the book, easier to access is is to me.
00:27:07
Speaker
i I like that. and Um, I have seen content that's co-related. There's information here toward the beginning of the book, but there's deeper information about it toward the middle or end of the book.
00:27:21
Speaker
And it feels really disconnected and I'm having to flip back and forth. And that that to me feels a little bit frustrating. And yeah, they might say, see page, blah, blah, blah. you know But then I got to flip to that page to find it.
00:27:33
Speaker
um I don't have a solution to that. I just don't think there is a good one. I don't know if there is. um I do wonder if it's really necessary to split that information.
00:27:44
Speaker
Because it's not like we have a player's book and a GM's book. The players have the exact same book. they're goingnna They're going to read the GM stuff. Right? let's you know's nobody's We're not fooling anybody.
00:27:56
Speaker
Are they? I mean, if I'm interested in this setting, I'm going to read the book as a whole. Right? And I'm i'm going to be a responsible player. This is just me. I'm a responsible player where I'm going like, yeah, I'm going to pretend I don't know that.
00:28:10
Speaker
You know, because... you know or maybe it's good that i know it because i can say hey gm what i know about this thing and the gm can say no you wouldn't or yeah you would actually right i think that's valuable to players just as much um i don't need to read the plot point i probably won't read the plot point because i don't that's too much right but if it's like expounding on an arcane background for example why not give me that info?
00:28:36
Speaker
Well, sure. That might help me role play it better. If I understand certain contexts in, in, at least in Savage Worlds books, in Savage, right. they They start with player, they go half and half where okay players,
00:28:51
Speaker
You know, warning, this stuff may be secret. Don't come in here until the GM tells you to come in here. Right. And then they go okay, this stuff is GM stuff. Right. Get away. Go away.
00:29:01
Speaker
Right. And that's, I think that's a good organizational way to go. i kind of do because... Like all these examples that you say, yeah like there is there's a counterpoint to be made for why why not put the setting rules in front of the book, you know, because everything is a compromise. It's, well, we put the setting rules in front. Now the character creation rules suddenly get buried back in chapter five or whatever.
00:29:27
Speaker
And now we don't know where to find them. And we're starting to open the book and we're excited about it at the shelf of a bookstore or whatever. And weve we turn and we're like, well where the hell is the character creation rules? That's what I want to see.
00:29:40
Speaker
You know what i mean? Like there's so many reasons. Yeah. Yeah. we We could debate that topic. We could. That could be a whole other podcast. Not even an episode. Whole show. It's so it's so hard. I think i and and um I want to come up with some actionable things. Like yeah one thing that's important in this decision.
00:30:00
Speaker
is what does the audience expect? Right? Yes, that's fair. Like, I mean, if publishers do it a specific way every time, like Savage Worlds does, I, as a creator of Haunt Cluster, I want to, I want to mimic that as much as possible so that Savage Worlds players who are used to knowing where to find stuff, yeah know where to find stuff.
00:30:24
Speaker
I get that. I get that. Right or wrong? This is my designer, and broader designer sense, not just game design.
00:30:36
Speaker
i've I'll give examples work-related. For example, there was a situation where um we're we're working on a website idea and you know the the client, we'll say client, stakeholders, whatever,
00:30:50
Speaker
They were looking at this other institution's webpage, library webpage or whatever. Like, oh yeah, like they have the thing where, you you know, you can, you, if you want to search for something, you click the search button and it takes you to a page with a search interface. I'm like, wait, hold up.
00:31:05
Speaker
Why is there not just a search box right there? And they're like, oh, I don't know. I'm like, I guarantee you the reason, probably the reason why they did it that way was because their CMS couldn't accommodate it.
00:31:16
Speaker
And that was how they solved that problem. They had to go to a different interface to do a search over there rather than having a button or or a search box on the page here.
00:31:28
Speaker
So let's not just look blindly, you know, like the one phrase I hate is, well, that's just how we've always done it. Nobody questioned this. Nobody questioned of whether that's actually the best way or if there's better ways now or if we've learned things, you know, if there's experiences that we've had that we're like, man, I really wish it would be like this instead.
