As I have been working on my Space Ranger RPG, I realized that I actually had two different design goals. One was to create a solid, low handling, character driven system and the other was to write a solid hard scifi, transhuman setting.

Having figured out that I was actually working on two different products, I was startled to find that while the background material needs a TON of work and will not be ready any time soon, the system could be almost complete. A little scary actually because I thought it would take a little longer.

So I’ve got an almost complete system and I do not want to let it lie while I monkey with a setting that is going to take a while to polish. This means I’m now planning on publishing just the system as a stand-alone product.

Here is the quandary. Completed and polished, the mechanics for the entire system are going to be pretty light. Perhaps a few as 8 total 8.5” x 11”  pages w/12 point type. Add pictures, graphics and charts and it might be twelve  8.5” x 11” pages.  If I went to a 5.5” x 8.5” pamphlet it might end up around 24 pages. This, to me, does not seem like a saleable property. If I make it a free download somewhere, it will become just another free game in a veritable sea of free games.

I don’t really want that to happen. My goal is to make a large enough profit to allow the product to be self sustaining, meaning it pays for it’s own marketing (including the underlying costs of a web page) and distribution costs (whatever form that takes) with a little bit extra for me. So:

My first question is, how would y’all publish it?

My second question is, how much would you pay for it:

• As a text only or minimal layout PDF or RTF of approximately 8 pages.
• As a fully laid out 12 page 8.5” x 11”  format PDF with quality layout, pictures and graphics.
• As a fully laid out 24 page 5.5” x 8.5” pamphlet with full color card cover, quality layout, polished internal B/W line drawings and internal B/W graphics, stapled through the spine.

My third question is, How would you market the final product?

If you would NOT pay for such a product, I would like to know why.

This will give me an idea of what level of polish I want to aim at and how I want to proceed from here.

Thanks in advance for the feedback.

C. S. Bone

As a setting-impartial system, what does it do better than any other setting-impartial system?

Paul

Hi Paul!

As a setting-impartial system, what does it do better than any other setting-impartial system?

Paul

I don't think you're going to get much helpful information out of this thread, since essentially it's a matter of opinion. would I pay for a 12- or 24-page game? probably not, unless it's pretty low priced and in PDF form. if the game were in hard copy, I'd expect it to be a very high production value art book that just happened to contain RPG rules; otherwise, I wouldn't buy it.

how would I publish such a book? OK, I'm sort of planning the same thing, so I can answer this, but it probably won't apply to your situation. I want to have the same basic rules structure for most of my games, with modifications specific to each game's needs (more like BRP than d20.) at some point, I plan on writing up the basic rule structure so other people can base their own games around the rules. how will I publish this? on the web. what will I charge? nothing. how will I market it? I won't market the core rules at all; I will use them to market the games based on those core rules.

what I would recommend is to write up your rules in a condensed form (bullet-pointed lists, perhaps) and include it on your website as an introduction on how to play the games based on those rules. but what you actually have to do is consider very carefully what you want to do and whether this is even vaguely similar to what I am trying to do, or what anyone else who gives you advice is trying to do.

CSBone wrote:
Better than everything else out there? Probably not. But better than anything else generic I’ve seen so far? Yeah, I think so. I want people to be able to sit down, create characters in a half an hour, play without having to slow down for mechanics while owning their play. I haven’t seen anything else out there that does it. Of course there is a LOT out there…which brings me back to my questions of how to step out from the crowd.

Hi John!

would I pay for a 12- or 24-page game? probably not, unless it's pretty low priced and in PDF form. if the game were in hard copy, I'd expect it to be a very high production value art book that just happened to contain RPG rules; otherwise, I wouldn't buy it.

how would I publish such a book? OK, I'm sort of planning the same thing, so I can answer this, but it probably won't apply to your situation. I want to have the same basic rules structure for most of my games, with modifications specific to each game's needs (more like BRP than d20.) at some point, I plan on writing up the basic rule structure so other people can base their own games around the rules. how will I publish this? on the web. what will I charge? nothing. how will I market it? I won't market the core rules at all; I will use them to market the games based on those core rules.

