So, there has been a lot of talk recently on the Story Game forum about the presentation and writing of RPGs. There is a pretty sizeable contingent that holds that RPGs should be written according to adult learning principles (basically in the style of a text book; i.e. clear prose, lots of reminders, practice excercises, clear examples, building principles through repetition, etc). I tend to agree.

Since many of the comments I got on ‘Threads’ revolved around organization of the text and clarity of the presentation, I decided that this draft should be as ‘friendly’ as I could possibly make it.

Here are the Results:

New Threads Draft

Keep in mind, if you were frightened by the length of the original ‘Threads’ document (40 pages), this section is significantly shorter at 5 pages.

So if you have some time, here are the questions I have:

1. Do you like the new look?

2. Does it help you get through the dry rules material?

3. Is it clear? Does it improve the clarity of the document (versus the previous draft)?

Because, here is the thing, formatting the document in this way takes a TON of time (much more than I thought that it would) and I am trying to see whether or not it is worth the effort… or if I should head back to the drawing board.

I leave you with an alternate cover for Threads (which I ended up much preferring although the bottom text is too small)… I think I am obsessed with the red on black thing

–Adam