[TSOY 2nd] Name of the game?
Rafu:
What about a "double title" such as:
The Shadow of Yesterday:
a Gazzetter of Near
...?
dindenver:
As an ode to Steven Colbert:
Eero Tuovinen Presents:
Eero Tuovinen's Shadow of Yesterday:
A gazetteer of NEar as told by Eero Tuovinen:
An authorized biography of Clinton R Nixon*
(*that is not on the Bavarian Illuminati's watch list)
But in all seriousness, people need to be able to find "The Shadow of Yesterday" and buy it. Shouldn't that be your new version?
Eero Tuovinen:
I suppose so, it'd be nice if people understood to get the new great thing. The thing is, though, that the rpg culture advocates an ahistorical view on games: if the common culture had its way, the publication of a new version of a game magically would make the old one disappear into the void. I think this is backwards when the new version does not really try to replace the old one in some sort of 1:1 relationship. Clinton will, as I understand it, keep his edition of the game available, and I think he should - mine cannot be its equal in all facets simply because I'll have a different approach and a wider scope that requires more reading from the reader to get the same tools you get out of Clinton's version.
In this situation having two books called "The Shadow of Yesterday" is a recipe for confusion. It's just in the rpg world where people try to kill the past with hostile revision; in the real world a work of this sort would be clearly differentiated as a separate product. For example, the new Batman movie is not called "Batman" to try to make people stop watching all the old "versions"; apparently the audience is finding the new movie and not getting confused with its relationship to the property.
Ideally I'd like to trust in people being smart enough to research the topic the tiniest bit to figure out that when somebody recommends TSOY to them, they mean to recommend the activity of playing TSOY, not necessarily the specific book called "The Shadow of Yesterday". I don't know if that's feasible, though. I also don't know if my using the exact same name (with perhaps a tiny note of "third edition" or whatnot) will much help the confusion, as Clinton's website is still going to draw people. At least with a different name a person who specifically wanted to direct another to my book could do so by referring to it by name.
I like Rafu's suggestion a lot, by the by: a subtitle might be a good compromise. It implies that the book is part of the same brand, sort of like how all Dragonlance novels have the Dragonlance logo, even while the books themselves are not named "Dragonlance".
Another approach would be a prominent edition tag - "The Shadow of Yesterday 3rd edition" or some such. The benefit in that is that roleplayers understand that very well from their experience with other games, and are even starting to be able to compare editions intelligibly without always going for the newest thing. Having multiple editions is even a slightly positive marketing message in the rpg scene, as it implies longevity and polish. The downside is the aforementioned ahistoricity - publishing a new edition is an unspoken claim of superiority, and I'm not sure if that's warranted here.
Rich F:
I think you need to have TSOY in the title, as that is the hook. You can assume your audience if at least semi-intelligent, and describe / explain the product on the back cover (side blurb) so I wouldn't worry about that. A subititle will work well to differentiate the product, eg: Expanded Edition or Next Gen.
Paul Czege:
If TSOY were a Hollywood movie franchise, the title of your book would be:The Light of Tomorrow
Paul
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