Form and Format

 I’ve been thinking a lot about book formats recently. For many, many years, I’ve been wanting to scale down, and do something smaller. I even made a video about it 10 years ago (back before the rebrand and with the old logo). 

There was something about those first Traveller ‘little black books’ - the simplicity of design, and how you could afford to get a new book on what was basically ‘pocket money’ costs. And they were just cool. Probably more complicated rules-wise than I’m used to now, but Traveller has always stuck with me. It was the first RPG I ever played (as covered in a very old blogpost here) and those little books seem to have been seared onto my mind. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love those big core rulebooks, with their glossy pages, colour artwork, and robust hardcovers, but as I get older and lazier, the prospect of something smaller and easier is certainly appealing. 

Hip to Be Square

Of course, the smaller little booklets were not the only thing to constantly bug my mind when it comes to book formats. There is also the lovely square book, a fascination that started with the complete opposite of Traveller’s ‘little black books’ - Nobilis’ ‘big white book’. 

Cover for 2nd Edition Nobilis - aka “the big white book”

Again, I wrote a blogpost about square books here, but before I even started working on the game system for WILD: Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming, I knew I wanted the book to be square. Nobilis had sown a seed of interest in square books, and I couldn’t shake it. The idea that you could have text as normal, but have space in the extra-wide margins (thanks to the square format) for additional guidance and notes… 

Example of page layout from Nobilis, showing the two column layout in the centre of the page, but space in the wide margins on either side for additional notes.

Awesome. Special thanks should go out to Stoo at we_evolve who published WILD for me and ran the Kickstarter, for letting me stick to my guns and go with a square book. (Click that link and you can buy WILD, Aegean, Action Potential, and more…)

Square books are no longer a weird or strange thing – the award winning and incredibly popular Slugblaster RPG is square, as is the recent Sleepy Hollow RPG that uses the Year Zero Engine. 

But I’m getting off track. We were talking about smaller books…

The Mothership Lode

With the recent resurgence of smaller ‘zine’ sized RPGs, it was inevitable that someone would also be inspired by the ‘little black books’ of Traveller, and the most popular of those would be Mothership. 

Same A5 format, same sized box, with a heap of books within - player’s guide, GM’s book, one filled with creatures, one for spaceships, and an adventure… and that’s not all (as Brian Butterfield would say). It also includes dice, a GM screen, a map, and standees. 

So much damn stuff in there! Stoo bought a copy at Tabletop Scotland and I read through the contents with my mind racing about how this was the future. This was what I wanted to do – “remember you always wanted to do Traveller sized books” said the voice in my head. Notebooks were filled, so many ideas for little books in a new range that I can’t really produce at the moment. 

But, I’m planning for the future…

All of this planning has been going in a notebook. A sketchbook actually as I’m doodling artwork at the same time as working on the game and the system. However, the sketchbook is one of my new favourite pieces of stationery, and it’s making me think… or rather, rethink…

A5 Sketchbook next to a copy of original Traveller (book 1)

I mean, that photo makes it look like it’s bigger than Traveller, but it isn’t (it’s just that the sketchbook is chunky - 92 pages of 140gsm loveliness. I may have got a little hooked on buying them from Hobbycraft. They were in a multi buy at the time, so don’t give me that look. 

But it did get me thinking - the idea I have, it would work nicely with a small hardback that size, with smaller booklets like Traveller as supplements or player only guides (the bigger book would be for the GM). You could even bind all the little supplements together to make another hardcover…

…and then along came the Shadowdark RPG Kickstarter. Which does just that. Over a million $1 and it collects six ‘zine’ sized supplements into a book the same size as the core book. 

Well, it’s all a while off. I can’t do anything about it at the moment, but I can make notes and plan for the future.

So what format RPG books do you like at the moment? Are you a traditional D&D hardback sized fan, or are you really into your zines at the moment? 

Comment if you like, I’d be interested to hear what you think.

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Meanwhile, if you get chance, check out this Kickstarter by one of my former work colleagues, Emmet Byrne. He’s put together a rather gorgeous looking 5e setting based on traditional Irish mythology. Looks glorious!! 

Beyond the Woods 5e

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Until next time, stay safe and stay multi-classy.

#RPGaDAY2023 - DAY TWENTY-THREE: COOLEST looking RPG product / book

 Day Twenty-Three of #RPGaDAY2023, and we're asking about the coolest looking RPG / book. Back when #RPGaDAY launched I took the opportunity to talk about square books. I love square books. There is just something cool about them.

I talked about MouseGuard, and Nobilis, both of which were produced as really cool square books. And I talked about WILD, how I hoped to produce it as a square book too - and thanks to Stoo it was!

