Product Update: GM’s Field Guide to Players

Hope everyone had (or his having) happy holidays. You haven’t heard from me for a while because I’ve encountered a major problem with The Field Guide to Players and it’s take me several weeks to figure out what to do about it.

Truthfully, I knew what I should do; the problem was, I didn’t want to take that route and it took me several weeks to face up to that fact and finally do what I knew needed to be done.

Let me explain.

The basic problem is this: by the time I finished the entire first draft of The GM’s Field Guide to Players (FGP), I realized the durn thing was just too long. I was looking about almost 200 pages of material about dealing with players. It was too big, I knew that. I would have to charge at least $20 for the book and I don’t think many people would be willing to pay that much for a PDF about players.

After all, we’re not talking about core rules here.

While I knew that all the material in the book-to-be would be useful, I knew that one section would be of more interest than any other–the one about how to deal with problem players. The problem was, I’d already promised the readers of this blog that the book would cover more than that. That was the thing that had kept me from cutting out the other material.

I finally realized I was just going to have to do it anyway. I’ve kept the section on player types and all the sections on dealing with problem players. The book will still be called The GM’s Field Guide to Players. The rest of the material (covering finding players, keeping good players, introducing new players to your game, etc.) will appear in either The Campaign Creation Handbook or on my blog, Evil Machinations.

I’m currently about halfway through the first edit of the manuscript, which I’m going (come hell or high water ) to finish this week. Then I’m looking at passing the second draft to my editors for their feedback, then the final rewrite, creating the product layout, typesetting and illustrations… Hopefully, the book will be available mid-February.

Meanwhile, keep checking back here for more updates as the FGP progresses. I’m also going to be doing an update of The Adventure Creation Handbook and I’ve started researching for The Campaign Creation Handbook, which will be rpgGM’s third book.

I’m also considering offering an on-line adventure creation class, but I’m not sure how many people would be interested in and willing to pay for it. It’s looking at being around $50 minimum, with lessons delivered directly to your email and a password-protected blog or forum for posting homework. The class would be self-paced, with the goal of actually producing a finished adventure. If this is something that would interest you, please leave me a comment below. I’m just at the beginning stages of putting this together, so I’m not sure when it would be available.

Keep looking here for the FGP and other product updates and excerpts.

Related articles on this site

• Rules-Lawyers: Dealing with the guy who has all the answers (rpggm.com)
• Dealing with Problem Players: The Munchkin (rpggm.com)
• 13 Ways to Keep Good Players (rpggm.com)
• Dealing with the Socialite: a Casual Player Type (rpggm.com)
• How to Talk to a Problem Player (rpggm.com)