Organization of Rules (Index) Need Help!

[whoknowswhynot]

I have come to a place where my design is being limited by my lack of organization and I cannot move much further without it.  Doing this may even inspire improvements in the system I have designed.  What I need, if anyone can help me, is a detailed index that I can use to organize my system rules and make sure that everything is recorded.  This sounds simple and I thought it was till I started trying to organize it. What I came up with is too generic and in no ways covers the complexity of any RPG's rules no matter how simple it is.  I guess that the index would depend on the system to a certain extent, but I need to make sure that the rules cover all the basics that most games cover such as fire, magic etc.  I have info on these mechanics but I don't know how to organize it in a booklet or whatever.  So far, I have the following in no particular order yet:

Introduction
The action/reaction roll
-modifiers
--skills and abilities
---magic
---etc.
--environmental situations
---vision impairment
---etc.
--damage values
-etc. etc. etc.
Character Creation
-basic information
-skills and experience
-abilities and inabilities
The Universe
-The physical universe
--Travel
--The astral universe
etc. etc. etc.



Please help me to organize and expand this out so that I am not leaving any mechanics out of the system rules.  Much appreciated!  Thank you in advance for your help!

[Sebastian K. Hickey]

Hi,

First off, it sounds like you are making a pretty complex game if you're worried about not covering 'all the rules'.  I'd say you should get an idea for the system, write it up, and through playtesting find all the sorts of scenarios you'd need to describe in the rules.

But if you're worried, I'll tell you what I did at the beginning of this project.  When I was worried about planning the schedule for design, I decided to draw up a contents page, to get an idea of the structure of the game.  It helped me to visualise the kinds of things I'd need to think through, and also the kinds of the things I didn't need to think through.  I started by looking at a couple of the bigger RPGs.  There's plenty out there to choose from.  See how they do it, copy it, and refine it for your game.  I think that's the best way to start.

Good luck!

[whoknowswhynot]

Thank you for the quick response!  MAYA is a really simple game as far as mechanics goes, and I have most of the basics down.  I simply want to get the material I have organized better so I can make a booklet for playtesting.  I didn't think of looking at other game books to see how things are organized there.  I have a few I can dig out and look thru for some ideas.  That seems easy enough!  Anyone have some interesting ideas for organization let me know!