I Have Powers - [s7s] Chapter 3 Delta Edit....

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...is done.

That leaves Chapter 8, the GMing advice chapter. This one's gonna take a couple days to work through -- the text I have is beta draft, and doesn't take into account all of the beta/gamma playtesting discoveries.

Additionally, I have a crapload of NPCs to re-stat.

Lastly, organization-wise, I am wondering if I should make Chapter 8 into Chapter 7, and versy-vicey.

Let's recap current organization of chapters:

Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4: The 7 Skies Setting, discussing the World, the major Cloud-Islands, the mystical and religious aspects of the World, and the details of skysailing.
Chapters 5 and 6: Character Rules and Challenges & Duels; the game mechanics of S7S.
Chapter 7: The Swashbuckling Genre, a general discussion of what "swashbuckling" means, especially for RPGs.
Chapter 8: Gamemastering S7S, a wide-ranging discussion about how to run S7S games.

I think I should move the genre chapter to the end -- it has the biblios and whatnot.

Counter to many other ASMP products, I made the decision (with advice from

drivingblind) to not put the genre chapter up-front. S7S is a highly specific, idiosyncratic setting -- and thus deserves to be front and center.

At least, that's my thought at the moment. What do you all think?

Tags: asmp, evilhat, game design, gaming, pdq, s7s, work journal, writing

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 20th, 2008 03:58 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I think that order is good, for the reason you give. I would keep the Genre and GMing chapters separate as they would seem to contain quite different information and would both seem to deserve their own treatment.

	From: anarchangel23	Date: September 20th, 2008 03:58 pm (UTC)		(Link)

	From: taschoene	Date: September 20th, 2008 04:15 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I'd leave the order as is, but consider pulling the bibliography section out of Chapter 7 and slipping it in after Chapter 8 as an appendix. OTOH, that's where everyone else puts the bibliography -- one of the things that makes your books different is the degree to which the biblio is integrated with the genre discussion.

	From: tth	Date: September 20th, 2008 04:56 pm (UTC)		(Link)

ok I know you probably will not do this; however I need to make this comment. Almost every game system I have read has a section that forces the game master to run the games of that system one and only one way. The Ego of the author of the system usually spills over into this section and since "They know best" everyone should run games the way they do.

I have put back on the shelf more than one game because of this. Even in the earlier version of the game system I write for has the same thing.

Like I said I know you probably will not have the bully session in it, I just needed to comment.

Good luck with it.

K

	From: chadu	Date: September 20th, 2008 05:05 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I will try to keep your insights in mind!

CU

	From: torresroman	Date: September 20th, 2008 06:49 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I'm genuinely looking forward to it.

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: September 20th, 2008 08:10 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Feedback

From my perspective as an editor, gamer, and reviewer:

Definitely put the GM instructions before the genre discussion.

The current arrangement makes sense if you're aiming mainly at GMs, who will want to read about the setting first. Players, however, often prefer a summary (1 chapter or so) of the setting and then instructions on the Big Thing for them: making and playing a character. You can get around this without juggling the chapters if you simply acknowledge it up front: either in the "how to use this book" page or at the end of chapter 1: "If you want to cut to the chase, see chapters 5-6 for character generation and combat rules."

	From: reverancepavane	Date: September 21st, 2008 05:00 am (UTC)		(Link)

Difficult call. I'd have probably merged the last two chapters myself – analyse the genre and then immediately show how you should apply these tropes to make your S7S game awesome. But whatever flies your boat. <grin>

"Rule 1: There shall always be horizontal surfaces at a wide selection of heights for characters to climb, leap and fall off, leap and fall on, roll under, roll over, swing onto and of off, lay on, or, if worst comes to worst, eat dinner off of."

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 23rd, 2008 12:30 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I like the idea of having the genre discussion at the end, especially if it will be the source of hints on how to use the S7S rules in other swashbuckling settings. And I do hope there will be such hints.

John H

Website: Atomic Sock Monkey

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