00:31:49
Speaker
so I like to I like to challenge assumptions. Sure. And just because character creation rules aren't first doesn't mean they're not in close proximity.
00:32:00
Speaker
Right. They could still they could be second. Well, yeah, but that that that proximity thing becomes like, well, okay, now if if they need to be here and the setting rules need to be here and x needs to be here, all of a sudden you're still going to put the powers in the back of the box.
00:32:19
Speaker
Like something has to be in the back of the book. You are not wrong. are not wrong. You know what I mean? Like that's where the best Jerry goes. Everybody knows that. Well, everybody knows that. Sure. Sure. Or, or the plot point campaign or whatever. yeah But, but yeah, I mean, adventures generally you, you'd put but back.
00:32:35
Speaker
okay That's I think fairly universal. like Because you want to go through all the rules and all the creation and all the lore, and then you put your adventures, right? That said, though, the rest of it, I think, is partially dependent on the setting and yes in what you're doing.
00:32:52
Speaker
Partially dependent on what the audience is expecting. I think you're right. i think you're There is an expectation element, right? like yeah you know Meeting the expectations of the audience is important.
00:33:02
Speaker
And there's there's also like maybe you can do it better. Maybe there's a good reason to do it differently. And ah believe me, I i went through a lot of a lot of struggle early on about whether I wanted to put history, of ah ah like a seven page. This is seven pages. not that much.
00:33:23
Speaker
And it's an easy read, I think. History of the Han cluster in the beginning of the book. right I felt eventually like I had to put it there. It needed to be there because otherwise we don't even know what we're playing.
00:33:36
Speaker
Well, there for your setting, for Hornclusters, there's an establishment of what's the situation. Yeah. I mean, if you don't know anything about what X-ghosting is, you know nothing about X-ghosting. There's got to be some context here. yeah We have to have it.
00:33:51
Speaker
Yeah. And that was my final decision, even though I didn't want to do it. Because I'm just like, I don't want to have 30 pages of lore in the beginning of the book. Right? did so that's my next question. It's seven pages.
00:34:02
Speaker
Okay. That's what was going to ask. Because the one thing I don't like is I appreciate the effort and the enthusiasm that authors have when they do their 30 pages of lore. Yes. It's not for me.
00:34:13
Speaker
i don't want it either. I have ADHD. I'm not going to get through it. and yeah And honestly, that will put me off to the setting before I even had a chance to get into it. Because I'm like, I haven't even gotten halfway through and I don't even know yet where what I'm doing now as a character. where is my character creation, Shackley? That's what I want to know. Or what is my character doing? yeah you know I don't even know what happened a million years ago or a thousand years ago.
00:34:35
Speaker
what is my character doing now? Yeah. Right. And, and, and that is, that is so tough. It's so hard. It depends on what I've seen. I've seen ace Savage Rules of books that have 40 pages lore in the beginning. And I'm just like, Oh, please don't do that.
00:34:50
Speaker
I think that would make a great supplement. If somebody wants to dive deep into that, that, you know, well, I mean, maybe it's make it a free p necessary. Like maybe some people want it, but sure.
00:35:02
Speaker
oh But I finally decided that, that seven pages of lore or history was okay. I love you, Tracy. That's yeah. Thank you for doing that. You know what I mean? I'm like, and even Daryl laughed at me. He laughs at me all the time when I struggled this stuff, but, but he was like, seven pages is fine. There's nothing wrong with seven pages. And I'm like, okay, well, it feels like a lot to me because I am deathly afraid of the 40 pages. Is there art in those pages?
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple pieces. Even better. a couple pieces. Even better. It's not walls of text. But also, I think it's an easy read. I think it's interesting. Yeah. and And I tried to make it as short as I could in a way that yeah explains what this setting is because you don't know.
