tips for getting proof readers?

[fireinthedust]

Hey all! I've got an RPG that I've worked on for some time. My home group loves playing, but I haven't had anyone really look at the rules, let alone critically, and give me feedback. I can't complain that my players trust me, and that the game works in play (ie: we play it, they ahve fun, it hasn't been unable to really solve any in-game issues, and the peices work together); in fact, this is a wonderful blessing, great news, and what have you. It's just... well, I get the feeling no one but me reads the rules. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it really well in the manuscript, so that if people who don't know *me* play it, they'd be able to "get" the rules. Make sense?

So: anyone have tips for getting people to read an RPG rule set?

 

[Dioltach]

I'm not sure a proofreader is what you want. I do proofreading, and I charge a lot for it -- around 4 dollar cents a word. For that money I make sure that the text is free of grammatical and typographical errors, and I'll point out any internal inconsistencies I come across and anything that doesn't seem logical. What I don't do, though, is edit the text as an expert second opinion. Two separate jobs, as far as I'm concerned, with two separate skill sets.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I have pretty much the same question as [MENTION=21843]Dioltach[/MENTION]: what do you really want? Do you'd like to hear a second opinion, do you want your game edited, or does checking for errors suffice? And what do you want to do with your game? Sell it to a publishing company, publish it yourself, distribute it freely or just to your players?

 

[fireinthedust]

more like have people look at the rules. I'm not worried about grammar so much, but rather the math of the game; and hopefully feedback on whether the concepts of the rules were communicated in a clear way. I can do grammar, I can do math, I just can't read my work as if I'm unaware of the rules.

 

[Stormonu]

Well, the one thing I'd suggest is don't run the game yourself, get someone else to run it and listen in. When you have someone else run it, they very well may have to consult the rulebook. Don't blurt out the answer; let them find it and interpret it.

That's about all I feel I can say. You have to put the game in someone else's hands to find out if it is really working or you're just helping it along because you know it so well.

 

[smartmonkey]

A friend of mine is lucky enough at a print shop, and was able to print up a dozen dozen ashcan versions of his game. Fortunately, it's an indie game, so it was all of about 25 pages long. When we went to PAX last year he handed them out like candy to just about anybody we met that was remotely interested with the intent of getting some distributed blind playtesting. While a lot of folk never got in touch, about 25% gave some pretty great feedback and were enthusiatic about the game in general. Doing the same with a PDF might work, but I find that a physical copy drives more interest than an email attachment.

 

[Bagpuss]

Get a extended playtest going. Probably start running at conventions and perhaps give copies to people that play.

 

[smartmonkey]

Get a extended playtest going. Probably start running at conventions and perhaps give copies to people that play.

It's been mentioned upthread, but do make sure that your convention playtests aren't run by you or your personal playtest group. It's too easy to explain the rules rather than seeing how well the game runs straight out of the book.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Well, the one thing I'd suggest is don't run the game yourself, get someone else to run it and listen in. When you have someone else run it, they very well may have to consult the rulebook. Don't blurt out the answer; let them find it and interpret it.

This.

I've house ruled a couple of game so extensively that they have become a different game altogether. When I wanted to find out if the house rules were actually making the game run the way that I wanted it to run, I handed the DM reigns over to someone else.

When someone else prepares and runs a game based on your system, then you'll be able to see if they work the way that you think they work.