Comments on The Free RPG Blog: How to write a free RPG - Chapter 7: Testing

"You’ve used too many words to describe your ...

2012-02-13T19:59:03.242Z

"You’ve used too many words to describe your game. It is normal to do that, your brain is not wired for brevity when it is describing concepts. Cut down every paragraph to its bare form. Is it still intelligible? If so, keep it that way. Your second draft should be 10% shorter than the first."

Here's a neat exercise. Take your sagging, bloated first draft, dig through it, and make a "light" version of your rules that is no more than 1/5th the size.

I bet dollars to donuts that you'll quickly realize the core of your game is still there in that "light" version, but you've stripped off all of the glop that has stymied you for so long.

@Anarchist - thank you. Have corrected. :-) The i...

2012-01-31T14:07:56.195Z

@Anarchist - thank you. Have corrected. :-)

The internet: possibly the best proof reading service in the world! :)

"Ask as a friend in a different country"...

2012-01-28T16:04:42.550Z

"Ask as a friend in a different country"

I think the 'as' should be deleted.

I like the suggested surveys for playtesters. One...

2012-01-28T13:49:31.236Z

I like the suggested surveys for playtesters.

One other way to use playtesters, if they are the kind that really like playtesting, is to operate under the release early and often mantra and start playtesting as soon as you have a core concept. Rules tend to be reasonable and relatively simple that way. The biggest pitfall tends to be rules fragmentation and sometimes a rule can be simple in action but rather difficult to explain on paper.

"Find a non-gamer to read it through to check...

2012-01-25T12:50:46.744Z

"Find a non-gamer to read it through to check your grammar and spelling."

It might be worth making explicit that you're now talking about the game as a whole, not just the combat examples from the previous point.