Post about typesetting in tabletop games

[kylesgames]

I've written a rather lengthy list of gripes and advice about typesetting in tabletop games, if anyone feels like taking a look at it. I'm going to follow it up with a tutorial on internal PDF links in Scribus.

[Onix]

It seems like fine advice. The thing about the columns is something I ran into some more specific information about that. You want your line lengths to be between 45-72 characters per line. People can actually read faster with longer line lengths but I suspect the slower reading makes it easier to digest what you're reading. Because your brain has time to digest, you enjoy the reading more.

[kylesgames]

Really? I never knew that. Now I'm going to start designing my column layout with that in mind, though that seems to be where I'm at already.

[Onix]

Yup, Mary Dyson did the research in 2004. I picked up a couple of books on design. There's some cool ideas like sustained attention can be maintained for about ten minutes and then it starts to drop off. I want to read the sections of my books and see if I can break them into ten minute reads. Like Rob always says, people learn best from examples. I'd like to figure out how to use variable rewards to motivate players (rewards happen at random intervals that average out to a fixed rate). And I'm working with some information on habit formation to try and tease apart why we like RPG.

[catty_big]

[koipond]

See, I don't use columns but then again I've eschewed the whole 8x11 format for the tradepaper back format, which I think helps with the no columns things. Not that I couldn't do columns, but I feel that people are also used to reading that in novel form and so they can manage it.

[koipond]

See, I don't use columns but then again I've eschewed the whole 8x11 format for the tradepaper back format, which I think helps with the no columns things. Not that I couldn't do columns, but I feel that people are also used to reading that in novel form and so they can manage it.

[kylesgames]

Yeah, that's actually something I've contemplated; I usually avoid it because I always feel odd when I have to break up text on a full page, much less a smaller one, but the novel format is definitely usable. I have a copy of the Starship Troopers d20 game in a "pocket" format (as much as a 400-page novel-form book can fit in your pocket) and the formatting they did on it is fantastic.

[koipond]

I just think it's nice not to have to lug around a giant set of books with you when you want to play.

That may just be me though.

[kylesgames]

I'm so heavily digital focused I figure my audience may be like me and just use a computer/smartphone/tablet/e-ink Kindle for all the stuff anyway, so I plan on PDF distribution when designing my books.