TheRPGSite

For all you campaign, setting, and system designers out there:

• How do you organize your design work?
• What tools do you use?
• What do you like about your workflow?
• What do you hate about it?

This is an open-ended, exploratory question, as I'm interested in process and tools used at each stage in a design. Thanks!

I presume that you mean for actually writing something.

For hardware, I have the following:
A PowerMac Dual-G5, a Powerbook Titanium DVI, a Dell Inspiron 910, and a Dell Inspiron slim-desktop machine... I forget the model number. My 910 runs Linux (Debian / Ubuntu 10.04), OSX and Windows XP, and therefore I can work on most projects with it, albeit in 'slow and tiny' mode.

For the original document process, I use MS Word (MacOS X v2004; Windows v2003 IIRC), and OpenOffice (Linux / Debian v3.2).

I begin by writing a chapter outline, figuring out where each section should exist in the final product. I may modify or expand upon this as needed. I write the chapters in any order that I desire, going back to revise earlier chapters if I must, as things change or evolve. I keep a precision version numbering on all revisions, never over-writing any older documents, and I try to write as much in one document as possible, rather than separating each chapter into its own document.

If it becomes bulky and cumbersome, then I simply copy and paste the section on which I will be working into a blank document, and save it with its own versioning system. The version of that sub-document is noted int he core document when I past it back in after editing/expanding it, and then the main document increases in versioning.

My versioning system is four places, starting with '0.0.0.0'. The first digit denotes a theoretically complete product. Thus, 1.0.0.0 would be 'complete', but may need some touch-ups, and I may expand on it a bit. The second number denotes the percentage of completed content based on my approximation of how long the product will be when completed. Thus, if I think it is going to be 100-pages, each 0.1 is ten pages of content.

The third place, is for level of completeness as well. If I decide, as I did for 'Zoria', that it cannot reach 0.4.0.0 until a specific section is done, then I denote additional content by the third place, so 0.3.1.0 becomes 0.3.2.0 when I do enough to warrant that change. My present version if 0.3.5.126. That means I have had 127 saved versions of v0.3.5.

The fourth place is session number. Each time I open a document and add to it, unless I complete enough to bump the second digit up by one or more, I add a single digit to the fourth place. Thus, 0.2.0 becomes 0.2.0.1. This number is infinitely scaling, so I could have 0.2.0.105, or 0.2.0.45629 if I need it. It denotes the sequential order for saving the file, after every so many changes.

Naturally, these numbers go up fourth place first and first place last, so 0.0.1.0 becomes 0.0.1.1, and then 0.0.1.2, and then maybe 0.0.2.0, and so on as i complete more and more of it. This way I can always track changes, and never lose any work. If you have ever saved over a file and had your editing programme crash at the same time, juss tot have it save a blank file, you'll understand my reasons.

If you never have, I hope it stays that way. it happened to me once, and only a few times in my entire life. Why? because after the first time, I learned my lesson,always saving new versions and all future times were auto-saves, and I could recover, as I had saved the previous version, and lost very little that I then needed to re-write.

I suggest saving often, each time with a number bump. At least save when you are taking a break for any reason, or whenever you finish something critical or lengthy. never delete old files.

i archive them in hierarchical directories with master versionings, so I have a directory for the main system, then directories under it for the master number, and then directories for the sedond digit, and then directories for the third digit, and finally directories for groups of the fourth digit, usually ten to twenty at a time.

A path may look like '/root/gamesyatemname/v0/v0.5/v0.5.4/v0.5.4.0-20/'.

This keeps everything organized. it is also critical for any cooperative project, where multiple people are working on sections, and editing the document, so nobody is working on an old version. I mirror my local directories on a server with password-locked access, and a RAID-array so that all people working on it can constantly access the master files, and upload their own fork-files. The process of a team-writing effort more complicated to explain, but I will if you need it detailed.

In this case, we work on sections, and give those sections individual numbering. The numbering is maintained int he master file, so you could read through a section and see 'Weapons v1.3a' or something like that. The numbering system is different, so that it is never confused with main document numbering. We use a primary digit, one decimal place, and an alpha-sequence A-Z, then AA-AZ, then BA-BZ, etc) to track those.

In any event, once I have the entire document finished, I do an initial series of proofing runs: As many as I need. I also have assistant copy-editors go over it after I run through it and find no further errors. The writer may miss some, by simply knowing what is supposed to be there.

Then, I begin layout, using Framemaker (MacOS-9 or Windows XP v7); or use Scibus on Linux (Debian v1.3.3.13) for very small projects. IMHO, Framemaker is the only way to go for large books. The anchoring features for auto-generation of the Index and TOC that are instantly updated, the layout functions, and the style features crush every other programme. Framemaker was intended for writing technical literature, such as user-manuals.

For the cover and interior graphics, I use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshio (MacOS X vCS1) and Corel Draw (MacOS v8, IIRC) and a Wacom Intuos3 tablet. I contract for any additional art as needed.

I can use some of the artwork in Framemaker, or I can dump the file into an EPS and open it in InDesign (MacOS X vCS1) and further the layout.

Once I have the interior done, I run it through another series of proofing stages. I proof the contents again, and the layout. After I go through this and can find nothing more wrong, I pass it to any assistant copy-editors and assistant layout-editors for external proofing.

After I correct anything noted by them, I do a second pass of the same, repeating until we all agree on it.

Then I process it as an EPS, process the cover as an EPS, and it's in a print-ready state. I also produce a secondary cover for a PDF version, and produce a PDF of the TOC, the core document, the index, and the appendices, then bind them together in order.

I proof this to ensure it is correct, and run it by assistant editors. After this, I add the front and back covers, and add PDF bookmarks to match the TOC, and some bonus bookmarks for tables. I check every link, and proof the text for the links, and then pass this final proof to my assistant-editors to review, going over it until we confirm it.

Now the document is done, both as a print-ready version, and a PDF digital version.

I follow a similar process for working as a contributing-editor, copy-editor, layout-editor, or any combination thereof.

I hope this is what you wanted to know. Good luck to you on your project(s). (X|S)

• How do you organize your design work?[/B]
  
  We set goals, a schedule and chapter outlines. For me it is important to have an outline of the document before hand so I know what I need before creating anything. But before any of this we usually start by discussion what we want to do, what we can improve on this time around (i.e "the fire rules never really satisfied last game, lets rework them"), etc.
  
  Playtesting is very important. Our whole process revolves around that.
  
  
  • What tools do you use?[/B]
    
    For software microsoft word and Indesign mainly. But I make use of lots of soiral bound notebooks, three ring binders full of notes and scanned documents.

How do you organize your design work?
Sloppily. If there was a way to lay out and write a book as ideas come, that would be awesome, but of course that's not possible at the moment. Ideas-> notes-> rules/stuff/settings-> layout-> finish. I have occasional energetic bursts where I get whole sections finished but life and all that.

What tools do you use?
Fancy ones. I prefer moleskine notebooks for scribbles and sketches, I have a quiver for the text ones and use a fountain pen just because. Someone had a special offer on hardbound soft paper sketchbooks a while back so I picked up like fifty of them. I have a weakness for paper. Three 24" screens on a PC (also used for work), I got a Wacom Inkling a while back but its unbelievably crap, just cannot be used, I'll be picking up a no-name graphics tablet soon, what I should have done in the first place. I had a scanner for a while but it just wasn't used.

