I'm interested in hearing about how you like to see an RPG organized.  What information should go together and what information should be separated?  Having everything related in the same spot would be ideal, but it's not always possible and there are sometimes good reasons to separate things out.

What spurred this question is that I'm getting close to done with the sailing ships section of my faintly historical 1600s game, and I'm thinking about where to put all of it.  There's a section on long distance travel.  Should this go with the ship information, or should I put it in the section with long distance travel on foot and horseback, so all of the travel information is together.  There's a section on shipboard melee combat.  Does this go with ships or in the combat section?  There's a sizeable section on ship to ship combat.  Again, ship section or combat section?  There's a lot of information only the gamemaster is likely to need, such as notes on reasonable ways to assign stats to ships.  I could put this in the gamemaster section so that the main ships chapter is shorter (hence easier to find stuff in) and less intimidating, or I could put it with all of the other ship stuff so when you work with it all of the info is in one place.

So, lots of options, and this type of question has come up repeatedly for many topics.  I don't think there's one right, objective answer, but I would like to make the rules as easy to use as possible.

So, how do you like to see an RPG organized?

Yeah, there is no perfect answer in a vacuum.  Off the cuff, I'd go with one of these methods, depending:

1. Ships are a major portion of the setting. Characters are expected to spend a lot of time on ships and will frequently engage in fights.  In that case, it makes more sense to integrate the rules in their appropriate sections.  Fights happen a lot on ships.  So the combat rules that peculiar to ships are integrated right into the main combat section. Travel is a major theme if you are on ships all the time.  So traveling on a ship is naturally integrated in the travel section.  It's the kind of thing every character should consider right off the bat.

2. Ships are a definite thing in the setting, but the frequency is erratic. Maybe character go for months at a time without doing much on a ship, then they are on a ship for several sessions.  In that case, it probably makes more sense to have ships as its own supplemental section. However, each of the other sections should point to the equivalent sections in the ship supplement.  Also, the ship supplement should be arranged with similar headings, in the same order as the base rules.  If basic travel comes before basic combat, then ship travel should come before ship combat. 

In either case, it also makes sense to have handouts that summarize the combined rules. Even so, I'd probably organize the handout according to the above take.  Though you could make the case that even in case #2, an integrated handout kind of gives you the best of both worlds.  I'm a big believer in summarized handouts, allowing the details of the rules to be somewhat more geared to ease of reading and understanding, instead of quick reference.

1. Brief overview of what the game is about.

2. How to create a character.

3. Personal equipment & explanations of such

4. Rules: combat, skills.

5. Ships A, characters role in ships

6. Ships B, how they sail and fight

7. Ships C, Types of ships and how to buy and or modify them (upgrades, quirks, etc)

8. The setting: overview, maybe a brief gazeteer detailing well known ports/towns and places. The major factions in the region: European empires, native tribes, pirates, etc. bare bones stuff that a player can look at and not have any spoilers.

9. GM section:
How to write a pirate adventure.
How levelling/experience works
Treasure, random generation of wealth and cargo, cool items to boost character effectiveness (fancy guns, Toledo swords, other gear...)
Adversaries, mooks, bosses, animals, monsters,

Powerful NPC's/ Famous people.

Appendices:
A:List of names from different nationalities.
B: "I loot the body..." charts, "what's in the crate/barrel?" charts.
C: Inspiring literature/media/games.

I forgot to add:
travel/exploration rules
Healing/recovery

Oh!  You're going to want to have a cool map of the setting to plop down onto the table. 

One that shows all the major stuff that everyone knows about like the big cities and towns, but not all the hidden features like lost cities and graveyards of ships

I agree exactly with the way Steven Mitchell put it. Just dropping in to say if you're putting this out publicly you've got at least one potential buyer. Fantasy 1600s is very much my jam.

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 28, 2024, 02:48:43 PMJust dropping in to say if you're putting this out publicly you've got at least one potential buyer. Fantasy 1600s is very much my jam.