Impact of Organization on Usability
00:35:48
Speaker
can just throw you into character creation, but you're not going to know anything. Yeah. You know? So, but if it's like a super tropey, easy world to understand, like ETU, for example. yeah. Yeah. There's not whole You don't lore at the beginning. that They don't have any lore at the beginning of ETU. You've either been to college or you've seen a movie about people in college. Yeah. know They have basic, they have some sidebars about majors. They have, basically you just jump right into character creation. Yep.
00:36:17
Speaker
Because it's so tropey. It's so easy to understand. Yeah. Honklester is not. but Cyberpunk is not. Right. right it's the same It's the same thing, but you've got to find a compromise. and And I don't know. I don't know. It's really... I don't know that there's super easy, actionable answers for this. No, no. I think i think very much this is it-depends...
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah. Situation. It really, it really is because theres there's settings where it's like, okay, this setting is truly unique. there There are elements that you have not seen, or maybe you've seen elements across different things, but not together.
00:36:52
Speaker
And so you need context. um You know, if it's just standard fantasy, I don't need a thousand years of history. You know, just give me the situation now and reveal history through play.
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. yeah and and But again, it it just depends. It depends. But I think i think a good rule of thumb is if it's not immediately relevant to what the players are going to experience in the game, probably don't put it in the book.
00:37:26
Speaker
Yeah. And that seven pages of history is super relevant. Yes. Right. And um so is the rest of the gazetteer, both in the player section and then in the GM section. I try to give you hooks. I try to give you organizations to engage with. I try to give you places to go.
00:37:44
Speaker
Right? Those are things that the players can interact with. if If that stuff isn't interactive... Yeah. Try to get rid of it, I guess, yes is is what I'm thinking. Right.
00:37:58
Speaker
But how to organize it is really dependent on what you feel, how how you feel it's best, what the audience what the audience is expecting, yeah what um what the setting needs.
00:38:10
Speaker
And we could go on a whole nother show about this and we might later. Yeah. But it's, it's a fascinating topic because there's questions of clarity. We already talked about proximity between related things, trying to get those together, like ah how different publishers handle different things.
00:38:30
Speaker
I don't know, like how organization compliments the writing itself. Right. And layout, uh, layout It dictates writing, writing dictates layout.
00:38:44
Speaker
Same with the organization. It's, it's all interrelated, especially when you get to the point where you are laying out this book for the, what it's going to look like in a final form.
00:38:55
Speaker
It's kind of, once you put it in print, it's kind of in stone, right? Yeah. Like once it's in that book printed, it's in stone, so to
Marketing and Publishing RPGs
00:39:02
Speaker
speak. And it's amazing how much organization dictates understanding.
00:39:08
Speaker
It's a usability thing. Yeah. It really is. it's It's how you present it. Even the labeling of sections, chapters. Yep. Headings. Headings. Yep.
00:39:19
Speaker
How many there are. How you use them. It's so... That's the stuff we can get into later. Yeah. But man, it it makes a huge difference. Huge difference. Yeah. And it's fascinating because it's, it's, it, you know, you you start to think in those terms when you start doing layout and with Pinebox middle school or a holler, we would move entire sections from one part of the book to the other, um in very late stages yeah because it would be, it all it took was moving something somewhere else to create huge, like, uh,
00:39:58
Speaker
ah Jumps in clarity. Yeah. You know, and understanding of what stuff was, was what, and what was going on. So I don't know. It's like I say, I think we're going to revisit this, but I don't know if this is helpful to anybody, but I'm trying to come up with sort of actionable, like,
00:40:20
Speaker
plans for you while also just hitting that that nail on the head constantly that it really just depends. It just depends. There's no hard answer.
00:40:31
Speaker
So li let me ask you this. You mentioned the adventure in the back of the book or the plot point campaign in the back of the book. a
00:40:39
Speaker
Sometimes I've wondered if a plot point campaign... needs to be with the setting book or, or if it should be included in the setting book, right? Or, or if it should be maybe some example adventures in the setting book.