Software, OpenOffice, working on Blender, Illustrator and Photoshop. I've yet to find a useful open source alternative to the braindead simplicity of MS Publisher though.

What do you like about your workflow?
I don't feel as though I'm missing or forgetting anything, always having a notebook handy, so any random thought gets written in.

What do you hate about it?
Its random! Some of it is quite good (I feel) but I have a tendency to transcribe my notes in a jumble; putting them into a form which is not just useful, but properly indexed and above all else entertaining is a bit of a problem.

Some great ideas in this thread, but having no desire to become a "publisher" as such, its more or less a labour of love.

Quote from: MagesGuild;595171I presume that you mean for actually writing something.

Indeed.

Thank you for the painstaking detail in your reply. I'm impressed by the discipline of your versioning system--I knew of an editor once who versioned manuscripts by the number of times "copy" appeared at the end of the filename. ;)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;595175Playtesting is very important. Our whole process revolves around that.

That makes sense--at least as crucial as the editing process that MagesGuild describes, I would imagine. How do you (and anyone else) prepare for and run playtesting?

Quote from: The Traveller;595197What do you hate about it?
Its random! Some of it is quite good (I feel) but I have a tendency to transcribe my notes in a jumble; putting them into a form which is not just useful, but properly indexed and above all else entertaining is a bit of a problem.

I have this same trouble organizing my own work. I've never found a solution to it, beyond time and effort.

Quote from: The Traveller;595197Some great ideas in this thread, but having no desire to become a "publisher" as such, its more or less a labour of love.

Thanks anyway, your input is really helpful--I'm interested in the whole scale of effort, from pure hobbyist to pro publisher.

For versioning, I recommend using git or mercurial.  Small learning curve, but once you start using such a version control system you can't imagine life without it.

Just about everything you'll read about git or mercurial is targeted at programmers, but version control is a universal need/concept, and these tools make it easy and give you an incredible amount of power and flexibility.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;595217For versioning, I recommend using git or mercurial.  Small learning curve, but once you start using such a version control system you can't imagine life without it.

I'll admit, I'm a programmer by trade, and I can't imagine life without git. However, there are few version control systems that work well with large binary files like Word docs and images. There are some accommodations (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3292792/git-or-hg-plugin-for-dealing-with-microsoft-word-and-or-openoffice-files), however.

I have to admit, in terms of versioning, I'm old-fashioned. I see git being useful when you have dozens of people working on a project and need a repository, but I don't see the practicality when your total team is ten or less, and few or no people are working on shared areas of text.

In programming, it's mandatory because a change in one place can affect other lines of code, but in writing, if you change a sentence in Chapter IX, you don't need to instantly go back to Chapter II and fix it.

I didn't mention the Moleskins either. I keep hand-notes in them myself, usually the non-ruled books with the closing strap. I have dip-pens (using teal, turquoise and violet inks) as well as Shaeffer and Parker fountain pens for my novels, as I tend to distract myself when writing, and the simplicity of pen and paper (for novels) forces me to avoid any potential electronic media.

For writing RPGs, less tends to get in my way, but I often work out ideas in notes first. That wasn't part of the overall process that I felt would interest most people, as the average person today doesn't know how to function without a laptop. I wrote almost all of SRPG using red and teal pencils in a mini-Moleskin (one of a three-pack), while re-watching 'Robin Hood' (BBC) one evening with a pipe of Medium Flake.

That is, I wrote most of the framework that makes it a system, not every word of the book. I detailed the skills by name, and the Psi-powers and basic weapon information, but much of the rest remained in my skull until I broke out OpenOffice on my 910.

Therefore, yes, basic notebooks are a good tool for the drafting process, or for tracking new ideas and for workshopping sessions.

If someone has me editing their content, and they use an abstract or unpredictable versioning system, I send the files back and say 'Put version numbers on these that a human being can follow.'. I would have fired a copy-editor that thought hat by having 'Copy' in his job title, he could use the word in repitition for version numbering: That's absurd.

The 'Save as...' menu option exists for a damned good reason, as do off-site backups. A word of warning: keep off-site backups of your work. I've seen on-site backups go up in flames, or crash on the floor, or be chewed on by a dog. If a dog eats your backups...

Seriously, you can get free server space for projects in many places other than file-sharing sites. Insomnia 24/7 gives shell, FTP and SSH accounts if you ask nicely. We have server space donated to us, and make use of it. The hard part is ensuring that anyone who has server-access knows what the devil to do when using it, and doesn't demolish the account somehow.

If it is only you using it, then there is no problem. Our solution is to have a sub-space for each person working and a central repository for each project. FTP accounts for each member though, are a different issue, as we need to request them one at a time.

Lastly, we certainly playtest everything before publishing it. Some of our writers ensure to make their games non-broken, and others don't know how to foresee issues. Often we fix problems that others would playtest merely by spotting them and deducing how a variety of players or GMs would break them, but some become an issue during play. The main problem many writers have is to write powers or abilities that are worded in a vague way that can be misinterpreted by the 'rules lawyer', and we strive to avoid that dilemma.

Occasionally, we spot a silly problem. An example is the Zoria Sorcerer class, as the number of chins that the sorcerer learns is based by multiplying two modifiers, an if one is zero, then they would have received no spells. I didn't pot that until someone played a character with the problem, and corrected it, by adding 'Minimum One' to the text.

Interestingly, we haven't noted any balance issues with the classes or powers in Zoria to date, but that is probably because of the sheer amount of work we do to make everything balanced; it could also be because we don't have a munchkin player in those playtest groups.

We have active playtests in person, and on-line using our chat system on the BBS, so we playtest games that we're developing on an almost daily basis. Not all of us are involved with each playtest, but the writers are involved with most of them. We also ensure that people playtest games both as a player and as a GM. One way or the other is not sufficient, and it is important that someone other than the system author can run the game.

The golden rule here is that the creator of a game system will always be prepared to deal with flaws in the system.


In order to make a product suitable for public consumption, anyone buying and reading it needs to be able to run it or play in it without writing to the author about a variety of subjects.

'Epiphany' is in a Gamma phase, as the Alpha and Beta versions were very problematic; the first too locked (as it is supposed to be a very open system) and the second a GM and player nightmare, in terms of dice-mechanics. Eric devised this multiplier system for rolling d10s that had no real curve and involved complex equations and mathematics, requiring--no joke here--a scientific calculator. beyond that, he wrote the equations in his own style; a linear style without the normal functions that define the equation, so it was possible to yield wildly different results depending on how you read the equation, with the same numbers.

The Gamma version is back to dice-pool mechanics, with playtest additions by my suggestion for handling critical success and failure values on 0s and 1s. The powers are now fully modular, but unproven. he has a lot of problems balancing powers by degree against each-other, so we all cooperate to assist with that by reading and comparing them all first. He also has a habit of forcing game mechanics to work to his meta-theories, rather than being balanced in the context of a game.

It's fine to believe something about metaphysics, but when your belief makes two characters of equal advancement non-equal because instead of building a balanced framework, you use your metaphysical beliefs to design powers, then you have a broken product. We've fixed a lot of this issue, but it takes a lot of effort to induce a change.

