TheRPGSite

I'm finally at a point where I feel like I can sit down and do some work on a book (my first book, incidentally) and I'm trying to sort out what to use to actually write it. I'd prefer to start as I mean to go on, so.

My first thought is "World Anvil" but I don't know how well it works for writing an actual book. I want something that's more functional than a notepad, obviously, but I also don't want to create unnecessary work for myself.

What do y'all use when writing (for those of you who work on actual content books and such)?

I'm a Word Perfect guy, I suppose that goes with my game preferences.

I like actually writing on paper. For software, I like organizing notes in Obsidian. For print, InDesign.

I use XeTeX/LaTeX with RPG packages from CTAN for document construction.   I write using vim.  Spellcheck with aspell and version control everything with a local subversion server.

There are a surprising number of TeX packages for DnD, WoD, OSR, and the like.  I modified the DnD on for 7th Sea Explorers' League.

Blank paper journal for brainstorm sessions.
Note app on the phone for on the go.
Longer writing projects I do on GoogleDocs or LibreOffice.
I really like LibreOffice.
Gdocs is ok-ish, mostly for group projects.

Quote from: JackFS4 on March 20, 2023, 02:47:19 PM
I use XeTeX/LaTeX with RPG packages from CTAN for document construction.   I write using vim.  Spellcheck with aspell and version control everything with a local subversion server.

There are a surprising number of TeX packages for DnD, WoD, OSR, and the like.  I modified the DnD on for 7th Sea Explorers' League.

There are so many packages on th CTAN site that I can't find anything.  Is there a separate repository for game styles like you've listed?

For OSR looking modules there's rpg-module from CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/rpg-module?lang=en

You'll need a version of the Souvenir font to make it look exactly like the old TSR modules.  There are a few places to download it or buy it if you want the original ITC verion.  (https://www.typewolf.com/itc-souvenir)

If you want a more 5e style this github site has a really neat class https://github.com/rpgtex/DND-5e-LaTeX-Template
This is the one I doctored for the Explorers' League to match up with 7th Sea using some of the assets in the explorers' league Word template from drivethrurpg.

Quote from: JackFS4 on March 21, 2023, 09:43:39 AM

For OSR looking modules there's rpg-module from CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/rpg-module?lang=en

You'll need a version of the Souvenir font to make it look exactly like the old TSR modules.  There are a few places to download it or buy it if you want the original ITC verion.  (https://www.typewolf.com/itc-souvenir)

If you want a more 5e style this github site has a really neat class https://github.com/rpgtex/DND-5e-LaTeX-Template
This is the one I doctored for the Explorers' League to match up with 7th Sea using some of the assets in the explorers' league Word template from drivethrurpg.

Thanks!

• gVim (https://www.vim.org/download.php) for quick notes and blog posts (with markdown highlighting)
• gVim + vimwiki (https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki) for local wiki, when it's needed
• Markor (https://github.com/gsantner/markor) or (rarely) DroidVim (https://github.com/shiftrot/droidvim) when I'm limited to my phone
• LibreOffice Writer (https://www.libreoffice.org/) for quick and small releases, like Castle of GPT (https://vladar.itch.io/castle-of-gpt)
• TeXStudio (https://www.texstudio.org/) for more serious and complex stuff, like ItDR (https://vladar4.github.io/itdr/)
• Git (https://git-scm.com/) for version control
• and Google Docs (https://docs.google.com/) to share current homebrew/houserules with the players.

LibreOffice.

I have used a smattering of LaTex, Scribus, and Inkscape, but at this point over 95% of my workflow is LibreOffice.

• NotepadQQ for scratchpad stuff like quick notes or pre-session writeups. I'll often make a quick brain-dumped list of what I expect players to do before a session, or jot notes down for system design.
• Zim for organized, hierarchical notes that have to be more permanent. I also use it for formal checklists and changelogs, such as noting to myself what changes I made and what changes I have yet to make.
• Draw.io for anything that requires a digital diagram, scattered across my hard drive(s) in the individual folder corresponding to where they're normally relevant.
• LibreOffice for all primary book writing, final staging, and other production/publishing matters. I used to use Word, but Microsoft really didn't want it to work on Linux ... so, I quit! LibreOffice is more functional anyways.

M$ Word with grammarly. Nothing fancy. I admire the folks who use the fancy pdf programs. My own stuff looks awful....so plain looking.

We use TextMaker - I forget what, but my wife didn't like something about Libre/Open Office. The SoftMaker Office suite (of which TextMaker is part of) has free and paid versions. We have the free.

TextMaker is nice - I recommend updating the dictionary if you use lots of words outside the normal standard deviation.

I do not like PlanMaker, which is SoftMaker's spreadsheet solution. It is too easy to create sheets that bog down a 24 core, 128GB of memory machine. I also had issues where something would bloat the size of the files - never did figure that out. If you just do simple spreadsheets and don't use references between tabs, it should be fine.