The Business: How To Fail At Basic Technical Manual Publishing

Questing Beast put up a video about this indie RPG, and I already hate it. No knock on Questing Beast here, but instead on the creator of this thing.

I don't care what your game is or what you do or anything else if your presentation is this incompetent.

Yes, I said "incompetent". Not "displeasing", not "ugly", not any other assement of aesthetics- incompetent.

Why?

Say it with me:

RPGS ARE TECHNICAL MANUALS!

The purpose of a rulebook is to instruct the user on what the procedures of operation are and how to execute them. That manual cannot afford to be the least-bit distracting in its presentation. Its language and its aesethics must be clear, clean, and tightly focused on that objective. This product does not meet this standard.

Rolemaster nailed this in its classic Second Edition (and the associated Shadow World and Middle-Earth Role-Play product lines). Palladium gets a lot of stick, not the least from me, but its manuals are manuals and not delusional comics.

"But HOL!"

IS A JOKE. A (barely) playable joke, but a joke. If you're excusing this due to a joke, you're a retard whose opinion can be safely discarded.

Even the infamous Synnibarr meets the standards of a technical manual, and that game is notoriously bad.

This isn't mere aesthetics. This is a failure to meet basic publishing requirements, and no competent publisher would ever take this as a serious product (again, see HOL) which is why it is self-published.

I do not care, and it does not matter, how quirky or genius or whatever your game idea is if I'm turned off merely by looking at the page. If fucking retards like the man behind Burning Wheel could be bothered to ensure that he conforms to the minimal standard of competent technical manual presentation then you can too.

Instead, what I see is someone that couldn't be bothered to learn the minimum required to format their gameplay procedures properly, write them in the stone-faced and stone-cold neutral tone that instruction manuals--which all technical manuals are--must be, and focus on ensuring that your user actually achieves the gameplay result that you want instead of hoping that half-assing it by hand-writing it all will sucker enough rubes to put up with this thing.

That is doesn't do anything that you can't do as well or better with more familiar RPGs like any D&D edition is just the nail in the coffin. This is not a game to be played; it is a totem--a token to signifiy tribal allegience--and nothing more. That makes it a complete waste of time, resources, and (for those buying it) money- especially as there is no use-case for this product.

This product has no right to exist. It's fit only for the flame- or rather, the toilet.