00:40:54
Speaker
And should the plot point campaign have space for its own? How do you decide that? Right. How should it have enough space in its own book to be its own thing? Or should it just be part of the core book that, you know, for that setting? and And it's a value add where they can just get the one book and they can run with it.
00:41:10
Speaker
There's so much that goes into that. I know. That's why I asked. Because it's not just an organization slash clarity slash experience. Yeah.
00:41:21
Speaker
It's a, how are we going to sell these books thing? Yeah. Because if you, and and I mean, Hancluster has i've pretty much made the decision going to two books, one source book, one adventure book, because I got a whole lot of adventures. Right. um That's probably not the best business decision because that adventure book is not going to sell near as much as the source book will.
00:41:50
Speaker
Right. So that becomes a factor. And if i wanted if I could put it into one book, I'll sell more of that book than I would, say, the adventure book.
00:42:05
Speaker
Because that's the full book. But I might sell less because it's it includes stuff that the players don't need. Say more about that. So say more about specifically the core book selling more because it has the plot point campaign in it.
00:42:20
Speaker
It wouldn't sell more than a than a core book without right necessarily. But it would sell – that's the calculus. Would it sell more adventure books?
00:42:32
Speaker
Like could you get more out of it because the adventures are included in one book rather than separating the two books and saying, okay, here's a core book. And now here, this adventure book is like, we're going to sell a quarter of them as as we did the core book.
00:42:48
Speaker
It's not even maybe even worth printing it because we can't we can't sell enough of them. if We're taking a bath on the printing of this book because right because we're just not going to sell enough.
00:43:00
Speaker
Whereas you put it in the core book and it becomes worth it. It becomes you know a value added to the core book, but it also is like, if you want this book, you're going to have to hide the whole thing.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah. That's what I mean by that. It's it's really tricky in terms of of the calculus of it. That's fascinating because because i've I've wondered about that where it's like, yes, okay, like if you produce the adventure book separately, yeah there's the risk of return on investment, right? Because you're you're going to do a print run.
00:43:32
Speaker
do they sell as much? Are you going to have the stock just sitting there? you know Because a lot of GMs like to do their own things anyway, or they've paid for the core book. They don't want to have to pay more for an adventure. They'll just make up their own yeah and so on. And then also some people might just want the PDF for adventures.
00:43:47
Speaker
Exactly. They don't need the physical book. i'm i' I'm like that. I lean more toward the digital version because I can copy paste you know and do whatever I need to do for that adventure um or print pages right all over it with my own notes, that kind of thing.
00:44:01
Speaker
But it then then it feels like it's it's a throwaway. It doesn't feel like as it's important. So if you sit there and say the adventure book is just digital, well, people will go, nah, whatever. I just want the regular book.
00:44:14
Speaker
But if there's two books, they'll be like, ah, no, I want i want both. I want everything. Yeah, and that's fine. Yeah, yeah. you know what i mean? Yeah. Like, it it's it's, and, you know, my hope is to do a box set so it includes both books, like 118 cards, couple of battle maps, yeah and a map of the Honklos. That's what I want to do.
00:44:34
Speaker
Which is, you know. that And that feels like a real value. And that becomes a value proposition where it's like, well, if I bought one book or both books. Right. I can get the box set for like, I don't know. $20 more, $30 more. $30 more or something like that. So why not get the box set? there's yeah There's calculus there that we're going to get into when we get into crowdfunding that sometimes you need those lower tiers there to show people that the upper tier is so much more worth it. It's so much more valuable. It's true.
00:45:05
Speaker
I climb that ladder fast. and When you do it well, people will climb that ladder fast. And it's not that we're that's not that we're making things up. it's not It's not that we're trying to you know hoodwink you.
00:45:18
Speaker
It's really the way it is. Well, it is valuable. like yeah when i When I do the math, I'm like, well, you know, because I start off with, let me just get the the one book and I'll buy the stuff after.
00:45:29
Speaker
Oh, but then if I buy the stuff after, like I'm looking at how much it costs individually. yeah And I'm like, that's stupid. If I'm going to buy this stuff anyway, might as well just go ahead and get in on it now. that's what we That's what we want you to think.
