I've been collecting together my Aisling notes, and have sat down to actually write out the rulebook. I've run into a problem:

I'm rather vague on how to arrange things! I've got plenty of other games to emulate, but the details of their settings, as well as the permeability of setting/rules boundaries, means that except for vague categories like chargen or combat, I'm unsure what i need to put in. I'm also quite lost on what order to explain things.

Aisling has a unique mechanic - do I describe it first and then give details of character generation and such? If so, readers won't know what I'm referring to when I talk about this trait or so-and-so's nature. Or, I could describe the character makeup first, but then have the problem of linking these things to how they are affected by the mechanics.

Any outlines and/or ideas on how to deal with these issues?

Aidan

Well, what I did with Torchbearer:

Wrote a little piece of 'silly game fiction', as they call it, a page or so, for the very first section, to set the mood. Introduction: What is this game? What makes it cool?

After that, I laid out short definitions of all the technical terminology, and then discussed each one in greater depth. Defining them first makes it possible for the heavy tech stuff to be heavy tech stuff.

Then how to play, techniques and mechanics, and techniques, structure of the game. Character creation way at the end. Finally, colour.

The idea behind all this was that the most important things get presented a ccouple of times from different angles and in different contexts. Examples run throughout. Anything that isn't going to be looked at a whole lot is towards one end of the document or the other.

This helped a bunch. It was just one of those moments when you stare at everything and blink. Know what I mean?

Thanks!

Aidan

As far as character creation and mechanics are concerned, it is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.

As four willows mentioned, start with some background and then run into the mechanics to fit the Character creation at the end.

It is possible to do character creation while you describe the mechanics, but this way can be a bit muddled if not done correctly. It tends to only work for system-lite games.

In addition to game fiction, consider an intro that briefly covers the 'rules' of the rulebook itself (e.g., dice needed, interesting terms, etc.)

Check out the rpg book for "Spycraft" -it has an excellent intro to the setting followed by a brief nuts & bolts look at playing the game. It breaks the ice very well.