Consume, Engage, Cherish

[FireLance]

I feel like there is something missing from Consume, Engage, Cherish.

Actually, I would throw in a fourth: Inspire. Some might lump that under Engage, but I feel that it's quite distinct. Engage, defined as creating an experience or a memory, is either present-focused (you enjoy it while it's happening to you) or past-focused (you enjoy remembering it). Inspire is future-focused. It makes you want to do something - and in the case of an RPG, it could be to play a character or to run a game.

Inspire should be the key characteristic of a core book, IMO, and with enough Consume to ensure that the inspiration part comes across loud and clear.

 

[Mercule]

I picked Engage. I don't think it's possible to get to Cherish without going through Engage. Engage are what get us to the events that make us willing to drop $115 on a reprint of 35 year old text that we've already got two copies of.

Can you design a product for Cherish? Yeah, you can. My Colossal Red Dragon was Cherish. Know what I do with it? Dust it twice a year. Same thing I do with my 1e books.

Know what I do with the shelves upon shelves of 2e books I had? Nothing. I sold 'em to a secondhand store to buy some 3e books. The multiple shelves of 3e books? Yup. Recycled for 4e. Guess what I'm going to do with my 4e books? You can't design a game for Cherish. It either happens because Engaged leveled up or it doesn't happen at all.

As for Consume, give me Gygaxian prose any day. Though, I'd appreciate rules organization, I want a living book, not a dictionary.

As a final note, I don't think that computer-based rules or a succession of changes falsely claimed as "errata" can share the same space with either Engage or Cherish. If you go that route, you've already chosen to kill engagement (and inspiration, IMO).

 

[RangerWickett]

You have to be beautiful and useful, and make it look effortless.

The art needs to both explain and inspire. What does a paladin look like, and why is being one interesting?

Grace notes are important. Sure, the wizard class description should include a basic overview of what a wizard is, outside of the mechanics. But you need to start with a promise and end with a resolution. Tell a story with the class description, but in the smallest pieces possible -- a tag-line that poses a question of why someone would devote his life to magic, a comment that the road is challenging and many go mad or turn to evil, and a conclusion that shows that heroism is possible.

Then have an illustration with a bad-ass wizard duel.

Then make the game mechanics easy to understand. Write rules that capture the story presented in the introduction, and you won't need to bloat the mechanics with extra description. And for God's sake, if you're going to do anything like powers (which I was fine with), make sure they're prettier. Tons of green, red, and gray bars are so bland.

Look at Magic card borders. They're just 6 different colors, but they have texture.

 

[Hussar]

There's another point to think about with "Engage" as well. At what level do you want to engage the reader?

Compare the 1e and 4e DMG's. Both engage the reader pretty well - they're both damn fine GM's guides - but they engage at totally different levels. The 1e DMG engages very much from an in-play level. The tone and the material is focused on the in-game reality and how to present a coherent campaign.

The 4e DMG engages at a totally different level. It's a much higher level view. It's not so much focused about what's going on in game, but rather, the view from behind the curtain. WHY do we do this? What are the motivations? Is X a good idea or not? It's a strongly meta-game level of engagement.

I'm not explaining this very well I think, but, I hope I'm getting my point across. Reading the 1e DMG is like playing a game. Reading a 4e DMG is like reading about playing a game. Does that make sense? Sort of the difference between a 1st person view of something and a 3rd person view with an omniscient narrator that constantly breaks the 4th wall.