Satanis via Lulu

[darrick]

hey guys, thought you might be interested in a report from a first time rpg designer/self publisher.  i just received a copy in the mail.  it's my Empire of Satanis[/size], a Lovecraftian Fantasy roleplaying game in Hell (or a dimensional similarity thereof).  the cover art is amazing, it looks just like the giant painting of Satanis towering above my game room!  (people who buy the book will get a nice suprise when they see the back cover).

Lulu did a great job.  and i also plan to use them again to self publish my next endeavor.  although this one will be for my weird horror short stories and poetry.

getting back... as an introductory offer, i decided to offer the pdf for free and the book version for just the cost of production.  the price isn't too steep - about $5.75 for 63 pages.  Lulu has to make a little bit in there too.  luckily, i was able to get various gaming, horror, satanist, cthulhu, and post modern magick contacts/websites to promote it which got me about 500 hits and 40 copies sold in about 3 weeks.  don't know if that's awesome or just pretty good, but i'm very pleased.

only Satanis knows what will happen when that damned website finally gets up and running.  i've been telling people it's about done for a month and a half now.  ah well, i can't force the webdesigners at gunpoint i suppose.  anyone else experience this for their indie gaming site?  my site will have a button that directs people to lulu, and a couple areas for EoS content from people who play the game and want to submit stuff.  hopefully we'll see it in a couple days:  http://www.cultofcthulhu.net  let me know what you guys think.  it's not just for EoS, but the rpg does get a third of the site.
 
i'm also going to offer some copies at my Madison, WI Cthulhu Mythos / Lovecraft convention: Cthulhu One.  i hope that will generate some interest too.  is there a next logical step?  there's probably a lot of differing opinions on advertising and using pdf gaming sites.  while i don't care about making any $ off Satanis, my two goals are to get people playing Satanis while not losing cash on this dark path to Hell.

if you're interested, check it out here:  http://www.lulu.com/content/113758
 thanks, D

[greyorm]

One question, is the layout in the print version the same as the layout in the PDF version? (I downloaded the PDF version and the layout was enough to turn me off to buying the print version.)

[Jasper]

Hey Darrick,

I hope this isn't presumptuous, but was the review on lulu written by a friend/playtester?  It really reads like it.  If you know the person, you might have him tone it down a bit.  Maybe it doesn't matter, but it seems like it might be a turn-off.

[darrick]

yes, the layout is non existent.  and that's the way i wanted it.  would you reject the Mona Lisa if she was put in a 10 dollar frame?  perhaps.

hey Jasper, how's it hangin'?

yep, i do know Sam Friedman and he was one of the playtesters.  i thought it was a tad bit less lame than just writing the review myself.  he thought up his own stuff to say though.  the reason i asked him to write a review was 1.  i could trust him to write something positive.  and 2.  he has a strange and darkly intellectual side that nearly rivals my own.

my legitimate credibility in this nihilistic, crap house of a world is nothing short of a laughingstock.  has been for awhile now, thankfully.  however, in terms of pure escapism i am the god of my own universe.  yes, even above Satanis.  any facet of perspective i can extrapolate to my vision has been deemed a good one.

won't everyone join me in this hilarious nightmare of an existence...?

D

p.s.  Gaming Report finally did a piece on an older version of the game by a guy i have never met nor spoken to.  cools.
http://www.gamingreport.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=1534

Empire of Satanis
http://www.lulu.com/content/113758

[Jasper]

Hey, congrats on the Gaming Report review.  They're always maddeningly short, but they do help get the word out.

[Grand_Commander13]

"i could trust him to write something positive."

Best to stifle that attitude, son.

"he has a strange and darkly intellectual side that nearly rivals my own."

I think I've suddenly decided I don't like you...  (First impressions.)

/me wanders back under his bridge.

[greyorm]

yes, the layout is non existent.  and that's the way i wanted it.  would you reject the Mona Lisa if she was put in a 10 dollar frame?  perhaps.

I do see what you mean, and I understand what you're saying: that the content should stand on its own merit. However, we aren't talking about the Mona Lisa (or illustrative art for that matter), and I think that changes the situation.

While I realize that making money is not your motivation in publishing your game (tangent: in which case, why bother selling it at all?), I hope you realize that your choice will not only lose people purchasing your book because of this issue, but will lose people reading it as well -- which I would assume to be your actual motivation in writing and publishing the work (otherwise, why bother with either?).

Consider: many people, including myself, read as much to enjoy the experience of reading as they do to enjoy the experience of the material being read. These are two seperate things, as I hope I have clearly enough expressed, yet they influence one another: like a good song badly recorded, the layout of a piece of work can affect the ideas being expressed.

So, while we all may wish it were not so, presentation does matter: the presentation does influence the contents of the expressed idea, even if it seems it shouldn't do so (ie: why is this grand idea in such a cheap frame?), and in written works, they can be either bane or benefit to that work.

Of course, ultimately it is your game and your choice, I'm just explaining the why of it from the my side.

