Structure is Essential to Design

Posted on Feb 28, 2010 | 0 comments

Since beginning Free Spacer, I have found one process more useful than any other; Organisation or Structure. The structure of the work has a much greater effect on my ability to write or design it then I would have ever believed. Continual tweaking of the books structure reveals and solves many of the day to day design issues and blocks.

I found through play testing that structure is even more important to players. When we first tested chargen, players did not understand it and found it rough, after we reorganised it they loved it. This made me realise just how important structure and presentation is to players, especially in step-by-step process like Character Creation. The books structure is how players understand the content.

An interesting approach to RPG structure and orientation is from Rob is the creator of the free Science Fiction RPG Icar his article Rob Lang’s free guide to organising your RPG goes in depth into his ideas on RPG structure. Rob’s article is very entertaining and his basic structure makes sense and are surprisingly similar to the structure I am developing for Free Spacer.



Free Spacer has several key differences from Rob’s suggested structure. I decided to put a Preface before the contents section, the preface is similar to his Introduction, but shorter and more about flavour and providing a dramatic opening into the galaxy of Free Spacer than explaining mechanics and technical bits and pieces.  Introduction to mechanics is done is the Basic Mechanics section, which is before Character Creation so that players will have an idea what the various elements of their character are before creating them. The Mechanics Section has been divided into four sections to help fulfill one of the design goals for Free Spacer, creating a great reference manual. The Game Master should be able to start an encounter and find everything the group needs by opening the book to one section. No flipping around, a clear and concise reference of the rules, mechanics, and galaxy.