One-Page Leaflets

-

I have been writing and printing one-page leaflets. Above is a template; basically you fold the page into eighths, and cut along the dotted line; then you can re-fold and staple the page into a small booklet. I learned this from DIY/indie TTRPG hobbyists, but found it very useful for its info density relative to cost in pages and ink. On average, if I use 7 out of 8 pages for actual text content, I can fit ~790 words per pamphlet or a little over 100 words per page (eighth), using a 10-pt font. It's a challenge to write complex ideas in such short spaces, especially when you assign each page to one topic, but it's also a good exercise to make sure you're writing clearly and concisely. These are more like elevator pitches than anything else.

In comparison, for digest booklets I can fit ~360 words per page using 12-pt font (since 10-pt font would feel too small for a page of that size). This means I can fit up to either 3,600 or 5,000 words per booklet depending on whether I want a total of 3 or 4 sheets, with a front and back cover. This means a digest booklet is good to cover more ground, but you use much more paper and ink to do so. Either way, you're not writing something as long as a full book. Do you want something like a book chapter that takes 10–20 minutes to read, or a conversation starter that takes just over 1 minute to read (and maybe a little longer to digest)?

Comments

  1. Lux MaximaMay 1, 2024 at 3:26 AM

    The trouble of course is that the common nerd sees a compact space as a challenge to create the most inanely elegant (read: complicated) text conceivable. So while this could be used as a conversation starter because of it's funky material appearance, actually parsing the rules could be as fun as running Monopoly. To actually be a 1 minute read the rules simplicity should match the text length, at which point you can probably memorize it? On another note, what of randomizers? Pairing this with dice seems to defeat the purpose of a small self-contained TRPG, so maybe you can flip the leaflet itself and adjudicate an outcome based on how it lands... !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Marcia B.May 1, 2024 at 5:38 AM

      i agree, but to clarify: this isn't for trpgs!

      Delete
    2. Lux MaximaMay 1, 2024 at 7:19 AM

      ohh gotcha

      Delete
    3. gmkerosMay 20, 2024 at 6:15 AM

      I could see some use for TTRPGs though. Like disseminating rules and background information (or maybe even scenarios) for basically free. Copy a hundred, fold them up, there you have some minimal ruleset.

      Delete
  2. MartenMay 28, 2024 at 7:45 PM

    I think there is something called Minimods for the One Page Rules family of table top strategy games that uses a format like this. Reminds me that I wanted to make a Zeppelin-mod for their space-battle-system...

    ReplyDelete
  3. qwitwaJuly 19, 2024 at 7:48 PM

    https://pocketmod.com/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plagiarism in Unconquered (2022)

-
Image
Ultimately [UVG2E], like UVG1E, are books [sic] that long to be cut to pieces, chopped & screwed and re-arranged and re-organized and repurposed into the collected loose-leaf notes of a GM binder, to be pulled out and smoothly interjected into a Something Else. Noora Rose, “ UVG, UVG2E, and Me ” (2023-06-30) I was originally going to put this post (at least, the commentary parts) through an AI Gary Gygax translator and publish it on a friend's burner blog. However, this is too serious to be treated like a joke, so here it is instead. Staking my name on it, lol. A Something Else Unconquered (2022) is an OSR-style science-fantasy adventure game and setting by Noora Rose of Monkey's Paw Games. Originally intended to have been based on Knave , according to the 2020 Kickstarter campaign , Rose refactored it to be based on Into the Odd instead—although with significant influence from Jared Sinclair's The Vanilla Game . I previously threw Unconquered into my big OSR
Read more

OSR Rules Families

-
Image
So, here’s the thing: originally I wrote this like a fucking research article with a hypothesis, a methodology, and all that stuff. I’m not even a scientific research person. That’s my partner’s job. Not mine. So, instead of walking you through every single step I took, I’m going to take the journalistic approach and start with the big picture before I zoom into it and tell you about the little details. I read, reviewed, and statistically organized 38 different rulebooks considered to be OSR or OSR-adjacent. These include four rulebooks from TSR-era Dungeons & Dragons , as well as ten rulebooks from the 2000s and 2010s. The remaining 24 rulebooks postdate the closure of G+ in early 2019. Please refer to the bibliography at the bottom of this post for more information. After having collected and organized a dataset with ~90 variables, I found the statistical similarity between each pair of rulebooks based on that data. Finally, I ran an algorithm to determine clusters of these bo
Read more

D&D Fifth Edition: Death & Rebirth

-
Image
Hashtag OSRisOverParty, Hashtag RIPBozo, etc etc. The initial… “edition” of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition tried to present itself as a reactionary return to some ideal past paradigm of D&D —be it Third Edition to win back territory lost prior to Paizo’s Pathfinder , or an even older Gygaxian edition to get in the pants of the sort-of nascent OSR. Practically, this resulted in a final product that was like a simple Third Edition with dogwhistle-like nods to OSR conventions (since the play-style’s influence in the end was tenuous at best and mostly abandoned after the public test phase). It’s maybe more succinctly described as a people-pleasing game, with the caveat that people-pleasers don’t please anyone. So, how did it become popular? And how does the new 2024 not-edition reflect major differences between then and now, in terms of how D&D is perceived and played? This is my ramble. Sent from iPhone. Fifth Edition: Born in 2014 Of course, nobody plays D&D as
Read more