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How (not) to Write a Rulebook (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by gary_d_pryor@lemmy.world to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

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Today's blogpost is all about my flailing to refine and streamline my design docs into a coherent rulebook. I read enough of the d**** things you'd think I would know how to compile and order one. I understand the basics and where I went wrong, and have roadmap, but compared to design development is long and grindy.

Would really love if other folks have input on what makes a rulebook good? what have people done to make their projects easy to get? Which books are your favorite examples? What are your biggest hurdles?

For me I intellectually understand what needs to be there, but actually getting the writing clean and succinct to read is a challenge. I see a lot of DiY books for of background art and such trying to emulate a AAA book but they don't have the text and order of content hammered out 1st, I didn't want to move to layouts until my text was set, but maybe that's a mistake? Curious to see what people think.

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[–] GataZapata@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

All I can say is: I've been trained for academic writing for like 8 years now, and I still struggle to do it without a good template. Formatting in a text editor is it's very own skillset IMO.

Most important is to make a skeleton, a loose progression of stuff like
1.X
2.Y
2.1 Z

And look at ONLY that for a while and think 'what do I want to reach each chapter? Why is this chapter here and not earlier/after? What needs to be said before this can make sense, and is the flow of it logical?
what will be the next question on my readers mind, and does this Adress it?'

Also think about who you are writing for. What do you need to explain, and what can you expect as given etc

[–] Khrux@ttrpg.network 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've only ever worked on personal splatbooks and although it's not a resource for making better content, the biggest resource I've learnt from is the difference between Fate Core and Fate Condensed. Fate core is 5 times the legnth of condensed and practically unlearnable from the book alone, fate condensed changes nearly no rules and you can learn in an afternoon without issue. Both have free SRDs online to actually peruse and I'd love a resource that explored how the creation of Fate Condensed went. But even without that, it's a fantastic study in streamlining and blocking sections.

[–] gary_d_pryor@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

That's a neat example. I bounced off of teaching myself fate from the big book because it didn't seem worth the trouble, I guess I should have looked at the little one.

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