Re: Re: Keywords only, or additional list of abilities?

From: John Machin <trithemius_at_...>
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:17:03 +1100


LC

> And, to be fair, until you or I have actually read the book, it's
> probably worth holding back criticism on questions of usability.
> I suspect, personally, that you and I have similar views on this, but I
> do think that is the sort of thing I can't judge in advance of seeing
> what we actually DO have.
>

Unless the content structure radically differs from the sample chapters I am fairly happy to continue saying what I have been saying. It's not a question of content being good or bad, but about how it is delivered so as to maximise the size of the potential audience and the usefulness to that audience.

I assume that reaching more people is the goal.

Trotsky

> I think it's best to think of the keywords in the book as being like
> 100-word character descriptions - underline the important bits and write
> them down as your list. It's a bit of a pain, but it's not actually
> un-doable. I don't think the information has been presented as clearly
> as it could have been (from the perspective of those who like lists,
> that is), but it is largely there for the extracting.

Exactly Trotsky, that was going to be my first step, and then expand on those extracted points. I think this would show the versatility of the keyword: "it does all this, and more besides!".

Darran

> What are the sticking points you get into trouble with?

Darran, I totally agree with you when talking about convention games; however in a long arc or a "campaign" I ultimately want people to develop some understanding (and then passion!) for Glorantha - but I want to "lower the bar" a bit. I've used (and mentioned previously) some of my approaches - but I made use of the ability lists in the previous versions of HQ to help convey some of the dense information. A lot of my players are of the "I just want to look over the options a bit..." sort of person and so like to browse. Summary lists help in this, I think.

Big problems have been typically to do wit the religious/magic keywords, at least for our games.

-- 
John Machin
"Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."
- Athanasius Kircher, 'The Great Art of Knowledge'.

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