One of the issues, that I defined as broken from Day-One is hi concept of 'Faith' (in yourself, or any concept). A character with the 'Faith' attribute in Alpha and Beta who used powers on a character without 'Faith' never had to make a check on them. His powers always worked on the one without 'Faith', and conversely, the person without 'Faith' could never use powers on the one that has 'Faith'.

i explained it this way: As it is possible int he system to start with Faith if you roll in a lucky way, or configure yourself properly, you could be a low-level moron and blast away someone with much more power without 'Faith', and that's broken. "Faith' should probably grant an advantage of some kind if you want to include this concept, but it should be a mathematical advantage. This is a guaranteed success, and nothing should ever be a flat guarantee at all times.

He didn't believe me, and kept it that way through to the Beta playtest, when I proved it in actual play. I created a character with 'Faith', and demolished other characters who were far more powerful, but didn't have it, until they were all minions, out of sheer terror.

Another broken ability that you could buy at creation, introduced in the Beta version, was called 'Chaotic Wind'. This is a character trait, and thus something you could buy at the building phase, and not something you earned in play (unlike faith).

It gave the character the trait that everytime they used a power, there was a 50% chance that it always worked, and a 50% chance that it always failed. Yes, that was the description. No defense rolls, no willpower combat checks, no nothing. Just flip a coin.

How broken is it? Start out with that and Telekinesis and a five willpower, then walk up to a deity and turn their brain to mush. 50% chance that they will survive, even if they have faith.

It also meant that any power used on you had a 50% chance of succeeding or failing, so it was even more terribly broken, as it also could act as a shield, so that no-matter the power of your opponent, you had a 50% chance of evading any power used on you.

Needless to say, it has been removed from the Gamma version, due to my demonstrations, and many powers have been reworked and reworded.

I'm sure most of this doesn't make much sense without reading the manual, but it still needs a lot of work. it's a big game, so that is expected. My zoria system still needs a lot of work too, but it needs content, not fixing. At that point, Epiphany had all the content, but much of it was broken...

I write systems very slowly, because I'm methodical about balance.

That brings me to the point of all of this: You need to sit down and think about balance and possibly broken concepts, powers, skill usages, etc. while you write them, and before you playtest them. If you see something that could be a problem, fix it before your players fix you. :D

The other tools I suggest for working are as follows, and you can take it with the humour intended: tea, a pipe or cigar, some whiskey or ale, and either operatic metal music or audio plays at very low volume, and an oil lamp or candle. Give yourself the mood or atmosphere you want to keep you writing, or to put you in the 'mood of the system'.

Honestly, if you're writing a fantasy / middle-ages type setting, try writing in candle-light with a mug of ale. If you're writing science-fiction, try writing with neon lights and techno music or anime playing. Watch or listen-to something of a similar subject before you start writing to put you in the right mental atmosphere. This way, your creativity is bent toward the subject matter. (X|S)

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• How do you organize your design work?

In the early stages, I don't really. Thanks to school, I haven't gotten far beyond the early stages.

Quote

• What tools do you use?

For design? Books? A calculator?

By the time you're using something for mapmaking or whatever I'd hope the thing was already designed.

Quote

• What do you like about your workflow?

I make sure I write everything down somewhere, and looking back I'm honestly a little surprised at the volume I've come up with just by doing that, and in as little free time as I've had.

Quote

• What do you hate about it?

It's been slow. No surprise there though.

Quote from: MagesGuild;595238I have dip-pens (using teal, turquoise and violet inks) as well as Shaeffer and Parker fountain pens for my novels, as I tend to distract myself when writing, and the simplicity of pen and paper (for novels) forces me to avoid any potential electronic media.

Yup, I've a Cross myself, its less utilitarian than a ballpoint but I refuse to write fantasy in anything less. Weird, I know, but it does help, along with some Medieval Babes, Gregorian chant, or Clannad.

Quote from: MagesGuild;595238Honestly, if you're writing a fantasy / middle-ages type setting, try writing in candle-light with a mug of ale. If you're writing science-fiction, try writing with neon lights and techno music or anime playing.

And cheap Russian vodka for cyberpunk. :D /or how designing an RPG turned me into an alcoholic

Um, I use a notebook. Then I type it up on a computer when I get it written.

Quote from: eykd;595219I'll admit, I'm a programmer by trade, and I can't imagine life without git. However, there are few version control systems that work well with large binary files like Word docs and images.

Excellent point.  I'd think that most images wouldn't require version control, but if you're saving your writing in Word documents then the binary file issue would definitely be a drawback.  I write text using a text editor and save in text format (e.g. LaTeX or XML, usually), which avoids that issue.

Quote from: eykd;595107For all you campaign, setting, and system designers out there:

• How do you organize your design work?
• What tools do you use?
• What do you like about your workflow?
• What do you hate about it?

This is an open-ended, exploratory question, as I'm interested in process and tools used at each stage in a design. Thanks!

I use a wiki for everything.  PBwiki, though most will do.  Make sure it searchable, though.  That becomes priceless after a while.  Or after you pass the thousand page mark.
Also allows me to have collaborators.  Like right now, when I look at recently edited pages, one of my PLayers hase been cleaning up my grammer.

All versions of pages are also saved automatcially when I want to look.

It works well as you can always add on and link pages.  It is so important when you are adding a lot of detail in.  It allows easily for a setting index, as well.  I can work from home or the office or mobile on any part of it.

I bounce between a couple of different tools:

VoodooPad (http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad/)
Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php)

I started out using VoodooPad six or seven years ago to great success. But as I've gained more time with Scrivener writing the manuscript for my own game I've drifted more in its direction for almost all of my writing projects including campaign design.

No matter which tool I use, I break things into Personalities, Regions, Towns, Locations, and Things. From there I can drill down to specifics.

I also add an organization section for research bits like web pages for language translation, etc. That way I don't have to dig through bookmarks in the browser. This is especially handy if you don't always stick with one browser.

A couple more tools that I've used for decently large writing projects are:

MultiMarkdown Composer (http://multimarkdown.com/)
Marked (http://markedapp.com/)

With these tools I'm able to work with plain text in a pretty sophisticated manner while keeping things simple on the backend making the use of git extremely easy.

This word "organize", what does it mean? :D

I half-expected everyone to use MS Word or OpenOffice. I stand quite corrected, and you all have my sincere apology.

beejazz, TristramEvans, The Butcher, you make a good point. It's far too easy to complicate things, tool-wise, to no gain. Writing things down is the fundamental tool here. (Though I imagine The Butcher working solely from memory and/or extemporizing--am I wrong? :D)

That said, on to the shiny stuff!

LordVreeg, wiki seems like a great tool, but how do you tame the chaos?

Eisenmann, I'm glad to hear Scrivener and MultiMarkdown get a mention. I've not spent much time with MultiMarkdown, though it definitely seems more capable than vanilla Markdown. Do you ever find it too limiting or hard to work with?

Quote from: MagesGuild;595238I would have fired a copy-editor that thought hat by having 'Copy' in his job title, he could use the word in repitition for version numbering: That's absurd.

I suppose you had to know him--I worked under him as a typesetter for a year, and he was about as conscientious and competent an editor as I've ever known: of the old guard, worked mostly with pen and paper, accepted the computer as a necessary evil. The "Copy" story was an IT legend.