There have certainly been a load of cool looking books since that video. Tales from the Loop stands out as being particularly gorgeous. And the graphic design of Flabbergasted is really stunning, but the graphics for the forthcoming Triangle Agency really is stunning. 

#RPGaDAY2023 - DAY SEVEN: SMARTEST RPG you've played

And we're on to Day Seven of this year's #RPGaDAY, and the first time around the question was a little different, asking about the most 'intellectual' RPG you own. 

Rather than be all high-brow, we've tweaked it a little to ask about the SMARTEST RPG you've played. 

Answering that one's a tricky one. There are some really clever games out there - one that I always mention is the brilliant Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG by CJ Carella for Eden Studios. It's nothing too complex, but it's a work of genius. You can't stake a vampire in the game until their health has been reduced to a certain level. Seems simple, but it means you have to have a fight with the vampire, wear them down a bit, before you can dust them. 

That simple rule means that you actually feel like you're in an episode of the series. You're kicking and punching vampires, then staking them, just like Buffy does!

Very smart.

#RPGaDAY 2019 - DAY 19: SCARY & DAY 20: NOBLE

Ardent Zungar - whoever they are. They look a bit cross...

Day Nineteen of #RPGaDAY 2019 was the word SCARY, and I completely failed to write this one up in time. Mostly as I was doing something pretty SCARY and went for a job interview. However, it was (thankfully) nowhere near as scary as I thought it could have been, and far less scary than what I'd originally planned to write for today's entry - which was about Fria Ligan's ALIEN RPG.

I know there was an ALIENS RPG many, many moons ago, but I always wondered why no one had attempted a new version of an RPG in the ALIEN universe. Luckily, it fell into the hands of Fria Ligan, the force behind the awesome Tales from the Loop, and we recently played the introductory adventure you get when you preorder the game.

And it was freakin' tense. We'd stumbled across a ship, adrift for decades, and went aboard hoping to unravel the mystery (and gain some tasty salvage).

Needless to say, no one survived. None of us - alien, infected, human or synthetic. All of us toast. Two whole ship crews went out after three incredibly tense sessions with arms being ripped off, ships piling into each other, and plenty of running down corridors with those flashing yellow lights and the computer alert repeating "WARNING: SELF DESTRUCT ACTIVATED"...

Fab. Looking forward to seeing how it'll work in campaign play as the xenomorphs are TOUGH. I know they are in the movies, but they're one hit killers. Nasty! Also want to see how the stealthy sneaking around rules work that Fria Ligan were talking about on the podcasts.

Awesome stuff.

And that brings me up to today.

Another one of those custom Dr Who Micro Universe figures I made, this time the Donna Noble "Runaway Bride" mini,
custom Autocratik dice made by www.chimericdesigns.co.uk

Day Twenty of #RPGaDAY is the word NOBLE. The only thing I could think of talking about when it comes to nobility was my go-to character class in AD&D, which was Paladins. But as I'm sat here writing this one, I thought maybe this is a good chance to mention Nobilis again. I know, it's a slightly off-centre interpretation for the day's word, but I did want to say how much I love the 2nd Edition of Nobilis.

The cover of 2nd Edition Nobilis - The "Great White Book" as it's known.

It's so pretty, a marvel of graphic design and layout, and one of the first narrative-driven games I've owned. The sad thing (or should that be scary, to tie in with day 19's post) is that I've still never played it.

It is one of the benchmarks of RPG design and production in my opinion, and something I can only aspire to achieve with WILD.

#RPGaDAY2018 - DAY 2: What is the first thing you look for in an RPG?

Day Two of #RPGaDAY2018 asks "What is the first thing you look for in an RPG?"

Back when I was young and just getting into the hobby, the first thing I'd look at in an RPG would be the character sheet. It sounds shallow, but you could tell a lot about a game from the character sheet. Attributes, skills, whether it used Hit Points, and you could get a pretty good idea about how complicated it was.

The first game I ever bought was Star Frontiers, way back in the early 1980s. Possibly one of the simplest character sheets ever, and we ended up playing a heck of a lot of Star Frontiers. Back then I wasn't so fussed about complexity, or how the rules worked. If it was complicated, we'd sort it - and possibly just wing it. We were more interested in the game, the setting and how cool it was. And let's face it, Star Frontiers was pretty cool. Space fantasy that would tide us over until a real Star Wars game would come out.

I guess this is a roundabout way of saying that back in the 80s I didn't care about how complicated a game was, as long is it was cool.

Now, it's a different matter.

