The game I'm working on is Final Hour of a Storied Age (download page here, direct link to the version of the PDF I'm talking about here). I'm currently in alpha playtesting (I have some AP recordings on my podcast and text APs on my blog). The game is supposed to create the kind of stories you get in Epic Fantasy literature, like the Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, or The Sword of Truth.

I'm trying to make the game more readable and appealing so that I can attract more playtesters so I can test the design (although I'll appreciate any critique of the game mechanics, too). I would like to get feedback on whether the writing is clear, whether the order I present things makes sense, suggestions for how to make it more appealing, and any low-investment improvements I can make in the layout or graphical presentation (right now I'm using OpenOffice to do it all, and I'm new at this kind of thing so I'm assuming it looks pretty amateurish).

Stuff I already know about: I need art. The “seed sheets” on pages 37 and 38 have some issues. I need to add character sheets. I'd like the PDF to default to a Two-Up initial view with odd pages on the left.

One specific question is whether the semi-humorous LOTR references work in the writing, such as the last two paragraphs on page 12 where I talk about Fredo the Halfling's epic quest to destroy the ring of Dark Lord Soros, or the Dark Mirror section on page 24, where I talk about the wizard Randolph and his evil counterpart, Harriman the White. On the one hand I want to make clear that the game is intended to tell LOTR-style stories. On the other hand, I don't want people to think that's the only story you can tell. I want to respect the source material, but also have fun with it. I'm wondering whether I should just be more direct with my LOTR references, strip them out in favor of original examples, or whether what I'm doing works better than I think it does.

joshua said:

• Is there a way to say this positively, instead of negatively?

I'll have to think about how to do it, but I agree that I should. I put parts of that in as a reaction to some of my playtesters “getting it wrong”, but I need to keep defensiveness and negativity out of the text.

• Either your 2d12 choice of seeds is very strange or I don't understand it. Do you add the dice together? If so, can you roll a 1 only on the second or subsequent roll, thereby making Nobility an unlikely hit? That means that your seeds will tend to be — but won't reliably be — Large, Male, Female, Corruption, and Prophecy. Then you'll most likely roll Ambition, Family, Division, Return, Truth.
• The “Roll until you get the same result” is kinda neat.
• What are the statistics on your number of rolls being indefinite or unwieldy? Too small?

• “Map unit” isn't very evocative. Maybe “League”? That's a pretty vague unit of measurement.

For some reason it never even occurred to me to try to find an evocative word for this. Thanks for the suggestion.

Fredos and Soros seem pretty silly. Your explamples can do a lot to set tone. What's the tone you're after?

I'm not sure exactly how to describe the tone I'm going for. Sort of love and respect for the source material, but not so serious that you wouldn't want to engage with it and have fun. I definitely don't want it to be a comedy or parody of the genre — I want to take the genre and style of story seriously, but I want people to be laughing and having a good time while they do it. I also feel that this is a genre that is strongly associated with the novel, so I'm trying to evoke that feeling too, in contrast to film, television, short stories, etc.

I haven't used it in a long time, but Scribus is an Open Source page layout app. When last I used it, it was pretty rough around the edges, but that was a couple of years ago and development has been ongoing.

I'll look into it. Thanks.

lumpley said:

If it'd be a helpful thing, I can highlight more examples and maybe suggest solutions.

I think I'll probably be able to hunt them down, now that you've highlighted the issue. I don't have a problem with you pointing them out, but I wouldn't want you to invest effort into it.

Here's my real question, though, before I can give you any substantial feedback: who's the target audience you have in mind? Your game design's really particular; who's it for? Fans of Tolkein? Gamers? Story-gamers? Non-gamers? Cranky old Forge-heads like me?

What are the crucial things your game's trying to tell them? You want your game to be appealing, of course – what do you want its appeal to be?

That's a good question. I suppose Story-gamers would be my primary audience. My game certainly does some things differently than a lot of “story games”, and I'm hoping that will be appreciated by the kind of people that like to try out new games with different ideas. Of course, that builds in a significant barrier to entry, since I am not doing things the way a lot of other games do. There also seems to be a distinct lack of interest in classic fantasy in that market, or at least non-Burning-Wheel fantasy, which is another barrier.

In an ideal world, I hope I would have some crossover appeal to open-minded traditional gamers who have an interest in Epic Fantasy and were looking for different systems that might give them what they want. I think a lot of people who enjoy epic fantasy literature try to capture that feel with D&D-style games and fail to get “epic fantasy” — they get a D&D story in a high fantasy world. Also in an ideal world, I might get some sales from aspiring Epic Fantasy writers, since I am trying to get a more “writerly” feel to the way the game works. I am also working on an epic fantasy novel of my own, and if I'm successful at both writing the novel and designing the game I think there will be opportunities for cross-promotion.

I think the appeal I'm going for is mainly:

• A more “literary” approach to gaming, since it seems like a lot of other games are going for a more cinematic feel
• An approach to gaming that feels more like writing (specifically, writing to an outline) than like improv
• Actual Epic Fantasy, not some other kind of story in a high fantasy world

What's good, desirable, about a more literary approach to gaming? What are you offering me that my accustomed cinematic approach isn't already giving me?

I'm not sure that I have a deeper answer to this than that it's just a different flavor than you usually get, and it's one that it more closely associated with the genre I'm trying to work with. Epic Fantasy seems to work a lot better in book form than in film form (there are a ton of successful epic fantasy novels, I can only think of the LOTR films as successful films, and they were novel adaptations).

What's good about a more writing-to-an-outline-like feel? (It sounds like more work for less fun to me – but I must be wrong about that, or you wouldn't be here telling me about your game. So what's good about it?)

Primarily, it's a lower pressure creative environment. It's my perception that in many indie games you need a lot of passionate creative intensity pushing for your character's goals. I find it hard to have that kind of intensity coming out of the gate, it usually takes me a lot longer to warm up to a character. I want my game to be functional (and producing a story) even if the players aren't starting out with that passion or intensity. It's also a way to get past the blank page problem — I frequently have a hard time coming up with ideas for what I want my characters to do when there's an entire universe of possibilities in front of them, but when I have the guidance of an outline I am freed up to be creative within that constraint. 

What's good about actual Epic Fantasy, instead of the whatever-it-is fantasy that Burning Wheel gives me?

I'll need to think about how to articulate this, since “selling the genre” will need to be part of my marketing strategy. I know there's a thing there — the difference between playing the Lord of the Rings and playing a game in the Middle Earth setting, but haven't thought about how to explain it.

Answering me might be useful, might not, since I'm a near miss on your target audience, not a direct hit. But I'm pretty sure that your real intended audience will need to know the answers to these too – I think you're right, I think these are barriers you'll need to overcome.

Tightening up the text, providing illustrations, those kinds of things will go a little way, but there's some fundamental enthusiasm for this that you have, that I don't yet, and I won't be caught by your game until you manage to communicate it to me.

Thanks, these have been good questions.