Game in the Brain

I had a night to sleep off the Myopia, with regards to this project and several things came to light.

1. Digest Size fits is a perfect fit. Its for casual readers, players and even for Phablets like my Note 2 or my weak iPad 1 (and other cheap readers in the $99 range). 
2. I found a Print or Publish on Demand here in the Philippines called Central Books. I did the costing, and it costs about x2 as much if I publish it myself for the 50 books minimum… not to mention the time it saves for myself. I asked how much a 32 page (GURPS LITE) would cost with the whole treatment it ended up roughly at $5 each and minimum 50. At the price I can buy all the supplies, and a kick-ass new printer (i had a post all about printers that is still in draft, until I find a decent reseller and find out more about what the product codes mean). I will check if they have editing services or references. I’m in the freaking placement business, I should be able to find free lance editors (on my to-do list). 
3. I’ve pretty much had the chance to know how to best organize the book. I did a review of some material I was determined in learning… but I found myself saying a lot of negative things about it.  Particularly in the organization and mechanical  
4. Layouting with Libre-office, how to use their index entry etc… and best practices moving forward. I should really write this all down, once the ideas settle. I learned a lot since I tried to make the SRD, GURPS lite, and several other documents in Digest Statement size. 
5.  37,000 words fit in the 110pages. If I were to use an open-source game system, then I put in some art and more basic explanations… (or better, i use the proper searchable and academic terms) It covered all the fundamental mechanics, but i could have compressed the data more and made the formulas open ended interpretations. System “elegance” is being able to apply one core mechanic in every adjudication with little modification and a strong internal consistency. I could theoretically increase the word count by 50%, added important technical art, flow charts, hand-outs, and “illumination” and that would have added another 50% to the base. Would people mind it if it was 200pages? But it was setting focused: The Sins of the Crusade (10-12Century). Appendix notes in running eras after and before: Dark Ages (7-9 Century), the fall; and the 13-15Century (no title yet). Inclusive are all the Character archetypes and a Path generation system. Enough material, cards, and handouts to generate characters as a fun game in itself; while allowing for rules for quick generation; generate characters in 5 minutes or less. Maybe ask an IT ojt to make a simple PHP character creation website that formats in a way the GM can just grab a “TON” of npcs.   

1. (wishfull thinking) Setting Fluff I’m already working on: Sins of the Crusade historical overview of the age. History has a funny habit of being interpreted way differently despite being handed out the same facts. My interpretation will be my 3rd re-writing. One key voice in my own interpretation is Kenneth Harl’s and Crusades by Zoe Oldenburg and my byzantiine slant.   

1. (wishfull thinking)the second Fluff is Sins of the Crusade fictional personalities. A whole host of additional characters and families found in the 10-12C. 

1. The second crunchy bit is Mass combat of the open source game system with the areas of the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt. Layed-out. Attatched is a ready to go system overview.

6)  I should do a analysis of each project and how many manhours it would take and how much of my own personal resources it would cost. That I could publish… but if its related to the Crusade, i’ll post it in mybyzantiine.blogspot.com to remove clutter from this blog.