So you have a ton of canon, how do you distil it?

[Rob Lang]

When you come to sharing an RPG, chances are you've played it your home group for a decade and ended up with a huge amount of canon. For , the Canon is spread across several backup facilities, the internet archive and more ring binders than is safe to have in one loft! I've just about boiled it down to what I want it to look like as a game and was wondering if there were steps others took to turn their ton of canon into something usable.

Chainsaw Aardvark and Onix, I'm looking at you!

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

[Onix]

We tried to write down the insanity that has gone on in our games. The best I've been able to do lately is to write up a more generic version as an adventure. The adventure I just put up "The Loyal One" is an example. In our game, things went down significantly differently but the main idea is there.

Most of my sourcebook material comes from sitting around brainstorming. We call it breaking The Artifact. We try to come up with the craziest plausible idea that still fits with the written cannon and our games.

I have a distinct advantage in figuring out what to write in that The Artifact is supposed to be mysterious. There's probably a dozen pages worth of story for every written page but I can't reveal it without giving away the metaplot.

So far I haven't found the right voice to share the disjointed story on the blog.

So finally I'd say I only distill out elements that have a material effect on the story world. There are tons of tribes and factions etc that were important at the time but I don't even remember now.

[Rob Lang]

@CA
A lengthy but very useful post. The reason I ask is that there is a ton of Icar stuff I have sitting in Google Docs that is too detailled for the main rules and would one day make up a good part of source books. I'd like to get more of the information out there in the form of a blog but what scares me is organising it such that it is easy to build into books at a later date.

I like the manner of organising the information into hooks, adventure knowledge and limitations. Is there a place for GM-only knowledge that players have to conveniently forget or does that not get onto the blog?

@Onix
We've had a fair amount of insanity too and within it is often some cool plot hooks others might want to use. It's that stuff that I want to capture.

Thanks chaps.

[Onix]

The best way I've found to get the specific plot hooks we've used in our games is writing them up as adventures. Maybe a book of adventures with short adventure ideas would work. I really liked your campaign end summery that you made. I'm not usually into reading through other people's game sessions but the format was fast and enjoyable. It opened up the Icar world in a way I hadn't imagined (but fits with how I know players are). It was probably a lot of work but the voice is unique and I enjoyed it.

[Rob Lang]

Thanks Emmett, it was a HUGE amount of work and I doubt I'd do it again. Having said that, I might.

[misterecho]

"you do you distil it?"

All your base are belong to us.

[Rob Lang]

[misterecho]

I find it hard to GM games with epic canon, Star wars for me exists in only three movies. The LotR exists in the hobbit and the trilogy. I find it daunting to navigate through the history and legends with limited scope to create your own.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Well, despite the large number of tags used on my blog, the organization system is actually fairly simple. The first category of labels is by geographic location or group - NEST, the Zone in General, Tesla, etc. - ICAR could go by planet, city, sector, free space, and so forth. Next is the level of veracity or likely-hood the average person has heard this - personal accounts, general knowledge (ie broadcast on the radio) and academic stuff written after the fact. A third group is more for technical issues and my benefit - developments (new rules), and alternative (other settings), with a few misc tags (Jurez pre-Event stuff, advice).

My blog doesn't account for GM vs Player information as much as I initially planned. As stated above, the original idea was stories for characters and truth for the director so they have wiggle room to change the zone. This also meant only one person had to review the encyclopedia style articles, and everyone else got easier to browse prose. Right now, the case is more players can read anything, but the game master has tacit permission to change the reality of anything not labeled "academic". Rather similar to the approach used by the RPG "Paranoia".

In most cases, the city-states have relatively little contact with one another, locations of most other things aren't nailed down so they can be arranged as the person in charge sees fit. Tower Reversed doesn't cover the entire US, just the places that are inconvenient to the players, wherever they are. City-states have agendas, but there is no cannon date for when Tesla's hive mind transcends the bounds of human flesh or New Birmingham begins the first crusade against Lone Star. I'm aiming more for a living world than a pre-written story you get a chance to interact with.

Furthermore, since the blog is as much about keeping me writing and pinning down aspects of the world, I haven't written any outright lies yet. One can not very well lie if they don't know the facts that need changing...

I consider the placement of GM only information more a matter of economy than secrecy. My feeling is that RPGs should be a cheap hobby, and that no one should have to pay more than 30-40 dollars to get their first book and dice to be ready to play. (All other approaches being equal, I dislike D&D's 3 book approach, and I'm wary of nWoD's humans book+template) So I don't really want to charge players for information they are tacitly not supposed to use, so there wouldn't really be much if any GM only stuff in the main book. The stuff about monsters and optional rules is kind of master specific, but they are things the players will need to understand if they get used.

Some of the supplement books might have a final chapter at the end meant only for game masters, or perhaps a GM guide. One idea stuck in my head for some time is the basic vs GM's special edition. The usual book is permabound black and white, the one for the GM has additional info, color-plates, a hardcover - its cheap to get multiple books, but you do get something special if you pay extra.

The old "Blue Planet" RPG does a great job of introducing new people by framing the opening story as a video brochure about getting ready to get off planet and what to do upon arrival. ICAR could take a similar approach with an AI construct guiding someone through heir first interstellar flight.