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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 414987" data-attributes="member: 177">A very nice piece.&nbsp; However, I think your section labelled (I) is partially based upon a false premise.I recognize that it is a dream of many game writers to &quot;go mainstream&quot; and sell to the general public audience.&nbsp; However, I think it is just that - a dream.&nbsp; As a practical matter, your audience is the initiated.&nbsp; People generally get brought to role-playing by friends, rather than by buying and reading the books.&nbsp; That means the book is not the primary source of information on how to role-play;&nbsp; it is instead a supplement to what they learn from other gamers.That should change how one approaches book design.&nbsp; If you write the thing expecting to initiate many completely new gamers, you'll tend to hamstring it's usefulness to the real audience.&nbsp; To learn how a rulebookshold be written, it pays to look at what's already been published.&nbsp; What's the single best selling RPG book of all time?&nbsp; Is there any doubt that it's the 3E PHB?&nbsp; Does this book have a separate section of &quot;vague waffle&quot; about role-playing in it?Not really.&nbsp; Note that this doesn't mean that the waffle is not present.&nbsp; Instead of putting it in it's own section, they suffuse it throughout the book - there's bits of it in each and every race and class description, the alignment section, and so on.&nbsp; Rather than segregate it out, they put it in amongst the rest of the rules, to be absorbed piecemeal, rather than in a lump out of context.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 414987, member: 177"] A very nice piece. However, I think your section labelled (I) is partially based upon a false premise. I recognize that it is a dream of many game writers to "go mainstream" and sell to the general public audience. However, I think it is just that - a dream. As a practical matter, your audience is the initiated. People generally get brought to role-playing by friends, rather than by buying and reading the books. That means the book is not the primary source of information on how to role-play; it is instead a supplement to what they learn from other gamers. That should change how one approaches book design. If you write the thing expecting to initiate many completely new gamers, you'll tend to hamstring it's usefulness to the real audience. To learn how a rulebookshold be written, it pays to look at what's already been published. What's the single best selling RPG book of all time? Is there any doubt that it's the 3E PHB? Does this book have a separate section of "vague waffle" about role-playing in it? Not really. Note that this doesn't mean that the waffle is not present. Instead of putting it in it's own section, they suffuse it throughout the book - there's bits of it in each and every race and class description, the alignment section, and so on. Rather than segregate it out, they put it in amongst the rest of the rules, to be absorbed piecemeal, rather than in a lump out of context. [/QUOTE]

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