Editor’s Corner
By all accounts, I’m probably unqualified to edit a book for a tabletop roleplaying game. But I want to tell you how I’m doing it anyway.
I’m relatively new to TTRPGs. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons just a couple of years ago at a bar in Chicago. I learned mostly by listening to a D&D podcast, and not one of the rules-heavy ones. I haven’t read the whole Player’s Handbook, nor have I read most of the books for the few indie games I’ve had chance to play. I don’t even really play video games, RPGs or otherwise. All this to say, I’m not that familiar with RPG tropes, book formats, or sacred cows.
But it’s one of my writing rules to describe things in terms of what they are rather than what they’re not, so here’s what I do have going for me: I’ve spent more than a decade working in local journalism. My job is to take things that are both boring and difficult to understand, and make them comprehensible and even compelling. At best, my work moves people to act.
As it turns out, this skill comes in handy when trying to explain how to play a game.
Who among us hasn’t been to a game night where, after greetings and chatter and debate over which game to play, one brave soul takes it upon themselves to explain a new game to the rest of the table. We all know those 20-ish minutes can be torture in the wrong hands. How do turns work? Wait, what are these tokens for? Do we REALLY want to play this? The explainer assures us we’ll get it as soon as we just start playing, and we might even know in our hearts that’s true. But still, wouldn’t it be nice to just understand what you’re doing from the jump?
Fatefully Tragic Hero is one of those games that is so easy to get when you’re playing it. From creating a character to roleplaying with others to wielding amazing abilities to create cinematic combat scenes, playtesters have told us how easy they’ve found it to jump into the world of Aetheria as soon as they get to the table. As editor, my task is to create that same feeling when you read the book — to limit the amount of torturous time it takes to fully understand the game before you play it.
So if you want to create a book for your game that other people will want to read and understand, these are my (expert-ish) tips.
Find the Best Part
Playtesters for FTH are routinely hooked by its lore, both the inciting conflict of the game (that player characters are beings who have died in the real world and are reincarnated in a new one) and Aetheria itself (the Seven Houses, the gods, etc). Because of that feedback, one of my first suggestions was to elevate lore over game mechanics in the first three chapters.
Once you identify the proverbial North Star of what makes your game unique and compelling, you can build everything to serve that hook. Every element of FTH stems from this concept of reincarnation, from the actual abilities characters can use to the way roleplay is incentivized via Emotional Resonance down to the math we’ve employed to balance various mechanics. These elements are then supported by Aetheria’s inherent magic and drama.
Identifying your hook helps you prioritize. If you lead with your best stuff, players are hopefully more inclined to read on. You can also lose things that don’t serve your unique purpose. (Ask Jordan about the darlings I’ve killed.)
Immersion vs. Explanation
If roleplay is literally the name of the game and our lore is the best part, surely we’d want to create a book that is immediately and deeply immersive without worrying too much about explaining what’s literally happening at the table.
That approach may work if you’re primarily aiming to reach experienced TTRPG players and game masters. But Jordan, the creator of FTH, was always clear to me that he wanted the game to be accessible to newcomers like me.
This goal posed an interesting editorial task: How much did we need to explain basic TTRPG concepts in addition to FTH-specific mechanics? Would doing so take readers too far out of this strange and compelling world he’d built?
Experienced players may not realize just how many assumptions they’re making when explaining a game. The meanings of terms like “action economy,” “initiative,” even “mechanic” are not going to be self-evident to someone who’s never played. When I was starting out, and a GM would ask me what I wanted to do, I often froze because I wasn’t really sure what options were available to me. I might try to explain narratively what I wanted to do, but it’s easy for things to get lost in translation, which can be frustrating for everyone.
When you see the FTH source book, you will notice we explain some of these terms in plain language (e.g. defining initiative as “the order in which you and your enemies act” during combat). We also routinely explain mechanics in two ways: what the player and Director should do at the table (e.g. “The Director can apply pluses or minuses to any Action roll”) as well as what’s happening in-game (e.g. “Consider the Director an emissary of the gods.”).
It’s a delicate balance. Our goal was to create a format where Directors would feel like they could easily run a game after reading it, an experienced player could skim and quickly pick up basic rules, and a newer player would feel confident in what they’re doing even without relying on the Director — all while keeping the focus on your role as a Protagonist in Aetheria.
Consistency is Key
Remember that torturous game night scenario? The explainer is explaining, but then you hear it. A sentence that feels like a twist of the oh-god-can-we-please-get-through-this knife: “Wait, but I thought you said before that…”
Games inherently rely on logic. The best story ever written can’t save messy math or inconsistent mechanical references.
Part of my job as editor is to make sure that core game elements read exactly the same each time we mention them. This consistency should happen at every level. Attack abilities should have the same names and do the same amount of damage regardless of what chapter they’re in. Distances are never defined in meters or feet. Director is always capitalized.
This part can be tedious, but benefits are twofold. First, keeping a close eye helps ensure that all of your mechanics are logical and balanced. Nobody wants to play a game where the rules can change based on which page you’re reading. Second, consistency can help with immersion. I created a style guide for FTH, so readers would internalize the game’s world (and, cynically, its branding).
Go Forth and Edit
Is this the only way to approach a TTRPG source book? Almost assuredly not. But these three tips have been my guiding force, and I think they’ve led to a book that is hopefully as fun to read as it is to play.
-Simone Alicea: Editor of Fatefully Tragic Hero