Chapter Five

From before:

Chapter Five - Who Plays All the Rest?

• Gamemastering (I was made to promise to add this to Scattershot.)
  
• Motifs and genre conventions

Previously:

I found this in my search for 'the olde stuff'

When we were working out the ‘supplements’ side of Scattershot, we paid attention to a fact that retailing experience brought back again and again; if you don’t bring out new role-playing gaming products regularly, you lose your ‘front row’ seat to sales (and interest). But how to do that without succumbing to ‘editionitis’ (printing second and higher editions of the rules)? Modules? (Those are only sold to a smaller and smaller share of the market who are already buyers of the line.) Updates? (I don’t know about anyone else, but I hate having to scan three or four books to find one rule; that’s too much ‘handling time.’) What then?

I got an idea from both Palladium’s pre-Rifts lines and GURPS’ world books. It should be something light, and very narrow-genre (each one of its own creation, thank you), yet it should contain at least some of the main rules (always a flaw I found in GURPS). Yet Palladium books cost too much to be light. What then?

Well, a long time ago, I segregated Scattershot’s mechanical complexity into three tiers (to avoid GURPS’ innumerable ‘optional rules’ search-time problem). We decided that we’d put only the first tier of the mechanics in each of these ‘genre books,’ as we’d come to calling them (with ample references to a ‘core set’ of books). We’d also spend most of our design time on the mechanics in the core books (twelve of them now, with no more in sight) so they’d never need major revision/updating. This also meant the first tier of mechanics, as it appears in the ‘genre books,’ would be fairly static (not the presentation, just the mechanics themselves, did I mention that core book twelve is meant to be in comic book format even though it carries roughly the same mechanics as all the others?).

What this means is that anyone right off the street could pick up a ‘genre book’ and be able to approximate play (with the static, first tier mechanics, this makes for a shorter production schedule, crucial for making a profit at media tie-ins and licensed products - fad chasing). These books would lead consumers back to the core set of books which cross-reference each other (in as user friendly - not ‘where did those rules go’ – a way possible, each book offers modular rules + narrow-genre information that can be used to augment any other), inviting the consumer to buying the whole line. (This is much like the effect the ‘Open Gaming License’ was supposed to have on Player’s Handbook sales.)

Since we’d be treating every little narrow-genre as it came up and these products hung from the ‘structure’ of the generalized genres presented in the core books, we’d never run out of source material (or fads to chase after). Production time and costs would be low, so we could catch as many trends as possible (without losing our publisher’s shirt), and the price at the counter would likewise be lower for the entry-level consumer (I am still amazed at price tags over thirty dollars).

Add to that that we have a similar type of tie-in planned as a collectible card game and also an electronic console game tie-in in development, means we can be as diversified as needs be.

The Unseen in one of the twelve core products, however I'm taking out the LARP rules until I get some playtesters (if ever). Here I mostly want to explore the Genre Expectation and product format.

Which means I need to come up with the 'second focus' for the game. I believe all my products come out flat without a 'second focus.' Add to that rearchitecting the Mechanix and Experience Dice stuff to fit the new Complication Resolution model, rebuilding the Experience Dice Mechanix to create proper currency between sections of the game and to reinforce the designed-in play goals (based on some reward cycle articles I've read recently on some blogs around here).