I don't even care all that much for that era in fantasy, but I'd be interested too.  As you say, there's a dearth of good information on how to do ships.  I think I could adapt whatever you do to an earlier sailing era without too much trouble.

I'm surprised Lamentations never produced a book on nautical stuff in that era.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 28, 2024, 06:40:51 AMYeah, there is no perfect answer in a vacuum.  Off the cuff, I'd go with one of these methods, depending:

1. Ships are a major portion of the setting. Characters are expected to spend a lot of time on ships and will frequently engage in fights.  In that case, it makes more sense to integrate the rules in their appropriate sections.  Fights happen a lot on ships.  So the combat rules that peculiar to ships are integrated right into the main combat section. Travel is a major theme if you are on ships all the time.  So traveling on a ship is naturally integrated in the travel section.  It's the kind of thing every character should consider right off the bat.

2. Ships are a definite thing in the setting, but the frequency is erratic. Maybe character go for months at a time without doing much on a ship, then they are on a ship for several sessions.  In that case, it probably makes more sense to have ships as its own supplemental section. However, each of the other sections should point to the equivalent sections in the ship supplement.  Also, the ship supplement should be arranged with similar headings, in the same order as the base rules.  If basic travel comes before basic combat, then ship travel should come before ship combat. 

In either case, it also makes sense to have handouts that summarize the combined rules. Even so, I'd probably organize the handout according to the above take.  Though you could make the case that even in case #2, an integrated handout kind of gives you the best of both worlds.  I'm a big believer in summarized handouts, allowing the details of the rules to be somewhat more geared to ease of reading and understanding, instead of quick reference.

Thanks, that actually helps a lot.  Ships are definitely a big thing, but it's going to be up to the players whether they want to be privateers or free traders, of if they want to dungeon crawl, or lean on the espionage/political stuff built into the game.  It's hard to predict.  I'm leaning towards divvying it out into sections.

And yes, handouts are essential.  I have a whole catalog of maneuvers for melee, and in the first playtest all they did was "I hit it with my sword."  The second session had handouts and went a bit better

Quote from: Svenhelgrim on September 28, 2024, 12:57:02 PM1. Brief overview of what the game is about.

2. How to create a character.

3. Personal equipment & explanations of such

4. Rules: combat, skills.

5. Ships A, characters role in ships

6. Ships B, how they sail and fight

7. Ships C, Types of ships and how to buy and or modify them (upgrades, quirks, etc)

8. The setting: overview, maybe a brief gazeteer detailing well known ports/towns and places. The major factions in the region: European empires, native tribes, pirates, etc. bare bones stuff that a player can look at and not have any spoilers.

9. GM section:
How to write a pirate adventure.
How levelling/experience works
Treasure, random generation of wealth and cargo, cool items to boost character effectiveness (fancy guns, Toledo swords, other gear...)
Adversaries, mooks, bosses, animals, monsters,

Powerful NPC's/ Famous people.

Appendices:
A:List of names from different nationalities.
B: "I loot the body..." charts, "what's in the crate/barrel?" charts.
C: Inspiring literature/media/games.

That's a good list, and there are a few things that I hadn't thought to include, so thanks.

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 28, 2024, 02:48:43 PMI agree exactly with the way Steven Mitchell put it. Just dropping in to say if you're putting this out publicly you've got at least one potential buyer. Fantasy 1600s is very much my jam.

It will be out publicly, and hopefully in not too much longer.  And just to set expectations, I should reiterate that it's 1600's _faintly_ historical.  So there's European-ish powers, pirate ships, and cannons in a "new world."  There's also unique nonhuman races and magic.  And I decided to do no natives.  I was thinking about it to avoid the inevitable political drama, and it spurred some ideas that I thought were interesting for a setting so I ran with it.  I'll post a small excerpt here if I can find a convenient way to do it.

Here's the ToC to date.  Still quite a bit to do with the setting

And here's the bit of narrative at the front of the book to set the stage for the setting.  I want to mention that first, I realize it still needs a bit of work, and second, Zed is a bit of a pompous old windbag.  He's supposed to sound like that

(ignore)