Deadly Revision

Last week I took a little break from Arachnia because I really hate this part. This part is revision. It's perhaps the most essential part of the game. As a creator I, you, must go back through the game and start rewriting everything to accommodate the information you want to keep and the information you want to get rid of.

For example, character revision. In the storyteller, version of Arachnia, I would go back through my history and my abilities to decided what stays and what goes. In my writing I may have made a character perform something amazing and didn't account for it in the Particular class of spider. Let's say:

"Jaffil blended his body with the shadows to avoid detection by the Widows. As they passed by he remained tense and spun a small parachute to catch the wind current he knew was coming."

Jaffil is a Jumping Spider and Either for his family or spiders in general I didn't take into account theability to blend with shadows, or detect wind currents. I'll have to write that in and fix it so that when people wonder why Jaffil was able to do it, it wasn't just a piece of dramatic flair but rather a measurable definable skill.

Abilities, Characters, History, and Setting all come under scrutiny. Keeping Abilities and loosing parts of history that don't make sense may be the choice you take instead of character revision, but I would choose the story over the numbers.

The AD&D version of the game would also come under the exact same scrunity. Large chunks may be sliced and revised until you have created a whole new game that reads and sounds better than the first. But even after you have revised this time, you aren't done yet. Playtesting becomes the next logical step. Gather a group of friends, family, bitter enemies, whatever together and get a game going.

Make sure you begin the first session with, "I have created this recently and I would like you to give me some positive feedback and constructive critcism after we have played the game." You definitely want positive feedback so that you don't get stuck with, "This Sucks," or "This is what you've been doing all this time?" Constructive criticism is important because the person who is giving the criticism is trying to honestly think how they would make the game better and what they would have included or left out. DON'T TAKE THIS TO HEART!

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