Comments

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  Savannah

  Posts: 188 May 2012

  What is your goal here? You mentioned on the Frothing Mug that it was for new players -- well, I love to read and I'd balk at being asked to read 54 pages! Especially since it's way over-worded; I stopped reading carefully in the second paragraph and stopped reading at all in the second page because it takes you a paragraph to give me a couple of sentences' worth of information. I get that you want to make it written by someone in the world, but a sage should be able to put together a much more concise report, and right now it just reads as being gimmicky for the sake of being gimmicky. Edit extensively and you can solve both problems. I'm not saying you need to strip out all fluff, but too much fluffiness is annoying.
  
  If I were writing an introduction to the world for new players, I would write two things: a 1-2 page really brief introduction that only touches on the most important things (this is for everyone to read) and a no-more-than-20 page more in-depth introduction that fleshes out what was in the first document and adds other, less important but still useful, information (this is for anyone who wants to know more to read) -- you have a wiki, so it's not like your document needs to include everything! Working with page limits really makes you figure out what's important to say and how to say it in an interesting yet concise manner.
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  GamingMegaverse

  Posts: 3,001 May 2012 edited May 2012

  Well said Savannah, as usual. There are very few people who will read more than a single page introduction- this is why most of the popular campaigns, and COTM winners have summary pages for their start pages and main wiki pages. I also did not get through the document- not saying get rid of it. You should do a summary, and put the massive adobe page for later. It is good, but wow, lots of stuff! I would make some of the same suggestions for your site- it is really, really text heavy.
  killervp
  "A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
  "Duskreign's First Ever COTM":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
  "OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/

  Post edited by GamingMegaverse on May 2012

  Just trying to help out.

  
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  Idabrius

  Posts: 52 May 2012

  Well, the purpose of the Adventurer's Guide was to present a setting guide that had general player information, in much the same way that the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide or the Player's Guide to the Dragonlance campaign were assembled.
  
  I'm not sure if it is even worthwhile to write a one or two page document, as I could simply explain that much information in a few seconds; likewise, any player worth their salt could go and absorb more than that on the 10th Age wiki in a few moments rather than read a bullet-pointed list of facts about the setting. I didn't mean for it to be a cheat-sheet, but rather a real guide to the setting in a general way.
  
  Still, thank you for your feedback, and I will have to reconsider the viability of the project.
• 

  ALT_F4

  Posts: 1 May 2012

  A one to two page introduction? Off the top of my head, I can think of only a few games that had two pages... Battleship and maybe Monopoly. Maybe some other board games, it's been a while since I've played any. However, I have never read any new setting that fit into two pages. Every time TSR, and then WotC, put out a location supplement, it far exceeded twenty pages. Some of them spanned several books, in fact. I would say that any setting that could be condensed into a one or two page list wouldn't be worth playing in.
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  Ilarion

  Posts: 2 May 2012

  ALT_F4: That's not true at all; a lot of very in-depth books come with little blurbs, it is just that one-page descriptions, summaries, and tantalizing tastes of what lies within aren't necessarily what you get first thing - they're back cover material.
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  Savannah

  Posts: 188 May 2012

  You know how movie blurbs and the back of books make you excited and make you want to watch/read the material? That's what a 1-2 page document is for. Give the players a taste of the world and maybe spark an idea of what sort of character they might want to play, then reel them in with the longer document.
  
  I guess I don't know what your goal is, then, Idabrius. If you've got a wiki, why do you need a full players' guide? I was assuming your goal was to give the players a shorter document so that they could get a brief idea of what the world is like (sufficient to build a character that fits in) and then pull them to the site to read more if they're interested.
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  Idabrius

  Posts: 52 May 2012

  Well, the wiki is a semi-organized mass of hundreds and hundreds of pages, each with between 1-20 pages of actual text on it. It has no schema, organization, or thematic structure and it tends to overwhelm most people when I link it and say "Get acquainted." The Player's Guide, however, has a logical structure, and will eventually have art and layout as well; it's the first in a line of books that I'm putting together based on the setting in order to have full, complete, and comprehensive guides a-la Golden Age TSR.
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  Savannah

  Posts: 188 May 2012 edited May 2012

  Okay, so this guide should completely eliminate the need for the wiki? In that case, make sure your players know they're getting a book! Most DMs don't hand out books for their settings, and I can tell you that I would be rather put off by being handed a book and told to read it to "get acquainted" with the setting -- I love my games, but I don't have time to just sit down and read a book without a little warning (and, quite frankly, I'd be a little worried that any DM who's handing out a book has a "this is my perfect campaign, I've been planning this for years and y--no! You can't do that, it would ruin my perfect campaign!" thing going on).
  
  My point about the unnecessary wordiness still stands, though. If this is a book, it _must_ be easy to read, and right now it's hard to get through all the prose to get at the ideas.
  
  Edit: One thing to think about if you want to go with a narrator from the world -- I'm not getting a sense of personality and who this person is (aside from verbose). It might make it easier to read if you get a good handle on the personality of the NPC writing this and write from that perspective.

  Post edited by Savannah on May 2012
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  Ilarion

  Posts: 2 May 2012

  Well, at fifty-four pages it is like, a weight pamphlet, but before you attempt to level any more PERSONAL criticisms, let's be clear that it isn't a campaign anymore than Greyhawk or Planescape are campaigns - it is a setting. It isn't meant for one man's use alone, but rather it is an attempt, first, to help get players into a very broad setting with a lot of options for them, and then later on to release it in a form that would make it possible for other DMs to use the accumulated works for their own.
  Wordiness might be a valid issue, though.
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  Savannah

  Posts: 188 May 2012 edited May 2012

  I apologize, I was using the term "book" because you stated it was going to be a book. I referred to it as a campaign as I was assuming you weren't going to be writing a campaign setting without planning to run a campaign.
  
  I do not intend any personal criticisms, I was merely trying to explain what my reaction, as a player, would be to being handed any significant documentation for a world. You can take it or leave it, but I find it helpful to ask other people what their take as a player would be for any major projects I'm working on as a DM, since I personally find I can lose track of what players want/need when I get excited about a project. If what you're looking for is feedback on the document as a standalone campaign setting with no campaign nor players assumed to be attached, then I apologize for misunderstanding your objective and will recalibrate my assumptions to provide more useful feedback.

  Post edited by Savannah on May 2012
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  GamingMegaverse

  Posts: 3,001 May 2012 edited May 2012

  Ilarion and Idabrius- Savannah and myself both took your intro, and then your book statement, literally- you said this was a digest of your wiki- not a book. Then later you said it was a book, like a players guide. 2 completely different things, and 2 different approaches. I apologize as well.
  I also agree that most new players are hesitant to read a short story, or short book, to get involved.
  Just my 2 cents, and wanted to let you know that Savannah was not the only one confused.
  killervp
  "A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
  "Duskreign's First Ever COTM":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
  "OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/

  Post edited by GamingMegaverse on May 2012

  Just trying to help out.