What I DON'T want from your core RPG book.

Grymbok · October 27, 2010, 03:53:10 PM

Quote from: Benoist;412181Let me sign up to the "No Irrelevant Art pieces" newsletter too.

Secon... er, fourthed, I mean. Especially since Cole's explanation, really showed up the issues.

ggroy · October 27, 2010, 03:53:48 PM

Quote from: StormBringer;412168What about the Traveller model? One essentially complete and moderately thin corebook, then supplements for various topics (careers, ship combat, planet building, etc)?

The Traveller model seemed to have worked ok for Traveller.

I don't know how well this model would work for generic fantasy type rpg games like D&D. For example, the Mongoose series of "Slayers Guides", "Quintessential", etc ... d20 books, produced tons of crap. Same story with other d20 companies producing similar titles, like Fast Forward, Fantasy Flight, Alderac, etc ...

Going back further in time, 2E AD&D did something similar which eventually led to TSR's demise.

Paizo seems to be doing something similar for Pathfinder, though not to the excesses of the d20 glut era (ie. Mongoose, etc ...). There's only so much stuff which can be produced with a small development team at Paizo.

Insufficient Metal · October 27, 2010, 04:08:18 PM

I don't want the binding to fall apart. Yes, Unearthed Arcana, I'm still holding that grudge after twenty years.

QuoteLOL @ XIANS

I so want to write this game now. Only not really. But that's pretty funny.

P&P · October 27, 2010, 05:53:40 PM

I'll plead guilty on writing a 400-page rulebook. :\

Silverlion · October 27, 2010, 05:56:35 PM

I'd like the setting to be easy to pitch to players. I'd like the rules to be well organized. I love Starcluster 3, but the organization makes me weep.

Benoist · October 27, 2010, 05:57:43 PM

Quote from: P&P;412207I'll plead guilty on writing a 400-page rulebook. :\

Well you get props because the system was already known to me, though. OSRIC is more of a clarification/compilation with different layout and organization rather than an entirely new work. That makes a big difference, to me.

Tommy Brownell · October 27, 2010, 05:57:49 PM

Quote from: P&P;412207I'll plead guilty on writing a 400-page rulebook. :\

400 page RULEbook or 400 page COREbook. I may be silly, but for me, there's a distinction.

StormBringer · October 27, 2010, 06:00:54 PM

Quote from: Cole;412180Maybe you bring up this point a lot, but it's a good one. I think a good rule of thumb for the value of an illustration is "will a situation ever come up in play where it would be useful to show this picture to one of the players?" The answer is "no" with a disappointing frequency.

The overwhelming majority of RPG illiustrations come down to jerkoffs fighting or a single jerkoff standing there glowing. It is infuriatingly often that you have an important organization in a game and they don't illustrate the uniforms; on the same page they will show you a PC-type douchebag floating in the air. If a picture says a thousand words, please do not use it to say "this is why I'm hot" two hundred times. One cliche that I really dislike is when a game has a chapter on equipment or things to buy and so on, and instead of showing illustrations of what there is to buy, they have a half page illustration of a quizzical looking hero haggling with a merchant.

I often like monster books for the reason that the art is more often useful than average - what do I need? A picture of the monster. If the players meet the monster, I can show them the picture, or describe the monster based on the clear illustration. Where there is a massive failure is if you show a hint of the monster lurking in a shadow grinning, ready to face off with a jerkoff in a bandanna (who is fully rendered, and well lit if not glowing.)

Extra demerits if on top of the monster lurking beyond the confines of the illustration is accompanied by an abstract or metaphorical description. "Like a thing from a nightmare, a beast of teeth and shadows in the shape of a child's malice." That is bullshit. Many descriptions say a monster is "scary" using 30 words, often in systems where monster has a numerical value for its scariness, making even one word devoted to its monstrousness redundant. It might as well take two words and say "fuck you."

This is not really relevant to core books, but it always annoys me when published adventures involve a lot of NPCs then show you pictures of everything BUT the NPCs. Chaosium used to be good about giving you a little headshot of the NPC next to his stats. I wish more companies did this. Apparently the art departments just love to commision pictures of guys just standing there - this is the time to do it.

I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at here.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;412192I don't want the binding to fall apart. Yes, Unearthed Arcana, I'm still holding that grudge after twenty years.

You and me both. Did Uncle Gary intentionally find the shittiest bookbinder out there for this?

skofflox · October 27, 2010, 06:03:33 PM

All of the above...

IMO "Jorune" exemplifies most of the points given in this thread though I did not own it or use the book enough to have the binding fall apart...sad that.

flyingmice · October 27, 2010, 06:20:44 PM

Both my latest games, StarCluster 3 and In Harm's Way: StarCluster, weigh in at over 400 pages. I am unrepentant. Any less would not have done the subjects justice. People want everything in the core book, with examples, and they want it under 200 pages. One of these things has to give! So here's fair warning to those with a hard page limit!

-clash

thedungeondelver · October 27, 2010, 06:24:26 PM

Quote from: StormBringer;412212You and me both. Did Uncle Gary intentionally find the shittiest bookbinder out there for this?

Time to take Stormbringer to school.

Sherman, set the Wayback machine to 1985.

TSR was in the throes of a power struggle; the hated Blume Brothers, whom Gary had ousted, had backdoored their way in under the cloak of fatLorraine fatWilliamsfat. Those cheap bastards were determined to save $.02 per book if it killed them.

Over Gary's objections, the Easley cover books (including Unearthed Arcana) were cheaply bound, as opposed to the school textbook bindings that the original core AD&D books had. So if Gary had his way, our UAs would be as bulletproof as the DMG, etc.

P&P · October 27, 2010, 06:30:07 PM

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;412210400 page RULEbook or 400 page COREbook. I may be silly, but for me, there's a distinction.

400-page EVERYTHINGbook.

~32 pages of character creation, ~70 pages of spells, ~40 pages of player rules, ~38 pages of GM rules, ~120 pages of monsters and ~50 pages of magic items, plus illustrations, contents, index and appendices (character sheet and combined tables).

Too much for some, and I'm fine with that. The "simple retro-clone" crowd are playing LL or S&W.

pspahn · October 27, 2010, 06:43:10 PM

I know I'll get gigged for this but I prefer seeing the male pronoun used. He, him, his. I wont pass on a good game because of this of course, but anything else is jarring enough to take me out of the read. It's just what I'm used to after almost forty years of reading.

Pete

GameDaddy · October 27, 2010, 06:56:55 PM

Quote from: thedungeondelver;412227Over Gary's objections, the Easley cover books (including Unearthed Arcana) were cheaply bound, as opposed to the school textbook bindings that the original core AD&D books had. So if Gary had his way, our UAs would be as bulletproof as the DMG, etc.

There was an issue with 3rd edition as well. I picked up the PHB when it was initially released at GenCon or was it Origins... that was almost a decade ago now so I don't remember it all too well. I do remember shipping back the core books to WOTC for replacements less than two weeks after the show, on account the bindings came apart and pages were falling out.

While we are on the subject Core rulebooks over 32 pages should always contain a detailed Table of Contents as well as a detailed Index covering all the crunchy stuff in the back of the book so's I can quickly lookup specific rules, or equipment or setting detail to keep the game moving at the table.

Caesar Slaad · October 27, 2010, 06:58:42 PM

Anything more than 2 pages of fluff text at the beginning of the book. Yes, this puts me and most White Wolf products forever at odds. But seriously, if I wanted a novel, I'd read a novel.

Gratuitous T&A.

In-world slang in game text.