NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 8277116" data-attributes="member: 72555">I looked at the PDF.  You waste the first part of the document on arguing for your position philosophically.You don't start on actual content until page 5.  That is a bad sign.Your document is a PDF, but it is a stream of text.  Why is it a PDF at all?You inject editorial content that again is a waste of words.  "My personal favorite race", then a passive voice (again, needlessly wordy) about the name.  When "As an example, take a half-elf named Brom" would have a much higher signal to noise ratio.Present rule changes first and foremost, then have asides (clearly marked) describing justification, rather than pages and pages of justification and hidden rule changes peppered throughout.And it keeps on happening.The following combinations of skill bonuses are simply a starting point, to show how this system works. Step forward with actual rule changes, you can mention "these can be tweaked" after you present them."Rogue:+3 Stealth, +2 Acrobatics, +1 Deception (Arcana if AT)"So at level 3 when a Rogue becomes an AT, they lose +1 deception and get +1 arcana?...As a general rule, a feature that does nothing besides add a +1 bonuses to a subset of d20 rolls shouldn't exist.  Tracking them is a pain.I have no idea if the half elf still get skill proficiencies or not.  You spend 5 times as much justifying your rule change as explaining it, again.Explain the rules, justify in sidebars (or other subsections).Ok, that is burying the lede.  Page 7 of a 14 page document and you start mentioning "oh ya, Proficiency modifiers work completely differently".At this point, take what you wrote, throw it away and rewrite it.To write the new version, I'd start with 3 outline drafts.  These are drafts, not final product.1. Make at least one sample level 1 and level 5 character with the new rules.  This is to make sure you, personally, understand them.  Highlight, in your draft, what is different.2. Write out a description of character creation.  Walk through the existing rules.  For the first draft, note any changes.  For the second draft, describe everything that changed.  For the third draft, walk through actually doing it, step by step, double checking that you caught everything.  Produce the resulting character; no shortcuts!  Actually follow the steps as written.  Compare it with the sample character you made before, did you miss anything?3. Now, sit down and write out a description of the rules changes.  Attached to each, include a sidebar (clearly marked) talking about why you made that decision.For any game term you changed, search the D&D rules for reference to that game term.  Collect them all in a helper document, including quotes and where you got it from.Did you cover how that specific mention changes?  Note everything you missed.Rewrite the rules changes, try to make it even shorter but cover more cases.  Repeat the check, did you cover everything in the rules?---Now, circle around and write out a rule-change-first version of your revision of the game.  You can include one motivating paragraph at the front, saying what you are doing.  Each section can have a single paragraph of justification after the rules changes, and the justification should be offset and skippable.</blockquote>

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