RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

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seandon4
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by seandon4 »

Nice addition. Yeah, backgrounds and a character's personality kind of comes together over time. I'm with you on the sweating bullets while rolling a save. That bit of drama is what makes the game exciting. I remember when my friends suspected they were about to go up against Zargon in B4 and they were like "ah... what are we thinking? well, here we go. *gulp*"
Togo Galthus
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by Togo Galthus »

I think this is a very good work, nicely written, easy to follow and kept interesting and amusing; the way rules with a light hand are introduced as the text moves on is cleverly done. Also, the Playbook actually clarified a couple of things for me!

There are a couple of things I would like to comment, if you don't mind:

In the first paragraph of the whole piece, you say, "Quite possibly you've played
RPG-style video games; that's cool, but trust me, there's nothing
like playing a game with other people." -- I think many (young) people may think: "I play RPG-style video games with other people all the time." Not a big deal, but some may think that this old gaffer really doesn't know, which would be a bad start.

Page 12, the GM says: "You don't hear anything." I think it would be consistent with a "[Rolls dice], You don't hear anything", or something to that effect; because earlier you said that that's how it is done.

Personally I think there's too much detailed information about Wandering monsters. One has gone lightly until this section, and I feel I get a little bogged down here as a reader. Perhaps edit a bit and refer to the core rules? I don't think all the details are necessary here.

In the first chapter, you say that you will get back to saving throws later on; the next time (page 30) saving throws are mentioned, it is still not really explained what it is. Just a sentence about how it works would do, I think, but since it is mentioned at least twice, it should get clarified a little bit.

Page 46. As an old editor, I'm not particularly fond of sentences like: "This is hopefully self-explanatory". Either it is or it isn't, in my mind, and if it isn't for a particular reader, he or she may feel a little bit rejected by such a pointer; and I suppose that's the last thing we want in a piece like this.

These are just small notes I made along the way. I really enjoyed reading it, it is very well made, and I hope it finds many readers.

PS. If someone wonders how an "old editor" writes so bad, it is because I was editing texts in my native language, which obviously isn't English. :D
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Solomoriah
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by Solomoriah »

Togo Galthus wrote:I think this is a very good work, nicely written, easy to follow and kept interesting and amusing; the way rules with a light hand are introduced as the text moves on is cleverly done. Also, the Playbook actually clarified a couple of things for me!

There are a couple of things I would like to comment, if you don't mind:
I don't mind at all. There's a reason I develop everything in public.
Togo Galthus wrote:In the first paragraph of the whole piece, you say, "Quite possibly you've played RPG-style video games; that's cool, but trust me, there's nothing like playing a game with other people." -- I think many (young) people may think: "I play RPG-style video games with other people all the time." Not a big deal, but some may think that this old gaffer really doesn't know, which would be a bad start.
Good point. I have updated it.
Togo Galthus wrote:Page 12, the GM says: "You don't hear anything." I think it would be consistent with a "[Rolls dice], You don't hear anything", or something to that effect; because earlier you said that that's how it is done.
Ah, so. Revised.
Togo Galthus wrote:Personally I think there's too much detailed information about Wandering monsters. One has gone lightly until this section, and I feel I get a little bogged down here as a reader. Perhaps edit a bit and refer to the core rules? I don't think all the details are necessary here.
I just re-read the section, and while I see your point, I don't think I'm doing any favors by going lightly there. All that I've included is advice I could have used thirty or so years ago, and things I still get asked about.
Togo Galthus wrote:In the first chapter, you say that you will get back to saving throws later on; the next time (page 30) saving throws are mentioned, it is still not really explained what it is. Just a sentence about how it works would do, I think, but since it is mentioned at least twice, it should get clarified a little bit.
I intended to catch this sort of thing on the re-read; I knew when I wrote it that I didn't have a solid enough plan to do it in one pass. Heck, I never do. But thanks for pointing it out.
Togo Galthus wrote:Page 46. As an old editor, I'm not particularly fond of sentences like: "This is hopefully self-explanatory". Either it is or it isn't, in my mind, and if it isn't for a particular reader, he or she may feel a little bit rejected by such a pointer; and I suppose that's the last thing we want in a piece like this.
I'll take a look at it, thanks!
Togo Galthus wrote:These are just small notes I made along the way. I really enjoyed reading it, it is very well made, and I hope it finds many readers.
Thanks for the kind words!
Togo Galthus wrote:PS. If someone wonders how an "old editor" writes so bad, it is because I was editing texts in my native language, which obviously isn't English. :D
Not a problem. I myself can only speak one human language, though I've mastered a number of computer languages.
My personal site: www.gonnerman.org
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Solomoriah
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by Solomoriah »

Uploading R13 now. I've made revisions based on Togo's comments, plus fixed up some other things I wasn't happy with, and added a subsection about Mapping to Part 2.
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Togo Galthus
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by Togo Galthus »

Thank you for your reply on my post, Solomoriah, and for taking my points under consideration.
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Solomoriah
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by Solomoriah »

I'm strongly interested in opinions on the Mapping subsection. I'm hoping to get this to print on Sunday, so please, if you have a chance, take a look.
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Solomoriah
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by Solomoriah »

Okay, just pushed R14 to the site. It's changed only very little textually; mainly this is a dress-up release. I added the correct copyright statements to the OGL for the three other games.
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JoeCarr28
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by JoeCarr28 »

I'd forgotten I had this ... from 1982, "Dicing with Dragons - An Introduction to Role-Playing Games" by Ian "Fighting Fantasy" Livingstone.

"This is the indispensable handbook for a new worldwide craze"

Well worth a read if you can track down a copy on ebay (although the section on computer games could do with an update :) ). The cover even bears a certain similarity to Solo's guide.
Dicing with Dragons.jpg
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Solomoriah
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by Solomoriah »

Fascinating... never saw that before.

The advantage of PoD, in my opinion anyway, is that a book need never go out of print.
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Solomoriah
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Re: RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

Post by Solomoriah »

Uploading R15 now. Added two more subsections to Part 5, based on my Dungeon Ecology and Single Creator Syndrome blog posts.
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