Quote from: MagesGuild;595238The 'Save as...' menu option exists for a damned good reason, as do off-site backups. A word of warning: keep off-site backups of your work. I've seen on-site backups go up in flames, or crash on the floor, or be chewed on by a dog. If a dog eats your backups...

Duly noted, and thanks for bringing this up. It's a topic that never gets enough attention. (Until it's too late...)

Quote from: MagesGuild;595238The other tools I suggest for working are as follows, and you can take it with the humour intended: tea, a pipe or cigar, some whiskey or ale, and either operatic metal music or audio plays at very low volume, and an oil lamp or candle. Give yourself the mood or atmosphere you want to keep you writing, or to put you in the 'mood of the system'.

Nothing more important to my day than a constant flow of tea.

organize?

I have at the very least 3 different notebooks, 2 different printoffs, and the notepad app on my phone.


organization is a foreign concept to me.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;595262Excellent point.  I'd think that most images wouldn't require version control, but if you're saving your writing in Word documents then the binary file issue would definitely be a drawback.  I write text using a text editor and save in text format (e.g. LaTeX or XML, usually), which avoids that issue.

Even if you use a text editor, your versioning system breaks the minute you convert to a print-layout format. If you are writing for yourself, no worries; but mo publisher will handle that unless they are also doing your editing, and then they will use their own versioning system internally.

Quote from: The Traveller;595251Yup, I've a Cross myself, its less utilitarian than a ballpoint but I refuse to write fantasy in anything less. Weird, I know, but it does help, along with some Medieval Babes, Gregorian chant, or Clannad.

My favourites are the (old) Sheaffer fine nib snorkel, and the Parker 51.The fine points permit me my unusual lettering style. I also order those toss-away college fountain pens in the pack of eight-or-thereabout. I don't recall who manufactures them, but they are passable, and far better than a ball-pen, unless you're using a Spirograph or a plotter.

I do still love all the ball-pen ink designs that Tolkien did in the 1960s and 1970s. His geoform crests are superb.

And cheap Russian vodka for cyberpunk. :D /or how designing an RPG turned me into an alcoholic[/QUOTE]

My Cyberpunk guy is a Romanian, who lived most of his life in England, and deals with the Japanese, now living in Japan. I'm never sure what to drink in that game, but a pint or five usually make the evening roll-along. I do have a fancy for potato-vodka, but the cheap grain types foul my ulcers something terrible.

Quote from: eykd;595346I half-expected everyone to use MS Word or OpenOffice. I stand quite corrected, and you all have my sincere apology.

There is nothing for which you need offer any apologies. They are common utilities for basic writing, to be sure. (Am I the only one that recalls when an 'app'. was a 'utility', a 'programme', or a 'tool'?)

I'm likely a rare case for using Framemaker, as it's a pretty high-end tool that I thankfully never needed to buy, having many versions of it paid out to me by the companies that hired me (as a bonus). It really is wonderful though, and i couldn't imagine editing or writing a 100-plus page manual (and a game system is a manual) without it.

For the record, we use MS Word because everyone that is involved with the project has it and can work with it, providing the most functions for the least money. I'm the one who does the layout-editing, so when it comes down to that, it's FM all the way.

In the past, I used other software: Appleworks/Clarisworks, Wordperfect, Pagestream; whatever was the best on the system I used at that time. I don't care what name they slap on the tin, but only if it will do the job I need of it, and properly, and without hassle or slowdown.

Unfortunately, once I write something in any application, I need to run it through DTP software, primarily Framemaker. I decided to give Scribus a spin, at the behest of DriveThruRPG, but it has too many flaws for any type of big project, meaning anything over around thirty-pages in length, IMHO.

Quote from: eykd;595349I suppose you had to know him--I worked under him as a typesetter for a year, and he was about as conscientious and competent an editor as I've ever known: of the old guard, worked mostly with pen and paper, accepted the computer as a necessary evil. The "Copy" story was an IT legend.

That sounds quite interesting. As long as he did the job and nobody needed to worry about his system (e.g., EIC), then he could do it in whatever ay worked for him. I would only worry if he was a Jr. Editor or had to pass on his screwball numbering on to some poor sod above him that wasn't used to it.

I often seemed to have the Perry Whites of the world, and I well-knew to ensure everything was pristine, so that they could still complain about perfect-copy; but the job of an editor isn't just to do proofing, it is also to polish work, and make it look good; to make everyone look good.

I had a lot of fun (i.e., hell) at a magazine, where one of the staff writers turned in atrocious garbage, filled with the passive voice, 'spellUng errErs', and utterly abhorrent content, and two editors passed it over to some of the rest of us to look over his work. The man photographed a US 'Buffalo Nickel' and referenced it as a 'Dime' in one of his pieces, using it as a size-reference for something else; he did not shoot the photo of the coin next to the object, mind you, as I recall. 'T'was merely the incorrectly annotated disc of metal in the image, and a second, but wholly separate photo of the subject matter.

He lasted a week and a month. (I'm sure that was the minimum in his contract.) Unfortunately, now that most techie magazines have shifted to an Internet format, where they get willing (but terrible) writers at no cost, they don't pay professional writers enough to afford a tin of beans, and they don't bother with copy editors, or any sort of editors. It's really quite sad.

A editor-friend of mine stated this about an article that he read on one of he bigger Internet news websites (possible 'Wired', or something of that nature; I don't recall which, but it was an Apple-related piece): 'Reading that is the literary equivalent of a fit man with perfect vision, walking through a room and stumbling over, and stubbing your toes on, every single piece of furniture humanly possible, including those that aren't there.'.

Now that I am horribly off-topic, I'll hand the controls back over to the kind members here, who are willing to read my drivel, and prepare myself for the rest of today. (X|S)

Quote from: eykd;595346Eisenmann, I'm glad to hear Scrivener and MultiMarkdown get a mention. I've not spent much time with MultiMarkdown, though it definitely seems more capable than vanilla Markdown. Do you ever find it too limiting or hard to work with?

So far, the benefits have outweigh the negatives. I'll put the plain text MMD into a project folder onto Dropbox to not only facilitate collaboration but also so that I can open the files and go to work on my iPad using Daedelus (http://www.the-soulmen.com/daedalus/). I've gotten some serious work done that way. Using external syncing in Scrivener I get to keep the project management tools that come as part of the app.

It also helps that Marked renders the MMD in danged near real time using custom CSS.

This approach has worked pretty well for me as my main target has been ePub. In support of this approach I wrote a set of Ruby scripts to convert MMD to XHTML to ePub. Here's the accompanying blog article: From Scrivener to ePub (http://technitai.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/from-scrivener-to-epub/).

Going the ePub route has fed back into how I do other projects. I'm preparing to kick off a Castles & Crusades campaign. So far, it's all in MultiMarkdown.


Edit:

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention using Circus Ponies Notebook (http://www.circusponies.com/) when organizing thoughts and concepts. Notebook has been exceptionally handy when doing system design.

Quote from: eykd;595211That makes sense--at least as crucial as the editing process that MagesGuild describes, I would imagine. How do you (and anyone else) prepare for and run playtesting?