If the game looks cool, I'll still give it a look, but the first thing I look for is how complicated it is. At my ancient age I don't have the time, the inclination, or the attention span to dedicate hours to working out ranges, detailed encumbrances, the effects of dehydration on the average elf when left waiting in a car park. I want cinematic action and drama.

I know my chances of survival of jumping from the cockpit of a destroyed spacecraft entering atmosphere is almost zero, but I want to be able to ride that flaming carcass of a ship down, jumping at the last minute to land on the enemy vehicle and continue my struggle to free the oppressed planet from the grip of the evil empire. I want to be able to do that without looking at hundreds of tables trying to add "realism" to the game.

Again, this usually boils down to looking at the character sheet.

Numenera character sheet for 1st Edition

Above is the Numenera character sheet. It's a thing of beauty. At first glance it looks pretty complicated, but if you look closely it's really just the absolute basics and shows off the simplicity at the core of the Cypher system - 3 Attributes, 15 slots for Skills, and a few special abilities and cyphers. Pretty easy.

Must admit, I haven't played it yet, but it looks pretty simple though I know things can get more complex with that system (I'm looking at you Invisible Sun)...

Of course, I've been fooled by that in the past. Just look at the simplicity of the Nobilis character sheet below...

Nobilis 2nd Edition Character sheet from the "Big White Book"

Super simple, but I'm still trying to get to grips with how the game works... after fifteen-plus years of reading it. (That said, Nobilis (2nd edition) is everything I hope to produce in a game...)

So there you go. To "skip to the end" as they say in Spaced, I usually look for...
(a) a cool game - the concept, the art and the design has to make me want to open the book first,
(b) simplicity - if it's too complicated for my simple brain I will probably just put it back, and
(c) look at the character sheet - to gauge just how complex it is quickly, I'll just look at the character sheet.

That's it for day two! Hope to see you again tomorrow!

Until then, stay multi-classy!

Hip to Be Square

I hope you'll endulge me this post, as I'm going to talk about a weird obsession I have - square books.

Weird huh? When I first decided to go it alone and start work on WILD, thinking "I want to make my own RPG that's about dreamsharing", before I'd even considered what kind of system I was going to use, I'd already determined that the book was going to be square.

Nobilis 2nd Edition - the "Great White Book"
Look at it. Isn't it glorious!!

I love square books. There aren't too many of them in the gaming hobby, from the amazing Mouse Guard, to the holy grail of RPGs - 2nd edition Nobilis. There's just something stylish and cool about them. 

Page example from 2nd Ed Nobilis
Two column with two quarter column asides.

From a design point of view, you get the wonders of having a two column layout just as you would with a traditionally shaped book, but you get a cool half-column that you can litter with sidebars, notes and other info, or just keep it clean. 

Sorry, the old-school graphic designer in me was clawing its way to the surface for a moment there.

I'd always imagined WILD to be my Nobilis - but I knew I wasn't smart or prolific enough to produce something as vast or wordy. In my head, it was going to be about the size of Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars RPG (Saga edition). The same width as a normal RPG book, but shorter to make it square. Cool! Also, it'd mean you wouldn't give yourself a hernia picking it up, as Nobilis 2nd edition has a tendency of doing if you approach it wrong.

Star Wars Saga Edition
Force Unleashed supplement

Not only had I a clear image in my head of how big the book would be, but I also knew what I wanted on the cover. I wanted it to be reversible, with a person on the front (originally intended to be the lead character for the WILD spin off fiction novels) wearing the dreamshare device, and her hair flowing out behind to become part of a swirling image of the many dreamworlds. The back cover would be the same image, only with her father hooked up to the machine (creator of the device, hoping to wake her from her coma-like persistent hypersomnia). You could approach the book both ways, with the back being the reference for the cards.

I'd even had the idea that you could put the whole thing in a slipcase that would also contain the Tarot cards, so on the shelf it'd be the same height as the rest of your books...

But I've been having a lot of ideas over the last couple of weeks. A LOT. And the more I think about it, the more that could work with WILD. No longer is it just a one-shot deal. A one-trick pony. It could work as a line. 

Rough design for the corebook cover -
please excuse the art, it's very small (10cm x 10cm)
and I haven't drawn in years!

With a book that details nightmares and night terrors - turning the game into more of a horror game.

Rough supplement cover design -
again, only 10cm x 10cm, sorry.

Another book that looks at other ways of accessing the dreamspace, some being able to do it without technology either by meditation, ritual or psychic ability. Organisations and groups using the dreamspace to manipulate others, and even control or eliminate elements of the waking world.

Supplement cover rough number three!

Maybe a book on the real world. The waking world. How does the technology impact on the real world and the dangers involved. Does society accept the tech, or does it get out of control and lead to a disaster like the flash-forward episodes of Joss Whedon's underrated series "Dollhouse"?

