New rulebook need feedback

I've said this twice in two days now, so I see a pattern... Joe is right! (Empirical evidence that he is a smart man...)

We all have ideas we want to bounce off others, and we are all busy. So you have to understand that it's disrespectful of other people's time to ask for such a lengthy task when you haven't done anything to earn their time/energy.

I admit that I've been guilty of it too, but you should build some community involvement before you expect others to go out of their way for you. Maybe respond to a couple other peoples' posts, and then post a SHORT post/question of your own, like "Hey Guys, what do you think of think of my game concept? Fighting sentai robots."

Agreed with Joe again on the rules. They are too wordy. For example:

During a player activation 1 player is selected to activate. Players can always select the
order of which players activate. If its your First Game it is recommended to decide the
first player via dice roll or have someone who has played the game before start.

This shouldn't be more than a short sentence, but it's an entire paragraph.

Small tip: Don't refer to it as a Large Reference Card... Large has a negative connotation there.

Anyways, I hope to see you in the forums!
David

Very gracious response Adam, and to the Professor and Winsmithgames, that's good advice about the etiquette of requesting feedback from the community.

However, I don't know why Adam is being called out & chastised here - a quick check of his posting track will clearly show how much he has contributed to this forum since he's been on. Additionally, I don't know how any regulars here could have missed all of his posts welcoming new members and offering insights into many projects.

Adam was the first person here to offer to play test my game on Tabletopia with me, and his knowledge of games and game mechanics has been invaluable to me - I have a much better game now because of him - I can't thank you enough Adam!

His Spectrum Force game is really coming along - sound mechanics, great cooperative game play, and cool thematic elements. It's at the point where the focus can turn to the nitty gritty stuff like editing the rule book.

I'll be reading through it soon, and see how it compares to past versions & see what else I can offer for feedback. Glad that you've already got some helpful feedback from the above posts too - this is a game that we'll all be seeing on the store shelves one day, so it'll be cool to be able to say "hey, we know that guy and helped him with his manual!" Lol!

I do understand The Professor's reaction to Adam's post but I don't think it was a completely fair assessment in this case.

Just speculating... But it could be that The Professor just missed some of Adam's earlier posts because he was busy working and marketing the Tradewars game when Adam first joined (it was about the same time)...

Sometimes members here react poorly to such requests because what The Professor is describing does happen a lot on this forum. Without a profile image and with the generic opening line "Hello all" The Professor might have mistaken Adam as one of the many newcomers only looking for help and not as willing to contribute. Most of the "regulars" on the site have a profile image to help distinguish them and make it easier to identify and remember them.

The Professor is a really nice and helpful guy and the forum does need someone willing to do the dubious task of throwing a wet blanket or two on some of the more eager newcomers.

I do hope the members here take a look at the rules and give some feedback. The Professors feedback was spot on as the rules are too long and not yet as approachable as they need to be. Writing clear and concise rules is not an easy task. When the designer is not a writer it is many times harder. I think this rulebook (like many other rulebooks in board gaming at large) need an editor to step in and do a re-write.

I also hope everyone can just take a deep breath and move on.

C. M. Perry
@BHFuturist

I do apologize if my earlier post came across as confrontational - I didn't mean it to. I just wanted to make sure Adam's contributions to the community don't get lost in all the shuffle. Like BHFuturist mentioned, avatars & other online conveniences sometimes make it hard to keep track of who's who! I've changed my avatar here & even my username (used to be Mokheshur)

Well it looks like a lot of consistency in the comments on the rulebook here too - that makes it easier to know where to focus for revision! I still need to take a closer look at this version, but the last one seemed pretty clear.

Adam,

It appears as though you've been out here for awhile, so I certainly apologize for my comments, as you're clearly not the intended audience.

Rick L.

You were spot-on in your assessment so thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Cheers,
Joe

I wish there was a like button or something like that because I would totally hit that for The Professor and WinsmithGames! Very classy responses. In fact everyone on this thread has my praise for their responses! I really love this community for the kinds of things I'm seeing here!

Thanks Rick. I've got thick skin, so no worries. And sometimes I need to hear feedback like that.

Adam, here are some quick suggestions just as I glance through again (I don't have the time or energy now to go through it in detail):

• The first 3 pages can probably be condensed down to 1 page
• I'd put the Table of Contents before the Components List.
• Focus on condensing text to be concise and still clear.

For example, you can revise The Victory Conditions Section to be as short as,

"The first player to defeat the opponent's leader (by reducing their health to 0) wins. Note: Certain scenarios may alter the winning conditions."

And you don't need the Defeat Section; that's already explained in the sentence above.

The other content/rules in those sections belong elsewhere in the rules (such as the Spectrum Power).

I'd focus on condensing the rules down as much as possible. The reason why is one of the largest barriers-to-entry for new board gamers and new games is the rules. And a larger rulebook is intimidating.

Best of luck. Keep us in the loop.
David