[darrick]

i'm offering Empire of Satanis, not actually selling it.  since i'm not making any money when people "purchase" a copy for $5.75 or whatever it is.  i agree that the experience of reading is as important as the experience of the material being read.  i just happened to want the experience of no frills immediacy which would be lost if i'd used silly fonts, window dressing, and precious columns.

for a more suitable paradigm (than the Mona Lisa), how about Stephen King's use of eye catching layouts to sell his books?  what about when he was an unknown and struggling author?  your good/bad thing, i feel, is subjective.  seems to me like you are very entrenched in what you belive all role-playing games should look like, just as most people outside this forum are very entrenched in how rpg's should behave.  i don't want to mention any names, but i've seen plenty of indie final products here and elsewhere that aesethetically left me feeling absurdly amused or thoroughly disenchanted.  

ultimately, if people want a dark, weird, evil, over-the-top, 'be the monster' rpg with an original setting and system like Empire of Satanis they will either obtain a copy or they won't.  i appreciate it when people read and enjoy EoS, but that's not why i wrote it...

Parallels to the Necronomicon

it is a different sort of game, and i'm not talking about the aforementioned description.  rather, i'm refering to the fact that EoS is not just entertainment but it is also a magical working.  the game's ideas (which for some reason have all but escaped attention - except for Paul and Scott on another thread) are about using black magic to alter the world around us.  however, the book Empire of Satanis is an entity itself which I have used to  change reality!  and for that i needed symbols and text that have a personal resonance for me and me alone.  

i'm happy to include others in my Satanis ritual by allowing them to read and play the game, drawing out the esoteric ideas from the Crimson God Himself!  maybe they can use the book to further alter the substance behind this world?  to them i would say - use the book as a magical tool, work your individual Will, subvert creation - make it your puppet, and in the words of Timothy Leary, "Find the Others."

D

Empire of Satanis
http://www.lulu.com/content/113758

www.CultofCthulhu.net

[greyorm]

your good/bad thing, i feel, is subjective.

Of course it's subjective! I agree! But I must qualify that with "to a point." Good and bad layout are definable in a concrete aesthetic sense that can be catered to across a broad group of individuals. Not as utter absolutes, but as generalities that hold across a given population.

This is so because there are commonalities to people's perceptions, both culturally and (important!) physiologically, which can be catered to and held as a baseline standard to which most people will react as expected (again, not all, but that does not make such aesthetic determinations "subjective").

This is why there are subjects such as art theory and etc. that cover the aspects of why illustrative pieces that are popularly enjoyed are both enjoyed and popular.

seems to me like you are very entrenched in what you belive all role-playing games should look like

I'd be much more careful before you go slinging out claims to dissect based on incomplete evidence or conclusionary leaping, especially so when you consider how far from "usual" -- by industry standards -- my own recent RPG is in terms of layout and print. In light of such, your above psychological cross-examination of what you accuse me of believing is (to be blunt) patent foolhardiness.

Regardless of all that, my point -- which it seems to me you have overlooked in your haste to characterize me as a narrow-minded aesthete -- was not that you should or must whatever, only to ascertain that you did realize your choice of layout would turn individuals off to your product for "good" (or rather, "understandable") reason, and see if that was really an acceptable consequence for you given that one of your stated goals above is "to get people playing EoS".

(BTW, I can not respond to your point about Stephen King because I do not and have not read anything by him*, hence I cannot comment on differences between any of his works -- past or present.

*with the exception of a singular short story in a recent Literature collection.)

Anyways, as next steps: get some folks who have played the game to write reviews for it at their own sites (and link to them) or on RPG.net or elsewhere, and keep runnning it for people at various Cons.

You have sent forty copies into the wild in three weeks (which, in my estimation is fairly good). Find out who among those people a) have played or b) plan on playing (and when). Check back with them after the date they give you:

"Hey, you mentioned you were going to run an EoS game sometime around now. Just wondering if you had and how it went? Any questions about the game crop up during play? What sorts of cool things did you have the characters do?

BTW, we have a website for the game at www.urlhere.com, come check it out, there's some free material for the game available, you can post things about the game and talk to other groups about their games! Thanks!"

Something along those lines. The main point is to get feedback and generate discussion.

[Jasper]

Geyorm, Darrick and I have had this conversation, and I'd gently advise you to let it go.  Our (well intentioned) opinions won't mean much, unless lots of other people also comment about the layout as well.

[MatrixGamer]

Geyorm, Darrick and I have had this conversation, and I'd gently advise you to let it go.  Our (well intentioned) opinions won't mean much, unless lots of other people also comment about the layout as well.

I registered on the Froge so I could comment on this. Darrick - effective layout counts. The Mona Lisa is beautifully laid out, that is why it works. Speaking as a picture framer (one of my small businesses) the frame of a picture is there to protect it - possibly to enhance it but not to make the design good.

I've not seen your book so I don't know what it there, the gamingreport review clearly shows that you've got the writing right. For people to read it you need to take the next step and tinker with layout.