As a small company large scale playtesting (like WOTC is doing) isn't really an option, so we have a few things we focus on:

-Running regular in-house playtests. In these we playtest as the rules develop, and usually break sessions into: short scenario followed by specific situations (bunch of combats, brief moments of exploration, etc) after we have done some of these we shift to a campaign while continuing to test specific areas of the game as well. Rotating GMs can be helpful here as can drawing up a list of things that need testing for each session. We have regular meetings after playtests to discuss observations, problems and solutions.

-Send out rules at different stages of development to readers and pkaytest groups. You try to get ad many folks as you can here and assume for every 10 that say yes, one to two people will actually have the time to give feedback.

-Run through hypothetical scenarios with deigners and seek out potential issues in the system. This often involves number crunching and repeating one situation a bunch of times at the table to see how it feels.

Quote from: Eisenmann;595371So far, the benefits have outweigh the negatives. I'll put the plain text MMD into a project folder onto Dropbox to not only facilitate collaboration but also so that I can open the files and go to work on my iPad using Daedelus (http://www.the-soulmen.com/daedalus/). I've gotten some serious work done that way. Using external syncing in Scrivener I get to keep the project management tools that come as part of the app.

It also helps that Marked renders the MMD in danged near real time using custom CSS.

This approach has worked pretty well for me as my main target has been ePub. In support of this approach I wrote a set of Ruby scripts to convert MMD to XHTML to ePub. Here's the accompanying blog article: From Scrivener to ePub (http://technitai.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/from-scrivener-to-epub/).

Going the ePub route has fed back into how I do other projects. I'm preparing to kick off a Castles & Crusades campaign. So far, it's all in MultiMarkdown.


Edit:

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention using Circus Ponies Notebook (http://www.circusponies.com/) when organizing thoughts and concepts. Notebook has been exceptionally handy when doing system design.

Yeah, looking at daedalus reminds me that I do use dropbox an awful lot on a daily basis.  Work and gaming both.

Quote from: eykd;595211That makes sense--at least as crucial as the editing process that MagesGuild describes, I would imagine. How do you (and anyone else) prepare for and run playtesting?

As BedrockBrendan mentioned, getting feedback can be tough. To increase the amount of feedback and quality we did After Action Reviews as a group after each game event:

• Title
• Date
• Location
• Summary
• Improve
• Sustain

We also prepared one or two interview questions ready for those who were the most engaged throughout the day. The questions were mostly about the latest changes to the system.

Quote from: eykd;595346That said, on to the shiny stuff!

LordVreeg, wiki seems like a great tool, but how do you tame the chaos?

I went with the wiki for a number of reasons.  

One of the things it does well is creating a living document.  I, personally go for the very very long campaigns.  So having a repository that everyone can use (and that can have locked areas) and some can edit is huge.  Campaigns and rulesets grow, and having an authoritative version is much easier.  

Just as an aside, having linkable wiki pages is a huge boon in and of itself.  My PC's character sheets all use links for their spell books.  Finding a spell or weapon or skill is pretty easy when the link is embedded into the character sheet.
As an aside, this cuts down on the rules/rulebooks issue.  And the more you homebrew, the more this ideal helps. As a creator, being able to create a rule or entry, then expand on it, and link it later.

As a GM, I also create pages for special items (which are linkable) or areas.  Our sesions are 100% laptop/tablet compliant (or online), so I can send out a link when they get so such and area (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/45952578/Rip-cut%20Crucible%20of%20Igbar) or item (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/55210840/Flamberge%20of%20Vitality) (examples linked).  And the players can use the links later on embedded into their own sheets.

I do need to know which chaos you are talking about?  In terms of who is woring on what?  the rules are pretty clearcut, only grammar and spelling and formating are to be touched except on player specific pages (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956323/Steel%20Isle%20online).  Rules or setting entries are my province only.

Everything written is in Google Docs, the occasional schematic/map/handout is done in Inkscape or just ripped off internet.

Workflow process is basically writing stuff down until my inspiration runs dry, and if by the next game session things aren't finished, I'll wing it when necessary.

Quote from: LordVreeg;595377Just as an aside, having linkable wiki pages is a huge boon in and of itself.  My PC's character sheets all use links for their spell books.  Finding a spell or weapon or skill is pretty easy when the link is embedded into the character sheet.

This really is the next stage in RPG development I think. Having everything easily cross referenceable straight from the sheet is the bridge between the pen and paper world and the world of computers. It needs a crapton of prep work but the first publisher to pull it off will be onto a winner.

Quote from: eykd;595346I half-expected everyone to use MS Word or OpenOffice. I stand quite corrected, and you all have my sincere apology.

beejazz, TristramEvans, The Butcher, you make a good point. It's far too easy to complicate things, tool-wise, to no gain. Writing things down is the fundamental tool here. (Though I imagine The Butcher working solely from memory and/or extemporizing--am I wrong? :D)

I have a bunch of half-finished notes on MS Word that usually include setting notes, NPCs and the odd houserule. I'd say it's 10% the notes and 90% memory and improvisation.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;595372As a small company large scale playtesting (like WOTC is doing) isn't really an option, so we have a few things we focus on:

-Running regular in-house playtests. In these we playtest as the rules develop, and usually break sessions into: short scenario followed by specific situations (bunch of combats, brief moments of exploration, etc) after we have done some of these we shift to a campaign while continuing to test specific areas of the game as well. Rotating GMs can be helpful here as can drawing up a list of things that need testing for each session. We have regular meetings after playtests to discuss observations, problems and solutions.

-Send out rules at different stages of development to readers and pkaytest groups. You try to get ad many folks as you can here and assume for every 10 that say yes, one to two people will actually have the time to give feedback.

-Run through hypothetical scenarios with deigners and seek out potential issues in the system. This often involves number crunching and repeating one situation a bunch of times at the table to see how it feels.

This essentially sums up the process ofr most people. We, as a group of writers, playtest the work of others, and discus flaws, as well as the good stuff, and make suggestions. Some contribute directly to the system, and others only find it enjoyable, which is in itself a contribution.

From there, we others to playtest it, even if it isn't complete, using the proven areas and adjusting them to player response. It's somewhat like a form of psycho-analysis, but of a product, rather than a person, determining how easy it is to understand, or how easy it could be to corrupt. In an ideal world, a playtest group (players) will have a seasoned GM as a player, a newbie, a good player, a mad payer and a munchkin. That is the 'party' of players that you want, as they all contribute to improving the system in different ways.

Then, we have someone other than the main author run it--anyone not involved witht he creation process, while the writers go through and help with stumbling-points, noting them and making them easier to understand. We get the GM's feedback this way on how to make the system easier to understand from to a potential storyteller.

After this, it's time to get other GMs and their own players to attempt running your system or adventure, without any of the authors present. That way, they can send feedback reports on problems they encounter, either as a storyteller or as a player. In return, they get to have fun with a new product, and free copies when it's over; and with is, they get their name in the contributions section.

The larger or more complex the product, the more playtesting it requires, as a general rule.

We post every update tot he product in a special playtesters area so that the newest version of always available, and send regular supplements as well.

In respect to character-sheet layout, I don't see cross-linking as important. heck, i don't even see auto-fill as important. I still write them out on paper myself... The most-important factor is enuring that we present ll the information in an orderly way, using all the space on a page, without it becoming cumbersome.