Supplement cover rough number four!

A book on the collective unconscious. The raw dreamspace that hides at the heart of the dreaming, where creatures of myth and archetypes lurk, hoping to ride their way to the surface, to break into the real world.

And, before I knew it, I was doodling the covers again. Rethinking the design, and realising that the covers could all join together, as well as be reversible. If only I knew how to draw...

How the covers could fit together. The fifth cover, of the collective unconscious
could lay over the middle, changing the dreamspace to a new image.

Who knows. I need to finish the first one to begin with. But we can dream, can't we?

"But what about the rest of it?"

#RPGaDAY 2016 - Days 19-24: Previously, on #RPGaDAY

There was a good reason why I didn't try to run #RPGaDAY this year, and it's a good job I did. Things got on top of me, dayjob, writing, and more... so I'm a little behind. That, and there are some questions this year that I really have no idea how to answer. Let's try to catch up ready for the final week...

Day Nineteen: Best Way to Learn a New Game?

When I first started playing RPGs, I played in other people's games. First of all it was JR's Traveller game, then Pete's AD&D and Runequest. The advantage there was that I was joining a game that other players already knew how to play, and they could guide me, help me with the rolls, and bring me up to speed.

The first game I bought to run was Star Frontiers, and by then I was more game savvy and after reading the rules multiple times before trying to run the game. But nothing actually beats playing. Playing gives you a real sense of how everything works.

I'd really like to experience FATE and how it works in play. It's all fine reading the rules over and over, but I haven't experienced it in action to see it actually underway. I think the only solution to that is watching "actual play" videos on Youtube.

Day Twenty: Most Challenging but Rewarding system you learned?

I guess the most challenging game has to be Nobilis. It really took a while to grok what was actually going on in the game, and it sat on the shelf for ages with me taking the "great white book" off of the shelf every so often to give it another try before giving up again with a resounding "I have no idea what's going on..."

Then I read the examples of play, and everything really clicked into place. While I still haven't played Nobilis, the realisation of how it works was excellent and really opened my eyes to a different way of playing games. One day, I hope to experience it in action.

Day Twenty-One: Funniest Misinterpretation of a Rule in Your Group?

That one I have no answer for. I don't think we've ever misinterpreted a rule and had a funny result. We've usually just realised that something wasn't making sense and ignored it, getting on with the game.

Day Twenty-Two: Supposedly Random events that keep recurring, and
Day Twenty-Three: Share one of your best "worst luck" stories.

I've merged these ones together, because the most recent "worst luck" story is mostly due to a "supposedly random event". We tried our hand at The One Ring recently, so that our usual Star Wars GM could get up to speed for running it at GenCon. However, I think were was something wrong with my set of dice for the game. Considering we must have rolled about 10-20 times each evening, easily over 50% of the time we were rolling the "Eye of Sauron" on the d12. Bad, bad, bad...

Especially in combat with a bunch of brigands.

Which brings us to today...

Day Twenty-Four: What is the game you are most likely to give to others?

The game I'm most likely to give to someone is going to be Conspiracy X 2.0. I loved that game, and very happy with how the new version came out. And, thanks to Eden, I have multiple copies as the author / line developer. It's a great example of a neat, compact, portable RPG book with everything in a series of small books.

Game I'd LIKE to be able to give to others, would probably be the old WEG Ghostbusters, or Eden's Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. Probably the finest examples of accessible and cool RPGs ever produced.

Right, that's it! I'll try to keep up for the last week!

Until then, LLAP and Stay Multiclassy!

TOP 5 - RPGs I've Not Played (but want to)...

First in a few "Top 5" videos - the first looking at tabletop roleplaying games that I'd really like to play but ever have... Upcoming ones include Top 5 Bond Movies, and Top 5 Video Games I've Not Finished!

If you have a suggestion for a Top 5 video, post it in the comments below!

Share and enjoy.

Stay Multi-classy!

#RPGaDAY - Day 23: Coolest Looking RPG Product

Day 23 of #RPGaDAY is "Coolest Looking RPG Product". There are a lot of very cool looking books, dice and minis out there at the moment, some of them are really quite new like Numenera, but I've decided to look at some of the older books and some of the coolest bits of book design I've seen in RPGs over the years.

#RPGaDAY - Day 7: Most "Intellectual" RPG Owned

Love the "air quotes", that seems to have stirred things up a bit. This, again, has caused some confusion over the term "intellectual". Honestly, it's not as highbrow as it seems. It's just me showing how stupid I can be at understanding things sometimes, and how many times I have to read something to simply "get it".

My degree was in art and film making you know, not philosophy... I drew pictures.