Things I Wish Publishers Did/Included?

[delericho]

All I want is some designer information about intent behind various design choices.

Yeah, that would be great.

Also, really good indices. And not just in core rulebooks.

 

[Staffan]

Well my current publishing project I'm developing is Gothic Western, a weird west setting for Pathfinder RPG 1.0/2.0, though it leans more to PF1 since PF2 is lacking much needed content - gun rules, Gunslinger, etc.

PF2 has gun rules and the gunslinger class in the subtly named Guns and Gears book. Whether those are to your liking or not I can't say, but they do exist.

 

[gamerprinter]

PF2 has gun rules and the gunslinger class in the subtly named Guns and Gears book. Whether those are to your liking or not I can't say, but they do exist.

I'll look into that, I do want to incorporate the setting as much as I can to PF2.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

First and foremost, every new RPG should come with a concise rules distillation booklet (or page or whatever is necessary based on the game in question). I mean a document that outlines the entire game rule structure in a few pages with easy look ups and cleared of all the obfuscating prose. It would look like a rules booklet for a complex board game. RPGs are games, and games are better and more fun when the rules are easy to reference. Too many RPGs bury their rules.

A number of OSR publishers are putting their rules on the end pages (the paper printed on the inside of the covers of the book). That requires them to boil them down to two or four pages, depending on the publisher, and it's great for use at the table. I suspect it also makes a lot of them think hard about how the rules work to begin with.

I agree that this is something we should be expecting of all game publishers.

Second, for adventures, I want one look maps of dungeons, towns, locations, whatever. By "one look" I mean a map that tells me everything I (as GM) need to know about the layout, denizens and relationships in the place in order to run it effectively. Graphic design will be a powerful tool here, developing a language of icons and other indicators of who is where, their initial attitudes, their attitudes toward each other, and so on. I actually do this a lot myself with a print out of the map and a couple different colored markers. It is hard with "high production value" maps like, for example, The Abomination Vaults, because they don't print clean enough to effectively mark up. So if you aren't going to give me a one look map, give me clean maps I can print and mark up myself.

This is also a thing we're seeing a lot in the OSR space, either with everything being on the map to begin with, in a form that makes it easy to use without consulting the rest of the adventure, or reprinting the relevant sections of the map on the page where the description is. Some publishers do this better than others, but yeah, it's a huge upgrade for usability.

Event based scenarios should have similar "maps" in flow chart form -- and not the useless flow charts of Avernus, but actual flow charts that give the GM a concise tool for aiding play.

You can probably guess what I'm going to say here.

On the player side, especially for a relatively crunchy game like D&D or Pathfinder, I want class specific rulebooks: everything for playing that class is in that document, including subclasses or the equivalent, abilities/feats/spells, general game rules specific to that class (like grapple rules for melee characters and magic rules for casters) etc... It could just literally be cut and paste of the appropriate sections of the PHB and supplements, but it would be worth an extra expense to me to have everything in one easily accessible place.

Class-specific playbooks work great for lighter games (PbtA or OSR games like Beyond the Wall), but I agree this should be a thing, in whatever fashion. I went to Kinkos and printed out and bound the Shadowdark Witch class into its own book for my wife, which is immensely useful (and relatively cheap to do).

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

All I want is some designer information about intent behind various design choices.

It's kind of odd how much that's fallen out of favor over the years. I can remember most of the earliest games I owned back in the 70s dedicating a page or two to designer's notes, and those were old hex-and-counter wargames with comparatively brief rulebooks. Even some of the dinky little $3 microgames would often have a paragraph or three, and those things were smaller than most modern zines. RPGs generally have a lot more page space to work with, but they're really erratic about including some insight as to why the designers did what they did.

The ones that do stick that sort of thing in are much appreciated, at least by me. Pelgrane's generally quite good about it, and 13th Age in particular has boxed input from multiple designers scattered throughout the rulebook.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

A number of OSR publishers are putting their rules on the end pages (the paper printed on the inside of the covers of the book).

Regardless of whether it's a rules synopsis, a dice-drop chart, a bunch of randomizer tables, or some other neat add-on, using your end pages for something is another thing more companies should do. I hate seeing blank unused pages, and even art isn't much better. One of the things Ben from Questing Beast on youtube calls out a lot in reviews.

Heck, you could even stick some designer notes there.

 

[Marc Radle]

While not everything mentioned here applies, I think folks commenting here will definitely want to check out the Tales of the Valiant RPG when it releases - some of the things mentioned here are very much incorporated into the game!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Regardless of whether it's a rules synopsis, a dice-drop chart, a bunch of randomizer tables, or some other neat add-on, using your end pages for something is another thing more companies should do. I hate seeing blank unused pages, and even art isn't much better. One of the things Ben from Questing Beast on youtube calls out a lot in reviews.

I thought it was a nice bonus when Goodman Games started putting art on the end pages. But then I started picking up books that put useful content there, and it instantly changed my expectations.

When I'm running Shadowdark, I know I just need to glance at usually the front end pages to get the rules answer I want, which dramatically speeds up play. (The full book has monsters, spells, treasures and lots and lots of random charts, but I've usually got the bookmark on those pages since I know I'll need to look up the lich, or whatever.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not mentioned anywhere above, but I have come to expect bound-in ribbon bookmarks in my RPG books. I know a lot of the bigs still don't do it, and I judge them for it every time.

Books from the biggest publishers should be at least as nice as the books from little ones, rather than being substantially lesser quality physical books.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Not mentioned anywhere above, but I have come to expect bound-in ribbon bookmarks in my RPG books. I know a lot of the bigs still don't do it, and I judge them for it every time.

Books from the biggest publishers should be at least as nice as the books from little ones, rather than being substantially lesser quality physical books.

Agreed in principle, but I admit I wouldn't miss them if not having a ribbon took $5 off the retail cost.