Worlds of Design: What Should Be in an RPG Book?

There are lots of books about playing tabletop role-playing games, but what makes a great book about designing one?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing​

Nonfiction books aren’t what they used to be. My generation saw books as a treasure-trove of information, organized and presented well by an expert. Good books still are, but now they compete with many other information sources online, including self-published works that can flood the market by dominating with search engine optimized (SEO) keywords, such that it can be difficult to distinguish the “chaff from the wheat” when searching for a topic, including tabletop RPG design.

This is good for pro-am designers, but challenging from a quality perspective as the bar is much lower to publish, and thus there’s no guarantee a non-fiction book has been thoroughly researched and edited. Conversely, self-publishing is good for game designers, who now have a real chance at publishing their game and reaching a broader audience. And they’re likely the target audience for a guide to tabletop role-playing game design.

The Target Audience​

I have my own ideas about this topic as I’ve thought about it for some time. Years ago I pitched (to the editors of the “Idiots Guides” books) an introductory game design book. I was told there was “not enough sales velocity” in the topic! That book was for games in general, not specifically RPGs. Then again, they want books that will sell very well.

Things have changed since then, and Dungeons & Dragons is more popular than ever. But to sell well, we must find the target audience in order to offer sufficient sales potential to attract a publisher, and it likely needs to be broader than “RPG experts.” I think the target market has to be the many aspiring designers who will likely sell no more than 500 copies of their game, should they ever publish it, or who will just play their game with their friends. And obviously, people who are sufficiently curious about the topic to read the book.

What’s in the Book?​

A book, just like a game, is subject to a variety of constraints, the same kinds of constraints that affect all books. Answering these questions will help shape any future project touching on this subject.

• Length: One that comes to mind immediately is the length. “TL;DR” (Too Long; Didn’t Read) is a big problem today, as are readers who just skim (a big problem for rules writers) and think that the words that they miss somehow don’t matter. To my mind 100,000 words is the target length for a nonfiction book of this sort, the length of my 2012 book Game Design.
• Gamemaster or Rules Writer: Such a book needs to teach people how to design an RPG, but there are lots of possible questions. For example, the GM has just as much influence on how an RPG works as the author of the rules themselves. So how much of such a book should be directed at GMs rather than at ruleset creators?
• World Creation vs. Rules Creation: World/settings are often part of a role-playing game, but not part of devising mechanisms and writing rules for the game. Advanced D&D took the default fantasy setting (see “Baseline Assumptions of Fantasy RPGs”) . How much should a book address world/setting building?
• Adventure Creation: We also know that good adventures can help make an RPG seem better than it really is, and conversely that poor adventures can do the opposite. How much of such a book should be aimed at adventure (and level) creators?
• Storytelling: Can a book like this teach people how to write stories? There are lots of existing books about writing stories, books written by people who are expert in writing stories. How much should an RPG design book try to compete with all those books?
• Artwork: Artwork is very expensive for a small market book (which this would be). Unless you use out-of-copyright art. Nor will artwork illuminate the topic, insofar as game design is an activity of the thinking mind. On the other hand, some people will not read something that doesn’t include (lots of) art. So how much art should be in such a book?
• Print vs. Electronic: Obviously the book must have an e-book version. Nearly a third of the sales of my book Game Design are ebooks, and if global tariffs impact book sales, electronic sales will be a must. I think a book like this also must have an audio version, because so many people listen to books. Professional audio books, it turns out, are expensive to make. Which is why there is no audio version of my 2012 book.

The Choice is Yours​

Remember, too much material will probably lead to fewer sales. You can’t have everything you want. So what’s really important, and what isn’t?

Your turn: What do YOU think should be in a role-playing game design book?

 

[Koloth]

A discussion of the pro/cons of creating Yet Another Game System vs creating a supplement for an existing game system.
Type of publishing: PDF, hard back, soft back, Print on Demand, etc. plus estimated costs, requirements and such for each option.
Resources for avoiding copyright/trademark entanglements.
Financial expectations - How much money can an author expect to clear after expenses?

 

[Faolyn]

A must: A good index and table of contents, and good headers. While there may be a tl;dr problem, that problem can be significantly reduced, even in a really big book, by making sure sections and topics are clearly labeled. With this, you can have a really big book, even if people don't read it from cover to cover, because it's easy to find what needs to be found.

As for art, you need enough to illustrate the things that need to be shown and to break up the monotony of tons of text (although again, good headers and text design can help that enormously). Character options (particularly heritage) should be illustrated, as should monsters (except maybe normal animals). If you don't want to illustrate every monster, enough should be shown so as to provide a good mental image of what the creatures should feel like.

Like, if you decide you want to have the standard issue D&D chromatic and metallic dragons, you can illustrate one or two of them so as to say: this is what dragons look like in this game. Especially if you go for a nonstandard look, such as dragons that look more like lizards or snakes than like D&D's "scaly mammal" shape. But you don't need to show all of them just so people know that red dragons have horns like this and brass dragons have horns like that.

And you probably don't need to illustrate all the different types of polearms and swords. Unless you have an amazing art budget.

The art is also needed to set the game's mood and can be the difference between Yet Another D&D Clone and an actually unique, or at least interesting setting. Or setting expectation, at least, if you're not presenting an actual setting.