The primary things you need to see should always be on the front page, inventory items and detail items on the second. Spells and powers should have their own pages, separating out what they are; any spell or power that you use regularly might be on the main page. (X|S)

Quote from: The Traveller;595492This really is the next stage in RPG development I think. Having everything easily cross referenceable straight from the sheet is the bridge between the pen and paper world and the world of computers. It needs a crapton of prep work but the first publisher to pull it off will be onto a winner.

Actually, the first company that has their gameplay documentation referencing a database will be.  You can make the rulset as complicated and as deeply drilled as you want, if all the calculations are taken care of.

Quote from: LordVreeg;595604Actually, the first company that has their gameplay documentation referencing a database will be.  You can make the rulset as complicated and as deeply drilled as you want, if all the calculations are taken care of.

But isn't that what WotC tried to do with 4e and DDI? And didn't it fail spectacularly?

Quote from: The Butcher;595605But isn't that what WotC tried to do with 4e and DDI? And didn't it fail spectacularly?

How would I know?  I play roleplaying games....that's what I was talking about....

Heh.  I probably shouldn't even confess to what my "workflow" is like.  I'm sure the kinds of people who actually go through the effort of setting up source repositories for their version control will think me terribly unprofessional or something.  I'm sure someone is going to post somewhere in a month after I launch my next IGG campaign, linking this post as "proof" I'm a horrible game designer and how you should never buy things from me.

But the truth is, whatever brain wiring I'm supposed to have for all the shit people have told me in the 20+ years since I first started writing with children's books in the 4th grade to actually work, basically doesn't for me.  It often winds up sabotaging my efforts.  

Outlines were the first to go, some time back in the 6th or 7th grade, IIRC.  The problem with an outline when you have issues with motivation is it's a great way to make a project's scope look bigger than it already is.  Truth is, if you've read an RPG book before, you already have a good idea of what's going to be in it, just steal their chapter order and start writing.

Notes took a much longer time to get over as a habit.  The trouble with notes is that they're easier to write than the actual thing you're supposed to be writing, and your brain doesn't like to repeat ideas, so it becomes an easy way out of actually writing anything.  When I was a younger man, I had whole game systems that consisted entirely of incomplete notes as a result.  Nowadays I try to save notes for stuff that can't go in the current project, but might be able to go in its follow up.  If I have something to write for the current project, I just bloody write it.

Specialized software is a bust as well.  The only specialized writing software I use is Celtx for screenwriting, because unlike prose writing, it's very specific about formatting and Celtx is designed to make that formatting easier so that you can get back to writing the actual words.  Most of the software I've tried over the years that people have recommended, like Scrivener, TiddlyWiki, etc., all just left me spending more time fiddlefucking with the software than actually producing anything.  They also tend to be built around assumptions that you'll write the way your writing instructors told you to, with lots of outlines and notes, which makes them fucking useless for someone like me.  

My actual process starts in my head.

I get an idea.  Usually these days this is for some kind of setting or direction of play.  Maybe, I write out that idea in logline form, and test the waters by posting it in IRC and seeing how people react to the idea.  RPG concepts fit nicely in logline form, you just have to make sure the person of action in them is a general concept for what the PCs will be, instead of a specific character.  

Once I have a logline that I like, I build on that in two directions, often still in my head.  For the setting development, I might sit down and start writing out an actual pitch, often in character somehow so that it can then be adapted into an intro for the actual book if I don't hate it.

I also start thinking about system ideas.  What kind of flavor do I want to model, how traditional is the design gonna be, and what are some novel mechanics.  Once I have the die mechanics I mind I'll start playing with Anydice or other probability tools to see how the numbers and ranges look and if they'll support the kind of play and power structure I want.

By this point, this is pretty much all still in my head.  At most I might have a pitch paragraph somewhere on Google+, a general idea of system mechanics, and that's it.  If the mental puzzle has resolved itself to my satisfaction, next comes writing.  If not, I see something shiny or a new idea springs to mind, and the process starts all over again.

Once the actual writing process starts, it's more or less just a matter of sitting down and writing away in Word, starting from Introductions, through Character Creation, then Basic Rules, Combat, Setting, Content Tools, then Monsters.  I write my books in order, basically, because the crudely object oriented way I think about game design works well with this particular book structure for building on itself.  It's all semi-stream of consciousness; I have general ideas of what I want, and the more of it I write, the more concrete those ideas get, and by following the technique I use they build on one another until I have a complete game at the end.

Introduction lets you get the setting idea in more concrete, but not overbearing, detail right away, and establish some general mood and direction for the rest of the game.

Chargen is all about defining the variables, the interactions of which the latter system sections will resolve.  Traditional simulatory RPG design is all about deciding what you want to model and how, and a lot of the design steps and the main lens through which most of your players are going to handle the system starts with deciding what characters look like, what numbers you're using to define them, and so forth.  

Once you have that, rules are just about making the pieces fit.  Resolving the interaction between the variables through whatever novel or non-novel means you've come up with.  By now I'll have had the die mechanic straightened out and probability tested weeks ago anyway, so this is generally the easiest part to write, because it's just about covering the kinds of actions the characters are going to be doing most, something we've also already described in the Intro and Chargen.

Once combat is out of the way, your core is done, and it's time to make the DM's tools.  This starts with establishing the Setting in more detail, if you're writing a setting-based game, though by now you've already done a good chunk of defining what's going to be here already.  Your Intro and Chargen sections and the little blurbs you've been dropping throughout the book have handled a lot of the basics already, what the basic idea is, the general backstory, what PCs are generally like, what the action is like.  Now you just need to sit down and write things out a bit more long hand, elucidating on any details that are most relevant to a GMs ability to make adventures and scenarios for the group.  

From there we get into content generation tools if desired: our idea of setting having been well established by now, it's simply a matter of building the tools needed to generate setting-matching examples.  Dungeons, world maps, treasure finds, whatever.  Focus on the kinds of tools that are most important to your expected style of adventure, and on making the results generated with those tools fit the style and theme you want for the game.  Once you keep that in mind, the rest is mostly just writing a lot of numbered lists.

My last content tool is also almost always a tool for making NPCs/monsters, followed by a bestiary of some sort.  Now that we have our system fully established, and enough of an idea of the mode of play, we know how survivable they need to be, what shortcuts we can take with monster stats to make them easier to run, and how to quickly generate workable stats for those monsters.  The key here, for me, is entirely a personal preference in design principle form: enemies should not use full PC stats unless they're as important as PCs, and RPGs need bestiaries because DMs are as lazy as players (or at least I am as a DM, and I want to run this game.)  

By now we're done.  We have a playable game.  We'll need to do some wrap up stuff here maybe, like an experience system if we didn't cover that already in chargen (I'm 50/50 on organization there), and if desired, the obligatory "how to DM" chapter that almost no one will read unless it actually contains genuinely novel advice for the genre itself.  Mostly I hate writing that last part myself, because I don't feel qualified or possessed of the authority to tell anyone how they should run their games.

As this process is continuing to an end, I will jump back regularly, revising earlier sections as new sections call for adjustments to compensate for new ideas and changes and the needs the later sections impose on the system.