00:45:40
Speaker
Exactly. And and that's it's it's it's not a deception. No. it's It's really just, this is more this is more of a value for your money if you get it now and you get everything. Right.
00:45:53
Speaker
Now, for some people, and and this is why the tiers are important, where you know why you don't just say... just give me the full, you know, let just offer the full right box set. Some have tried that. If you don't have that lower tier that that explains what the value is of the higher tier, it's harder to sell it. But also there are people who genuinely are like, i want i want to i want to I want to help this succeed and I want at least a core book.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah. Right? And that's totally legit. And they can't afford, you know, the $150, whatever it is for the full box set or whatever Or they might need a budget.
00:46:27
Speaker
say I'm going to save up for that stuff for later. Right now, i can only get this. I'll save up and I'll buy that stuff later after the crowdfunding has happened. maybe when it opens up, pledge manager whatever it might be.
00:46:40
Speaker
um So i think I think there's value to to still having that. it'ss it's It's making it accessible yeah and to to to people of all budget allowances. All budget levels. yeah And this is, like I say, this is how organization yeah relates to marketing, selling your stuff. yes like It's all interrelated and those factors become more important.
00:47:09
Speaker
When you're starting to look at crowdfunding and stuff like that, how to how to do this, especially the bigger your project gets. Like, HonCluster's a pretty big project. And so I'm just like, well, i have to i've already I've already committed to a certain amount of risk. I have to follow through on that. I can't wimp out now.
00:47:28
Speaker
Right. Yeah. so So as far as an actionable thing, to the point of of whether to include it in the Quirbook, it is and it depends. It is a case of, you know, do you are you doing a print run, for example, or is this going to be a digital only print on demand type of thing?
00:47:45
Speaker
um You know, do you just want to get the setting into people's hands? Or do you want to have the big box, you know experience of, you know, what the cards and the, you know, bennies and whatever else.
00:47:58
Speaker
um All that to say that there's no, there's no wrong. i don't think there's a wrong way to do this. Do, do the calculus, so to speak. It's so hard. And do what makes sense.
00:48:09
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. Well, we'll get into this more. as As a consumer. I don't know. Honestly, like i I'm like, do I want it as a separate? Do I just want it as a PDF? Do I want the book? Do I want it in the core rules?
00:48:21
Speaker
Do I want it like necessary evil with everything's in one book? You know, i don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Anything else? Yeah. i I think, I think to summarize, don't dismiss the importance of organizing and and how, you know, how you're going to present the information that you're writing.
00:48:37
Speaker
The writing is important. Absolutely. Get it out, get it down, get your ideas organized. But then also please pay attention to how it's presented and organized in the final book.
00:48:49
Speaker
It goes back to empathy for the user. Consider what their experience going to be when they're, when they're reading the book and they're trying to get a grasp of what your setting is about, of what they can do with it, you know, what they're going to, what they're going to do with it.
00:49:03
Speaker
So, you know, is that 40 page history critical? Right. Maybe it Maybe it is. maybe it is it it depends, but just, just think about those things.
00:49:16
Speaker
you know Or if you are going to include 40 pages of history, maybe structure it in a way that is you know organized, you know have headings, have sections, have yeah you know you know those guideposts. As the person's flipping through those 40 pages, you know they know what they're what they're about to get into next.
00:49:36
Speaker
yeah It's not just a big wall of text. You we'll get more into that with, with when we get into layout and stuff, which is not far off. I don't think. And it's it's a daunting subject.
00:49:46
Speaker
Like it's, it's yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll get into it. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you all for listening to the designing problems podcast. We want this to be more than a podcast. We want it to be a community. If you'd like to engage directly with us, share your creative triumphs, your roadblocks, or simply interact with a cool group of supportive people, we have our own Discord, sir.
00:50:07
Speaker
Please come by, join the discussion, and share some inspiration. Until next time, keep designing your problems because you're bound to solve few along the way.