Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 9650405" data-attributes="member: 6915329">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.</blockquote>

Verification