For software, I currently use good old Microsoft Word 2013 for fucking everything, from the writing to the layout.  I'm transitioning to a more eBook friendly, "novella format" for the current project, so other than the cover which will probably be put together in a photo editor or drawing program, everything is written on the fly in WYSIWYG form using that awesome Styles system (which also helps generate my table of contents automatically). Before I finally figured out how to use those properly I tended to format by hand, doing headings and so forth manually, but my last layout editor and the cumbersome nature of the Hulks and Horrors first draft finally broke me of that.  

And that's just how it goes.  Using some version of this method is how I wrote the first draft of Drums of War in 6 days, and the lion's share of Hulks and Horrors over a period of two weeks on a school break (the monsters took longer because I listed them out before hand, which broke my "no outlines" policy).  I generally can average between 1200-2500 words per day, so long as I'm taking adequate short breaks and not being seriously interrupted or distracted.  

After that comes playtesting time, and in truth I am not all that qualified to comment on that because I seem to have a terrible time encouraging my playtesters to actually do anything independent of myself, so mostly it just comes of writing stuff down as I run the game that I think needs changing, building an errata list that I can then use to go back over and edit the book into the next draft.  This keeps happening until either I'm tired of it, or I start realizing the changes I'm receiving from my playtesters are no longer actual mechanical issues so much as personal taste ones, and then it's time to release.

Quote from: The Traveller;595492This really is the next stage in RPG development I think. Having everything easily cross referenceable straight from the sheet is the bridge between the pen and paper world and the world of computers. It needs a crapton of prep work but the first publisher to pull it off will be onto a winner.

Already in this thread, I'm pretty well convinced of this.

Quote from: LordVreeg;595604Actually, the first company that has their gameplay documentation referencing a database will be.  You can make the rulset as complicated and as deeply drilled as you want, if all the calculations are taken care of.

I don't know about "as complicated and deeply drilled as you want", since your players (not to mention your GM!) still need to understand what the heck is going on. However, that will quickly drift off-topic and into design theory, which I believe is banned in this sub-forum. :)

Suffice it to say that, with the proper tools, I have no doubt that higher complexity designs will be easier to develop and play. I'm reminded of my first (and only) time playing in a D20 campaign. The GM was new to the system too. If the other players hadn't had the page numbers memorized and the system largely internalized, I expect we would have been lost. I spent much of that campaign wishing for a hypertext edition of the player's handbook.

Quote from: The Butcher;595605But isn't that what WotC tried to do with 4e and DDI? And didn't it fail spectacularly?

If anyone has any historical links regarding that, I'd be grateful (I'll google it, too).

Quote from: J Arcane;595610If I have something to write for the current project, I just bloody write it.

I have quite a lot of sympathy with you. I'm generally allergic to outlines the various correct ways of structured writing. My mind just doesn't work that way. I believe your solution is more general though: actually getting anything done is always a matter of self-discipline and good old-fashioned BIC (butt-in-chair) time.

Quote from: J Arcane;595610Specialized software is a bust as well.  The only specialized writing software I use is Celtx for screenwriting, because unlike prose writing, it's very specific about formatting and Celtx is designed to make that formatting easier so that you can get back to writing the actual words.  Most of the software I've tried over the years that people have recommended, like Scrivener, TiddlyWiki, etc., all just left me spending more time fiddlefucking with the software than actually producing anything.  They also tend to be built around assumptions that you'll write the way your writing instructors told you to, with lots of outlines and notes, which makes them fucking useless for someone like me.  

Again, this gets nothing but sympathy from me--I don't know how many productive hours I've wasted fiddling with software. (So many hours that I eventually decided to just start writing my own software, instead.) However, I suspect that the usual recommendations are perhaps too generic and malleable (TiddlyWiki, I'm looking at you).

I'm glad that some folk seem to get good use out of these things, at least. For me, though, the siren's call of software that can do ANYTHING inevitably results in a Saturday afternoon spent doing nothing. I like your CeltX example, which seems to be well-targeted, focused software. We need more of that.

Quote from: eykd;595678I'm glad that some folk seem to get good use out of these things, at least. For me, though, the siren's call of software that can do ANYTHING inevitably results in a Saturday afternoon spent doing nothing.

It's definitely about getting things done.

http://technitai.wordpress.com/tag/kanban/

Quote from: LordVreeg;595604You can make the rulset as complicated and as deeply drilled as you want, if all the calculations are taken care of.

Those are called computer games. The trick is to tie in the advantages of tabletop roleplaying with the advantages of instantly referrable data, that's the sweet spot nobody has hit yet, or even come close to my knowledge.

Quote from: The Traveller;595701Those are called computer games. The trick is to tie in the advantages of tabletop roleplaying with the advantages of instantly referrable data, that's the sweet spot nobody has hit yet, or even come close to my knowledge.

Yes.
Exactly my point, and yours as well.  Also, can put this online and play over distance as well, though nothing will ever take the place of my game table.

Quote from: eykd;595670Already in this thread, I'm pretty well convinced of this.



I don't know about "as complicated and deeply drilled as you want", since your players (not to mention your GM!) still need to understand what the heck is going on. However, that will quickly drift off-topic and into design theory, which I believe is banned in this sub-forum. :)

Suffice it to say that, with the proper tools, I have no doubt that higher complexity designs will be easier to develop and play. I'm reminded of my first (and only) time playing in a D20 campaign. The GM was new to the system too. If the other players hadn't had the page numbers memorized and the system largely internalized, I expect we would have been lost. I spent much of that campaign wishing for a hypertext edition of the player's handbook.

Seems to be the way it works.  We use a total homebrew skill based system, and so system mastery, especially since the game is not a simple one, would be harder if everything was not always easy for everyone to find.  And Easy to reference and even use the search function of the wiki.
and then you can each skill, each spell, etc, and have Index (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955667/Index) pages...

and collaboration is easier.  I see one of my PCs right now has been cleaning up my formatting last night...

Actually, in all aspects of a game designer, writer, editor, storyteller and player, I couldn't care less about integrating P&P games with computers. The only point to me is a versioning system that works for everyone involved, and content that people can understand.

I don't believe a gigantic database, wiki, or other portal should be required either to construct or to play a game, and in fact, one of my 'house rules' for in-person play is 'no computers at the game table'. I'm married to enough technology without it detracting from the P&P concept; in all-reality, they both slow down the game (note-taking other than by hand) and licit distraction and interruption via the glorious, fat, bloated infestation of media on the Internet.

While it is fine to make an OOC 'Ghosbusters' reference, we don't need to see a video clip to back it up. The only use I have is to play sound-effects, or to display complex graphics to illustrate something seen by the characters. Otherwise, my system sits on the sidelines and I have a journal on hand for shorthand note-taking.

As long as you, and whoever you work alongside can all understand a versioning system, sharing content doesn't require any special, magical repositories.

Now, I write in a non-linear manner, working on either many sections or products at one time, and keeping separate notes on sections that I am not actively developing so that I don't forget what i want to do there, before I write, or continue writing, that section.

This is why I use cascading versioning. One version for a master document, and a sub-version for extractions that I am expanding. When people send me something to overview or edit, I only want or need the master document versioning information. When we collaborate, we need to work on segments, and outline the changes in some way.