For instance...If I have my text in a single line on a web page it is hard to read because scrolling is ne set up to do this well. If I have my text in a single 8 inch column, single spaced, that runs right up to the edge of the page it is hard to read. If my eyes hurt when I'm reading, unless I'm into pain, I won't finish the piece. Something as simple as putting text in two columns on a page makes it easier to read. This isn't aesthetics - it's physiology. I doesn't sell out your art to consider it.

When it comes to sales layout is sadly all improtant. I regularly read the Gen Con forum and people there repeatedly say that if they don't like the cover and the internal design of the book, they don't read far. I've been tinking around with the design of my Matrix Game books for years to get them read. Feedback like you're getting here is a rare and valuable thing. It's worth listening to.

Book design in the end gets back to how books are made. Game designers usually don't know much about this. Along the way of design tinkering I think I've found my next hobby. Priniting. It's not as cool as game making but I love solving technical problems to make projects work.

Anyway, there's my two cents worth. Good luck with your publishing ventures. As they said in the movie "Galaxy Quest" "Never give up! Never surrender!"

Chris Engle
Hamster Press=Engle Matrix Games

[madelf]

Perhaps it would be taken more gracefully if someone who is bothered by the layout were to point out the specifics of where and why the layout is bothering them, as opposed to just saying "it's bad".

Darrick may be thinking that the comments involve something other than what the person commenting actually means. For instance, he sounds as if he thinks people expect him to use fancy fonts and such to make it "look like an rpg" and I don't think that's really the case.

Novels don't look like rpgs, yet they're still readable. And there are still specific issues involved in laying them out. Good layout doesn't necessarily mean fancy layout.

[darrick]

first, please let me get this out of the way...

Hell yes Layout/Format is important!

hey MatrixGamer, i have no idea if we are on the same page or at cross purposes since you admittedly haven't even looked at the game yet.  not trying to come across as angry (although i have been known to get defensive from time to time).  Empire of Satanis is extremely readable.  nice, clear, big letters that are easy to read, generous spaces between the paragraphs, bigger/darker headings, table of contents.  a natural flow and progression of info that follows a logical pattern.  

and yes, madelf, at this point i have no idea what people are referring to in the ways of layout.  i think the layout is simple and accesible.  it may not be all decorative and "eye catching" but it presents the game's information in the clearest and most direct way possible, that i can see.  some have called it boring, although i would rather let the exciting content of the game lead the way to excitement.  and i can hear the grinding of teeth even now, however keep in mind that i am personally turned off by layouts that try to "force" me to see their product in an exciting way.  like a mountain dew commerical that buzzes with so much energy it makes me feel the opposite about the product.

and it should be obvious that no one cares more about the rpg book's cover appearance than me.  it might sound like bragging (sorry troll-boy) but i believe the cover of EoS to be the best of any rpg, indie or otherwise, that i've seen in years.  that pretty much goes for the back cover too.  the cover art aesthetics are near and dear to my heart.  i put a ton of effort into it and it has become my magical sigil that i use for the website and anything having to do with Satanis.

without coming off like a prick, i would really appreciate it if people who really felt the need to help me out (and i love you guys who try to encourage me, play Satanis, and get the word out there) and comment on what could be better would go to the site, buy the book to see it in it's true form (honestly the pdf doesn't do it justice and i'm looking at the book right now) and then judge the game.  barring that, please take a look at the free pdf layout and cover art at the lulu page or now my website...

http://www.lulu.com/content/113758

thanks, Darrick Dishaw
www.CultofCthulhu.net

[greyorm]

Ok, I'm game. Here's the two things I find in the layout that turn me off to it, and they're very simple to fix.

1) Justification. Jagged paragraph edges are not good for reading. They make a text more difficult to read, physically. Justifying your paragraphs would fix this and solve the majority of my problem with the layout.

2) Orphans. These are one or two sentences that exist either at the beginning or end of a page. In fact, if you can help it, don't even break sections across pages: it increases your page count but makes reading/referencing your book much easier.

2a) The Table of Contents needs improvement, not content wise, but "split across X number of pages at wherever the page break happened to be". It isn't user-friendly the current way.

Honestly, with those two bits fixed, the majority of my problems with the layout would be completely solved.

Other simple ideas about having good layout (not "look how cool I made this look" good but "look how readable I made this" good) can be found at Layout & Design Rules of Thumb, which you may wish to skim, especially (if not particularly) the "Text Organizers" section since you have stated you do not want to mess with the layout style too much.

I hope that's helpful/useful to you.

[MatrixGamer]

1) Justification.
2) Orphans.
2a) The Table of Contents


Oh boy, I've made all these errors! It helps that I shifted to Adobe PageMaker (just before they shifted to Indesign - I'm always behind the curve!) It catches a lot of these problems. This last round of redesign on my books has lead me to add an index. When I did this I was amazed at how much more accessible it made my book. It pulled together associated ideas in a way that my rules never did.

I strongly recommend doing this. It takes alittle work but boy is it worth it.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

BTW Do definitely keep at the game making. If any of us stopped because we did something some one else thought was wrong nothing would ever get done. Un reasonalbe optomism is vital.