If you want my opinion: DON'T try to market and sell a rules-light, generic ruleset, especially one of such small size (8 pages, yes?).

DO come up with an intriguing theme for a game, an interesting setting for characters to run around in, and at least one "add-on" rule module to your basic system that feeds into that theme (and setting, if you can swing it). Put all that together, and market/sell that.

DO offer the base system for free download, so that people can see how it works.

This won't answer your question, but I wanted to say that I bet you could expand your game to at least twice the current size, if not more. From writing my own book, actually explaining the rules (not just assuming people understand what you're talking about), giving real, practical advice, and giving a plentiful number of examples adds quite alot to the size of your manuscript.

And I'm not talking about adding fluff. Have you playtested it yet? What areas did the playtesters have trouble with? Make sure those areas are explained well. If your system is setting-neutral, make sure to give advice on how to build your own setting. Also give advice on how the GM should build an adventure. Art will also add a few pages.

For a real world example, the first "bare bones" draft of my game, The Mountain Witch, was about 18 pages. The second, playtesting draft---which added some explanations--was around... um, 35 pages, I think. The final draft---which added expanded explanations and advice---was about 60. The final book, when formatted and whatnot ended up being 160 (5.5x8) pages.

If you expand your game to 50-60 pages, you'll have no trouble getting people to pay for it. That's assuming you haven't added the stuff I've mentioned.

CSBone wrote: How well is “Dead Inside” working for you? Does it pay it’s own bills and upkeep? How are you marketing it?

Yep, listen to Chad. A nicely tuned generic rule system is a very hard thing to sell. I'd buy your 24 page 5.5" x 8.5" saddle-stitched book for $7 to $9, regardless of other production values if the character sheet inside seemed to bear out how you've compared the game against other systems. I'd pay more, at GenCon, maybe as much as $14 or $15 if the book was also particularly graphically and/or textually interesting. But [tough love] I probably wouldn't ever play it. And ultimately, that's what you want, isn't it? People to play? In general, the game would have to be a screamer in some way, far more intense and dramatic an experience than say Story Engine, or Theatrix, relative to your baseline systems, for you to sell a "Forge average" number of copies of it as a generic system, and provoke some dedicated actual play. If what you have is a nice, elegant generic system, then what you need to do is fuel the imagination and creativity of your potential customer. Weld a setting to it. Not your end-all-be-all transhumanist setting, although I'm entirely sympathetic to that design objective, but something that gets the blood pumping, something that fires the imagination. And sell that.

Paul

Paul wrote:
In general, the game would have to be a screamer in some way, far more intense and dramatic an experience than say Story Engine, or Theatrix, relative to your baseline systems, for you to sell a "Forge average" number of copies of it as a generic system, and provoke some dedicated actual play.

An example of a nicely tuned generic system being sold as a 16 page saddle-stitched book is Jeff Dee's Pocket Universe:

http://www.io.com/unigames/pu/pu_stuff.html

Paul

Plenty of cheap or free "rules lite" systems exist. Can you make money competing with them?

Since your time and energy on this earth is finite, I would focus on your combined Space Ranger game+setting. For comparison, look at "Dogs in the Vineyard". It has a unique rule system, but I think most of its success comes from its lush, innovative setting.

This is going to be a long post…
[hr]
Hi Tim!

This won't answer your question, but I wanted to say that I bet you could expand your game to at least twice the current size, if not more. From writing my own book, actually explaining the rules (not just assuming people understand what you're talking about), giving real, practical advice, and giving a plentiful number of examples adds quite alot to the size of your manuscript.

How well is “Dead Inside” working for you? Does it pay it’s own bills and upkeep? How are you marketing it?

I sell anywhere from a half-dozen to two dozen copies per month (I hit the upper end if I run an ad during the month). It pays for itself -- and the occasional phone bill or pizza.

My marketing is ads on targeted internet sites, discussion on my LJ and RPGnet, ad trades, and review copies. I haven't been pushing this, because I've been considering revamping the game: at the very least, getting new art and updating the PDQ rules to the current state of the art.

Note that, to date, DI has not "officially" earned out its overall costs: it did earn out its production costs sans my writing expense…

On the other hand, Truth & Justice -- which had no profit-sharing and all production costs were paid upfront except for writing expense.

