Guidance on Writing for Gaming Ballistic

I received a communication with a proposal for an adventure yesterday. That was awesome. But it also occurred to me that I haven’t put out guidelines on how I vet said adventures, what I want to see, etc.

The email was in the context of writing for The Fantasy Trip, but I tried to be somewhat generic about them and expand them for Powered by GURPS (as published by me) and Dragon Heresy. As with the Pirate Code, some of these are guidelines rather than rules. But ignore too many, and it’s going to make working through the publication process hard.

Also: I treat my interactions with writers, artists, and other folks as a collaboration. I’m always willing to discuss things and have reasonable conversations…but it’s my call in the end, and I also am bound to respect the guidelines of the companies from which I license rules content as well. (That’s just SJGames for the moment, but who knows what the future holds. That’s not a hint. Really.)

Anyway, here’s some stuff to consider when writing for me.

Basic Writing Stuff

• Write well. Be concise. Avoid passive voice. Keep the tone active and engaging.
• Edit. Reread. Submitted final drafts are ideally publishable as-is. This never happens…but it’s always the goal.
• I expect all authors to have, know, and use the style and formatting guides of the game for which they’re writing.
• If as-submitted manuscripts are not formatted properly with style tags (NOT in-line formatting), that’s a lot more work for me during production. I will provide PDFs of existing games I’ve published for examples if you want to see how styles are used. I can provide a MS Word template (both a simple one and a complex one) to aid in applying styles to your work. (There are some great tricks for this using Find/Replace and GREP-like auto-format, so if, like me, you grew up with CTRL-B and CTRL-I, there’s hope).
• RPG material needs to be more similar to a technical reference manual (that also happens to be super entertaining and imaginative) than to a novel. Keep each bit of a manuscript focused. Structure matters: have an outline, use it, keep each bit self-contained.
• With that in mind: “surprise!” facts are for players, usually during the course of the game…the GM needs to be aware of what’s going on. Do not ever assume that whatever is in your head is also known to a stranger from another state or country unless you explicitly tell them. I favor providing information similar to what’s contained in this post about bad guys for all the plot-driving NPCs and factions, though certainly one can do it in a few lines rather than a few pages.
• FYI, my books tend to run to about 675 words per page, PLUS two pages (front page for title credits, back page for counters used in the adventure). Printing these adventures (and I always print them) is done in multiples of four pages, and never less than 8. So a typical 16-page adventure runs 675 x 14 content pages = 9,450 words or so. Can be a bit less, more tends to get crowded. Once we agree to a wordcount, I expect you to hit it, though, within reason. I also note that 8, 12, 16, and 20 page material is an ideal place to start collaborating with me.

Rules and Consistency

• I expect the author to properly vet content and characters for game rules compliance. That means equipment prices are per the game, characters are legal, rules are properly used (and cited if obscure), magic items (for TFT) adhere to the “rule of five,” etc. Do NOT drag in concepts that exist in Fantasy Game A into Fantasy Game B from a mechanics perspective. There are no “spell slots” in TFT, there are no “character classes” in GURPS (though there are templates!). Ensure you’re actually using the right rules.
• Special Note: Powered by GURPS and GURPS are not the same thing. The Dungeon Fantasy RPG is a self-contained game and should not pull “regular GURPS” material into it without prior discussion with the Line Editor and me. This can be done…but is always done carefully (see Hand of Asgard and Nordlondr Folk for good examples).
• “Rules light” does not mean “no rules,” and it certainly doesn’t mean “make crap up.” The TFT rulebook may not as well organized as one would like (for example, travel and movement rules are found in no fewer than four places)…but at the core it’s a tightly bound tactical game with RPG elements added on. Respect that.
• This could go in Content Do’s and Don’ts as well. In TFT especially, and probably adventures in general, avoid what might be called “Deux ex Magical.” Try not to have a game-breaking, rules-breaking, it works this way because I need it to, “I’m just making stuff up” Macguffin as a central plot point. Unless you do it really, really well. Even if you do, try not to do it more than once. If a magical item or ability is not hinted at in the books for that game, you have to be very, very, VERY careful about sticking it in. For example: Adventures are about “humanoid creatures with humanoid problems” in TFT. If you desire a magical maguffin as a core plot element, we need to have an up-front discussion about how necessary it is, because players notice.
• (Mostly for TFT and Powered by GURPS) “No New Rules.” If you feel that there are no existing rules to cover the situation you wish to present, make double-dog sure that there truly aren’t any such rules, and even so, we have to vet any such new rules with the license holders Line Editors. UP FRONT. Expect any rules changes or rewrites to be rejected, reworked, or toned down. Phil Reed has repeated “No New Rules” over and over on the SJGames Forums, TFT Discord, and TFT Facebook groups. That being said, there are occasionally new things that appear in Hexagram, and tucked into adventures…but they are vetted ahead of time.