Quote from: Voros;943695A good designer for a short rulebook or setting could be secured for a few thousand dollars, particularly if they're young, hungry and talented. In terms of how to lay it out for intelligibility or ease of access at the table I think the would require the collaboration of the game designer and the graphics designer. Can't see why that couldn't be included in the production costs of a Kickstarter.

This is the direction we went for ZWEIHÄNDER. Our layout artist Milena works for a publishing house in Serbia, but has never lain out a RPG book. Our art director Dejan is working with her side-by-side to shape it up to meet criterium, and I approve the final proofs. We worked the costs into our Kickstarter, so that was a boon.

Not many other companies are able to do this, particularly for 'fandom' projects. And given the monthly recurring cost for InDesign and the learning curve, it's not a very feasible option for many. However, someone who is learned in InDesign could easily 'net some cash, as many designers are eager to find hungry artists.

Quote from: SineNomine;943274but they're the guy with the copy of InDesign and the nominal ability to churn it out, so hey, they're the guy who does it.

This is kind of my situation. I appreciate the post it clarified something for me. I laid out the Majestic Wilderlands the way I did not because while I was short on cash for art, my favorite RPGs to read are the ones with minimalist b/w layout like the traveller supplements.  So when I decided to with the booklet format, I adopted a tweaked version of those books. But your post has made me think things more fully especially the tip on making sure the text doesn't get bent down on the inside margin.

My next batch of stuff is finally coming together and I been playing around with layout. And I just dislike any approach that is art heavy. Especially after being watching Doug Cole's Dungeon Grappling and Dragon Heresy project. I respect his choices but in the end, I not how I like to roll with my stuff. I rather focus on a nice clean text layout.

Again your post points me into the right direction.

Thanks

I edited my post above because I had this as part of the above paragraph.

Quotethat is easy to read, properly referenced, and easy to use.

It was pointed to me by a friend that this could be read as insinuating that Dungeon Grappling and the forthcoming Dungeon Heresy were some kind of art heavy mess. Which is certainly not true for the released Dungeon Grappling and not true for what been done for Dragon Heresy. While my preference for my stuff is for a clean text layout, Douglas Cole has put a lot of sweat into making sure everything easily referenced, well organized with a proper ToC, Index along with a layered PDF.

Dungeon Grappling is worth checking out and include not only rules for several D&D variants (Swords & Wizardry, 5e, Pathfinder, etc) but adventure stuff as well.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;943757...And given the monthly recurring cost for InDesign and the learning curve, it's not a very feasible option for many. However, someone who is learned in InDesign could easily 'net some cash, as many designers are eager to find hungry artists.

I forgot about InDesign's monthly costs now, at my work we bought a whack of educational licenses just before that was implemented as it was going to cost us thousands of dollars a year otherwise.

I like a design with nice borders.  I think we need to differentiate that from designs with shitty borders that just occupy a lot of space on the page for no particular reason.

Quote from: flyingmice;943629Well, a whole lot. Some just will never fly even though they are way better, for reasons out of anyone's control, like different media for different uses. Reference documentation really should be extensively hyperlinked web documents, not page oriented text-with-graphics. Extensive hyperlinking allows you to present a skeletal doc, and lets the reader decide how much detail they want in what area, and able to indorporate motion video as well as static graphics, but that just ain't gonna happen as a commercial product, but people refuse to buy hyperdocuments because they associate them with free web sites, so developers won't develop on that platform.

Generally, what can be done easily is more white space, less columns - columns are hard to read on computers, let alone tablets and phones - fewer but more meaningful and targeted graphics, Side-head call-outs, and displaying informational graphics over pictures. Stay away from busy graphic elements. Keep things clean and emphasize readablility over ornamentation.  This, however, will get your games called ugly and brutal, because they are not what the market has defined as the way things should look. I know. I tried it for years. SineNomine wisely does not buck the system very hard, and his books sell. Very smart. I am the dumb ass.

Saying "They're wrong for doing it - but the market likes it" seems kinda self-contradictory to me.  Considering RPG books are a luxury consumer good - whatever the market wants is sort of inherently the right way to do it.  I think it's because RPG books aren't just reference documents.  Consumers of RPGs don't want the absolute fastest way to find something - they want to enjoy their time looking for it, and occasionally get sucked down the rabbit hold of good art & fluff.  (Though I'll definitely agree that that doesn't let many horribly formatted/organized RPGs off the hook.  A small loss in efficiency to be prettier is worth it - but many of them aren't even gaining anything by their poor design choices.)

Though for RPGs, I'd argue that a decent search engine is even better than a hyperlinked document.  I know that's what I usually use over on PFSRD whenever I'm looking for an obscure Pathfinder rule.  (The PFSRD is one reason I'll probably never switch my D&D style gaming over to 5e unless my table drags me along with them.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;944672I like a design with nice borders.  I think we need to differentiate that from designs with shitty borders that just occupy a lot of space on the page for no particular reason.

What are your criteria for 'nice' borders?