Yep, listen to Chad. A nicely tuned generic rule system is a very hard thing to sell. I'd buy your 24 page 5.5" x 8.5" saddle-stitched book for $7 to $9, regardless of other production values if the character sheet inside seemed to bear out how you've compared the game against other systems. I'd pay more, at GenCon, maybe as much as $14 or $15 if the book was also particularly graphically and/or textually interesting. But [tough love] I probably wouldn't ever play it. And ultimately, that's what you want, isn't it? People to play?

If what you have is a nice, elegant generic system, then what you need to do is fuel the imagination and creativity of your potential customer. Weld a setting to it. Not your end-all-be-all transhumanist setting, although I'm entirely sympathetic to that design objective, but something that gets the blood pumping, something that fires the imagination. And sell that.

An example of a nicely tuned generic system being sold as a 16 page saddle-stitched book is Jeff Dee's Pocket Universe:

http://www.io.com/unigames/pu/pu_stuff.html

Plenty of cheap or free "rules lite" systems exist. Can you make money competing with them?

Since your time and energy on this earth is finite, I would focus on your combined Space Ranger game+setting. For comparison, look at "Dogs in the Vineyard". It has a unique rule system, but I think most of its success comes from its lush, innovative setting.

CSBone wrote:
If it’s not asking too much, would you mind expand on your explanation of how you figure your costs and expenses?

Plenty of cheap or free "rules lite" systems exist. Can you make money competing with them?

Since your time and energy on this earth is finite, I would focus on your combined Space Ranger game+setting. For comparison, look at "Dogs in the Vineyard". It has a unique rule system, but I think most of its success comes from its lush, innovative setting.

I think I may have to get some more dice so I can play DitV. Question is, however, what would you pay for a “Rules Lite” system. If the answer is “nada”, Cool! If there are criteria under which you might be interested, I’d like to know what they are.

CS

First off, good luck with your project.

Secondly, I'm going to offer you a little bit of different advice.  I'm going to suggest that you keep your original setting and system, but that you just keep your setting material under 20 pages.  Really, few gamers read anything more than 5 pages of setting material, anyway, except for GMs, and then it just turns into "GM shoves setting down player's throat" which is no fun.

All you need to play an RPG is a feeling for how the setting, and a couple of good, juicy conflicts.  That can be accomplished in under 20 pages, easy.

I don't mean to say "buy my book" but this is what I did in Polaris and it worked wonders.

yrs--
--Ben

Chad, thank you for the breakdown! That is extremely useful to me!

Chris, I appreciate your input...it seems to mirror what the others are saying.
[hr]
Hi Ben!

I'm going to suggest that you keep your original setting and system, but that you just keep your setting material under 20 pages.  Really, few gamers read anything more than 5 pages of setting material, anyway, except for GMs, and then it just turns into "GM shoves setting down player's throat" which is no fun.

All you need to play an RPG is a feeling for how the setting, and a couple of good, juicy conflicts.

Under the Bed broke even and started paying me what it owed me in about a week from its release. At this point, I've made back my design time investment. That happened for a couple of reasons:

The format was simple to print (if a little weird looking on a shelf).

I printed out twice as many as I thought I was going to sell but didn't invest in a big print run. If your game's a PDF, you don't really have to worry about this.

It gives something for the players to grab onto: evocative tools for making a setting. It doesn't try to be all things to all men, just one thing to a disproportionate number of women.

Shock:'s initial playtest version has seen hundreds of downloads since I posted it for comment five weeks ago. It's free (and you can really taste the savings), but obviously I would have gotten a lot fewer downloads if I was selling it for a dollar. So I guess this depends on what your goals are.

What I would suggest is, do what Ben says: write a setting that will get protags in serious trouble. Support it with your rule system. Then write design notes about how to use the system for other things.

How confident are you about the quality of this system? I ask not to challenge you, but to encourage you to really work it out. Put it up for playtest. No one will pull punches here, but neither will your audience. When the revisions are done, you may find that you've got something that doesn't need to be cheap in every way; you may find you've polished it to a gem: small, elegant, and beautiful. And not cheap.