What we often do is outline new text in a non-black colour (e.g.in blue, red, green, etc.) so that it is easy to compare different documents that multiple people have altered, in case versioning is ever corrupted, and then combine them into a master-sub-document, and then integrate those into a new master document, with a version increase. Then the process restarts.

This way, we maintain organization without needing a fancy database, and nobody overwrites anyone else's work. If three people are working on a chapter, and make changes in the same place, each has their own colour and it is easy to spot who changed what, and to combine the efforts.

We also denote sections under development or as placeholders by colour. The Zoria book uses blue and red for this, and other colours for working documents. As there are two other contributing writers, we don't need a rainbow of text.

You really only need advanced versioning when you have dozens of people writing a system, and in this case, workshopping works best: Sitting down at a conference table (real, or virtual) and working on a single section as a group. Parts of the expansion of the classes section for Zoria are workshopped in exactly this way:

One person kept a master document, and the rest pitched ideas, which are noted as idea outlined, then incorporated as into a working document, and finally reduced into a sub-document of the book that we can pass around for mark-up with unique versioning. (X|S)

Quote from: MagesGuild;596906I don't believe a gigantic database, wiki, or other portal should be required either to construct or to play a game

It shouldn't be required, but it can sure be useful. Take for example a popular RPG that lots of people want to contribute their ideas towards, whether in setting or in system. The power of the internet as regards gaming lies in its ability to let all these people store their ideas in a readily accessable repository for easy public access. They can even categorise it themselves as they enter it.

It would be missing a trick to ignore the possibilities here.

For my campaigns, I use notebooks and fountain pens. I like my tools to be nice to use and see, so I favor expensive pens and notebooks. Also, writing in longhand, doodling relationship-maps, making portraits and sketchs of NPCs and places is easier for me on paper.

When I compile a master document for rules (something I always do, specially with games with many splatbooks), I'll use Google Drive to share documents and the like.

I have a fool proof system that involves scattering posts across half a dozen forums, a blog and about 30 .docs on my laptop. I'm never really sure where anything is and I'm certain I've lost stuff that I've forgotten about. However the latter fact is not as distressing to me as it should be. i can always make some new shit up.

Seeing as most of my writing is either for my own games or, more often, my own edification and my publishing credits are rather limited, I tend to write down my ideas in Word (whether just as notes or as manuscripts).

I've started using OneNote at work and am thinking about using it at home to help me keep better track of my campaigns, while still keeping them separate from the core setting writing.

When I'm ready to share with others, I've taken to using Wikispaces to organize my writing by major topics and get the ideas out there.

Quote from: MagesGuild;596906Actually, in all aspects of a game designer, writer, editor, storyteller and player, I couldn't care less about integrating P&P games with computers. The only point to me is a versioning system that works for everyone involved, and content that people can understand.

I don't believe a gigantic database, wiki, or other portal should be required either to construct or to play a game, and in fact, one of my 'house rules' for in-person play is 'no computers at the game table'. I'm married to enough technology without it detracting from the P&P concept; in all-reality, they both slow down the game (note-taking other than by hand) and licit distraction and interruption via the glorious, fat, bloated infestation of media on the Internet.
. (X|S)

Yeah.  Everyone games differently.  
We are the opposite, we require full tablet/laptop compliance.  For us, it removes a lot of papers around the table (though we do end up with 1/2 the people taking P&P notes, to your point...some people are faster that way).

1- I use an blank book inserted into a leather Oberon notebook cover and a mechanical pencil for scribbling my ideas and notes.  I'm on my 17th 'little black book' now, stretching back a decade or so.

2- I just started using software called The Keep (Personal Information Manager for RPG's)  (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/59990/The-Keep-1.0---Personal-Information-Manager-for-Gamers)on a USB drive and I will transfer needed/useful info from my hand written noties into the knowledge structure I am creating with that tool (along with any other documents and exhibits I want).  Ive got major sections for House Rules, DM Tools, Cartography, History and Lore, Lands and Peoples, Campaigns, and Notes and References.  I like the portability of having everything on a USB.

3- I use Campaign Cartographer 3 (with misc. ad-ons) for mapping I create.  I also plan to use Cityographer (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inkwellideas/cityographer-city-generator-and-mapping-software) when the kickstarter project is finished.

4- I also use Office (Word, Excel, Visio, Paint) and when necessary  create 'finished' documents in Word.  Anything for player consumption usually gets converted into PDF.

I also have a campaign world website (//www.eradain.com) and I put finished into there, but I'm beginning to think I need to convert to some kind of wiki instead for ease of additions and editing.

edited added link to Cityographer, The Keep, and my world website.

Welcome to the RPG site Lugoun! What are the website and kickstarter addresses? Good to hear there's another Oberon fan in the audience, this is starting to look like an old fashioned bling-off. I'll have photos uploaded shortly! :D

As promised, a few of my tools:

(http://s16.postimage.org/inlr6tjgl/bling1.jpg)

(http://s7.postimage.org/6wyeuaaaj/bling2.jpg)

That's my Sammy netbook, a more serious Acer beside it, moleskines complete with with spidery scribbles, thorn dice, Wacom inkling, and leather pouch containing current notebook and quiver attached holding fountain pen which is tuned nicely. Also pictured is a gold plated fountain pen clad in oak which was turned from the rafter beams of a medieval cathedral, dated 1250 AD. I haven't tuned that one yet so its a bit runny. And just because its a massive source of inspiration for me, my Nook ereader with Oberon cover.

Bring out your bling, let's see what you've got!

Quote from: The Traveller;600550Bring out your bling, let's see what you've got!

We all kind of left you hanging there! I'm afraid my bling may make you cry, but here it is anyway:

(http://i.imgur.com/1YelU.jpg)

• Leftmost, and most importantly, a full mug of English Breakfast tea, hot and black. Nothing would get done with out that!
• On top, the mighty Bic SoftFeel, Medium point. Yes, this is about the cheapest pen imaginable, and it makes all my pen nerd friends wrinkle their noses, but it puts ink on paper, and I lose them by the box-full.
• Beneath that, the humble 3x5 card. I keep a sheaf of these in my pocket at all times (a modified "Hipster PDA"), to capture ideas when they come. About the only place these don't work is in the shower.
• When I need a more formal writing environment than a card, a legal pad is my next go-to. Again, this is really just long-form idea capture.
• Foundational to most everything I do, my Macbook Pro. I move things off of paper as soon as I can and into Emacs (my editor of choice) and a text file on my Dropbox, for never-worry backups. From there, if I want to get really fancy, it's off to Scrivener.

This is rather the opposite of your bling, but it gets the job done. :)

Happy new year, and a long-belated thanks to everyone who posted their tools and process in this thread!

Wiki is up to 1136 pages in the meantime.  :D
It might be necessary, but we keep growing the database, system, and setting this way.

Quote from: LordVreeg;612933Wiki is up to 1136 pages in the meantime.  :D
It might be necessary, but we keep growing the database, system, and setting this way.

Impressive! How long have you been building it up?

Quote from: eykd;612932We all kind of left you hanging there! I'm afraid my bling may make you cry, but here it is anyway:

Not a bit, its an elegantly ascetic aesthetic. I've been considering moving into the cloud a bit more myself, but I don't really trust it enough at this point. Not so much the hardware but the licensing.