For world creation, yes, that should be in the book (unless the game has a built-in setting). But perhaps instead of lists of "this is what should be in a world," you go with some assumptions and then questions to flesh them out:

Fantasy worlds often have at least one large, old-growth forest, so thick with trees that even at mid-day they are shrouded in darkness. No human loggers have felled these trees. Few have dared to enter these woods, and fewer have survived the journey intact. Why is that?

- It is the home of the fae, whose illusions and bargains ensure that those who enter are beguiled and entrapped; they view any mortal who enters as their property. Sometimes, travelers do emerge, seemingly unscathed, but decades or centuries after they had entered, and with only disjointed memories of their time there. Who is the leader of the fae? What fae treasure in the wood tempts people to enter it? What famous person entered the woods and never emerged?

- The forest is home to beasts and plants that have been granted great size and high intelligence. Some of them are actually incarnated spirits. They hate humans and anyone else who would try to shape the forest, and will only allow hunters who know how to make the proper offerings and thanks after a kill. Are mortals who enter the woods simply killed, or are they changed in some way? Do any of the forest's spirit-beasts ever exist the woods?

And so on. I think this style is better than a more typical "here's how to place a forest" since it comes with its own plot hooks.

 

[overgeeked]

An admonition to look outside the genre (tabletop RPGs), to read and play widely across all game types (video games and boardgames especially) and styles before trying to design something. To take what works no matter the source and adapt it to serve the game you’re designing. Tabletop RPGs seems to be one of the few creative spaces where “read and borrow widely” is not only not encouraged but rather actively discouraged.

 

[dragoner]

Be true to yourself and you will never fall. Ultimately make the game that you want to play, that is the most authentic. However, honestly, how many games are just marketing? I see so many come and go. For years I had posted my growing game as "Sidereal Traveller" as fan content, and then after people convinced me to publish it, I looked and lo and behold, there was a "Sidereal RPG." So I had to find a new name, nevertheless, here we are years later, I am still here, and they are gone. C'est.

 

[CF07]

I just picked up Black Sword Hack by The Merry Mushmen. It's an OSR adaptation of the Black Hack for pulp swords and sorcery in the style of Michael Moorcock, REH, etc. Like the genre it emulates it's written in a lean and mean way. There's tons of info in it and it's a complete game in 110 pages, but it's not wordy at all. Many books are just bloated with verbiage or massive lore dumps. This is the opposite. Of course, you're expected to have read a good bit of the genre and intend to use it for inspiration but they have easy to understand rules that are rich enough to support play, support the genre (e.g., with lots of random tables), and develop characters over the course of a campaign. It's a perfect example of a game that knows exactly what it wants to be and does it.

 

[michaeljpastor]

A must: A good index and table of contents, and good headers. While there may be a tl;dr problem, that problem can be significantly reduced, even in a really big book, by making sure sections and topics are clearly labeled. With this, you can have a really big book, even if people don't read it from cover to cover, because it's easy to find what needs to be found.

As for art, you need enough to illustrate the things that need to be shown and to break up the monotony of tons of text (although again, good headers and text design can help that enormously). Character options (particularly heritage) should be illustrated, as should monsters (except maybe normal animals). If you don't want to illustrate every monster, enough should be shown so as to provide a good mental image of what the creatures should feel like.

Like, if you decide you want to have the standard issue D&D chromatic and metallic dragons, you can illustrate one or two of them so as to say: this is what dragons look like in this game. Especially if you go for a nonstandard look, such as dragons that look more like lizards or snakes than like D&D's "scaly mammal" shape. But you don't need to show all of them just so people know that red dragons have horns like this and brass dragons have horns like that.

And you probably don't need to illustrate all the different types of polearms and swords. Unless you have an amazing art budget.

The art is also needed to set the game's mood and can be the difference between Yet Another D&D Clone and an actually unique, or at least interesting setting. Or setting expectation, at least, if you're not presenting an actual setting.

For world creation, yes, that should be in the book (unless the game has a built-in setting). But perhaps instead of lists of "this is what should be in a world," you go with some assumptions and then questions to flesh them out:

Fantasy worlds often have at least one large, old-growth forest, so thick with trees that even at mid-day they are shrouded in darkness. No human loggers have felled these trees. Few have dared to enter these woods, and fewer have survived the journey intact. Why is that?

- It is the home of the fae, whose illusions and bargains ensure that those who enter are beguiled and entrapped; they view any mortal who enters as their property. Sometimes, travelers do emerge, seemingly unscathed, but decades or centuries after they had entered, and with only disjointed memories of their time there. Who is the leader of the fae? What fae treasure in the wood tempts people to enter it? What famous person entered the woods and never emerged?

- The forest is home to beasts and plants that have been granted great size and high intelligence. Some of them are actually incarnated spirits. They hate humans and anyone else who would try to shape the forest, and will only allow hunters who know how to make the proper offerings and thanks after a kill. Are mortals who enter the woods simply killed, or are they changed in some way? Do any of the forest's spirit-beasts ever exist the woods?

And so on. I think this style is better than a more typical "here's how to place a forest" since it comes with its own plot hooks.

Here to thumbs up indexes and TOC importance.

 

[Theory of Games]

What a game is, how ttrpgs are different from other games and sample victory conditions of ttrpgs.

The purpose and usage of storytelling in ttrpgs.

Identifying what your game is about and how to create innovative rules that highlight your game's focus.