The Business: Technical Competency In RPGS (Presentation)

(Following from yesterday's post.)

You can design the perfect game. You can write the tightest technical manual. You can write so clear, concise, and consistent that you get buried in awards and fat paychecks for it. You can still screw it all up if you botch the presentation.

This, again, falls to meeting audience expectations.

Cyberpunk v3.0 failed because R. Talsorian botched this job by using dolls, instantly undercutting the authority needed to be taken seriously by the audience. Does that sound far-fetched? Sure. Did that happen? You better believe it; until the deal with CP Projekt Red and 2077 enabling Red, the dominant edition remained 1990's Cyberpunk 2020 (and despite recent events remains so).

You Don't Sell Cupcakes To People Expecting Steak

If design, writing, and rules are about the substance of the widget then presentation is on making the sale. The reason that doll thing did its damage is because the audience for that sort of game have a notion of what an acceptable product looks like. Dolls and action figures do not conform to that notion, so it struck a dissonant tone and turned off that audience.

The other thing people do not expect is photographs of real people, either used straight or put through one or more filters to appear like either an old photo or an illustration. There were a handful of terrible 90s products that tried to ape White Wolf without even that company's capital and, predictably, failed to go anywhere; why do you think I can't recall the titles or find them after considerable working of search engines (or find them on DriveThru)?

And if you try to sell someone on a game and expect them to take something as serious what it known to be comedic (or vice-versa), you're going to have a bad time. (This is why Glorantha doesn't sell; no one buys that Ducks are not a joke.)

Interiors, when the product is not meant to be a joke (which is why H.O.L. and Munchkin get passes), are not to be visual noise disaster zones. No artwork sublimated beneath the text, or done like you're reading a screen in Dark Mode, or you threw visual diarherra on the borders (Mongoose's big no-no for Conan.). The user's eye needs to stay focused on the content he bought the damned thing for. All distractions and dissonant elements are to be purged in holy fire.

The Challenge Is In Playing The Game, Not Using The Manual

I hammer the basics for a reason: it works. Two columns, no sidebars, white background, black text, crystal-clear font, no illustrations that are not visual aides. This makes for easy, clear reading. It holds the reader's attention. It makes concise and communication easy, elegant, and efficient. Then there's "I am ARTISTIC!" bullshit like this.

That German abomination is a shitty CONSOOM PRODUCT status symbol for display on a coffee table, not a user manual to be read and referred to in actual play.

Not that I'm about to let my fellow Americans off the hook. Palladium's revised rulebook for RIFTS has the basics, but then screws the pooch with content organization. The Order of Operations for user operations has to be mirrored in the manual and that did not happen. (Splicers also botches this requirement of a competent rules manual.)

• Basic Procedures (how to role dice, etc.)
• Character Generation
• Character Improvement
• Gear & Powers (as appropriate, kept to minimum)
• Manuever & Combat (Personal, Mass)
• Appendices

Imagine getting that order wrong. You don't have to; head over to the local shop and spend an hour skimming manuals and you'll see it happen more than a few times, including by people and publishers that ought to know better.

The point of the product is to tell the user how to use the product. It is not an artistic statement. It is not a political tract. It is not an emotional security talisman. It exists solely to get Bob from knowing sweet fuck-all about how to play the game to playing the game as fast as his reading comprehension allows. If you did your job properly then Bob should arrive at competency in playing the game by the time his order at Big Pizza Chain arrives at his door.

Do not, under any circumstances, make any choice that interference with the communication fidelity of your manual. Shun all arguements about branding, trade dress, blah-blah-blah that come up because all of that puts drag on the speed of communication by shitting up the page with visual noise. Save that for the Setting Bible. The only thing that goes in the manual is that which increases the efficiency and fidelity of communication. Dialectic, not Rhetoric.

Everyone Respects The Jeep

The user manual to your game is not meant to be so thick it can stop bullets. (HERO, looking at you.) It is not meant to be mistaken for a joke. (Immortal: The Invisible War, Senzar, The World of Synnibarr, Multiverser, Battlelords of the 23rd Century) It is not meant to be displayed like a trophy or be an art book in disguise. (Licensed products, Euro games, tie-ins) It is not there to sell the brand. (That's what the Setting Bible is for.) It is there solely to teach the user how to play the game, and anyone that refuses to accept this is unfit for purpose and deserves to be run out of town.

If this means that your manual looks utilitarian, that's fine. That's what a user manual is supposed to be. No one at Bandai, Kenner, Ford, Boeing, Glock, Microsoft, or Samsung gives two shits about making their manuals artistic statements or aesthetic masterpieces and neither should you.

All of that talk about aesthetics, branding, and so on is for something other than using the machine that Bob just bought after paying his bills and putting some away for a retirement he hopes to collect upon. Respect the man's time. Get him from buying to playing as fast as possible, and that's what competent presentation is all about.

Is it pretty? No. Is it sexy? Nope. Does it get lots of flattery and praise from The Right People? You're joking. What it does do is get the game played early and often, which spreads the word harder and faster than any other form of marketing, which means more sales and more sales over a longer period of time. (AD&D 1st Edition is still being sold.)

The supercars, yachts, and bikes get the attention but the humble Jeep gets it done. Be the Jeep.

"But that means my model-"

Yes, yes, and that's tomorrow's post.