Writing a Dictionary: so many people to thank

[Judd]

Inspired by:

Brennan's Mortal Coil: From Concept to Product

Thor's Making of Burning Empires One , Two.  ]Three. Four. and Five

The Dictionary of Mu began with this:

I am tinkering with an e-mail to send the players in a possibly forming Sorcerer & Sword game.

Here's the first draft with comments below:

Mu's Bed is the capital city of Lemuria, seething in the red sand wastes like a pregnant beetle.  When Lemur and Mu fought the giant Mu fell and this city was built on his body.  Most take this tale as only a metaphor.  Fools.

It all started with a post in the Adept Press forum. I had just bought Sorcerer along with Sorcerer & Sword, read a few books from &Sword's amazing bibliography and was eyebrow deep in pulp fantasy.

Reading what I had for the Dictionary of Mu setting, Ron PMed me, showing me the info on the mini-supplement system. And then I got writing.

Because the setting supplement was organized as a dictionary, it gave the whole thing a shape and a format that made coming up with new things easy. I wanted an entry or two for each letter.

I ran playtests, wrote AP posts, and e-mailed Ron new copies. He sent back feedback, read the AP posts.  The piece of advice Ron sent along that really has left its mark whenever I write game related material is, "Judd, there are things you are doing at the table that are not in the supplement yet," along with just solid suggestions for what should be included and statted out.

My early playtests were a total disaster.  I wasn't used to games that could be played as written and I was changing rules and then wondering why they weren't working.  The first rule I messed up was allowing my players create their own descriptors, not understanding their use in setting creation.  My first session was a disaster.

But then I got more Sorcerer games under my belt and understood how it worked, ran a campaign of the Dictionary with two friends and gained confidence enough to bring what I had to cons.

Zak Arnston sent me some great pictures but couldn't stay with the project because of other commitments.  Just knowing that someone liked it enough to draw pictures for it was inspiration, a big deal.

And then it stalled. Must've been about a year and it just stalled out for me. The thought of the next step just petrified me, petrified me enough that I didn't even go on the Publishing forum and ask for help, or PM Ron or anything. I just froze at the thought of getting art and layout together while finishing off the text.

Writing cool shit? Sure. Putting cool shit together as a coherent gaming supplement to be published for a profit? No, this left me in a cold sweat.

The Dictionary sat around for a while and I met Luke Crane at Gen Con 04, I think. Turns out he ended up visiting a little town outside of Ithaca. We met for lunch and talked shit.

Luke: What are you working on.

Me: Hemming and hawing, talking about how stalled the Dictionary is.

Luke: Send it to me if you don't mind. I'd love to take a look at it.

And I did and he did. Turns out, he loved it.

"This has to get published," he said. "I will walk you through the process and do the layout."

And we began to poke around, looking for an artist. And there was Jennifer Rodgers at Dexcon and Dreamation. I looked over her portfolio and put a copy of the Dictionary word file that I used as a reference while I ran it at cons. The art in her portfolio wasn't right but it was really good. So, I gave her a copy of the manuscript. A few weeks later, she had read it and she loved it. She wanted in. We talked price, e-mailed back and forth and came up with a fair amount of art for a more than fair price.

Jennifer had a passion for the material, amazing amounts of talent and a professional demeanor that was just amazing.

Luke hooked me up with his editor, Rich Forest.  He sent me back the manuscript with grammatical glyphs in all colors ink and when I was done, I felt like I had in my hands not only a tighter manuscript but I felt like I was a better writer.  Rich Forest is money well spent.

Art came in, I made suggestions and art went on.  Jennifer took such care with each piece and they were all beautiful.  Once Luke had the pages from Jennifer, he began to do layout and I got a few pages, just a taste.  It was amazing.

Every person on the project brought and left their mark on it in the best way possible.

I went with RapidPOD because I wanted the Dictionary to be the same size as Sorcerer even though I had heard that some folks had trouble with them in the past and ended up going to Gen Con without product.  I got my copies of the Dictionary a few days before I left for the con.

The folks at RapidPOD were solid with me and remain so for the second printing.  Yes, second printing, as the 50 copies sold out at Gen Con.

And now I'm setting up a web site far later than it should have been up.  I should have left for Gen Con with a web site up and running.  Truth is, Dro is getting the web site up.  I'd say he was helping me get the site up but that isn't so, he's doing it and I'm sort of helping and the site is going up on Keith Senkowski's server.

Yeah, I get help again.  See a trend?

Ron get's me writing and let's me know what needs to be in the final draft.

Zak shows enthusiasm for the ideas and offers up some art.

Luke get's me to finish it and let's me know what needs doing to have a finished product and not only holds my hand but does the layout, taking Jennifer's beautiful art and putting it together with my text in ways I had never imagined.

Dro set's up a site and send me the URL, asking me if I like it; Keith offers room on his server.

The support I have been offered time and time again through this site has been damn near overhwelming. 

And now I'm looking for someone with some crazy idea that grabs me, a game or supplement from someone new to the scene and I'll PM 'em and help them take their mad idea as far as they want to take it.

[Judd]

The paragraph that didn't make it in due to an error is that it was Ron who defined what Humanity is in the setting.  I just couldn't see it.  I was all blinded by red sand and giant bug steeds and witch kings and stygian horrors.  He was the one who saw through that and cut through the bullshit and saw that this was a dark fantasy setting about hope.  And once that was in place the playtests started to shine.

Funny that.

[iago]

It takes a village to build a RPG? :)

[Judd]

It takes a village to build a RPG? :)

No...yes...sometimes?

It takes a village to train people in getting their RPG ideas into print.

There is a whole song and dance between the artist, layout and printing of the book that is pretty daunting.

[Keith Senkowski]

In case anyone is looking for the Mu site, it is currently at http://www.bobgoat.com/mu/.  I think Dro did a bang up job putting together something simple but effective of Judd, who is also known as Samson cause he is freaking huge.  Did you see the guy at GenCon this year?

[Andrew Craig]

And now I'm setting up a web site far later than it should have been up.  I should have left for Gen Con with a web site up and running.

I actually disagree with this.  When everyone came back from Dexcon and started posting about how awesome Dictionary of Mu looked, and how amazing the art was, a lot of people were really hanging out for a website.  Or even just a scan of the cover.  But we didn't get one, and that just made us want the thing even more.

It's the sort of thing that would be really dangerous for an unknown game, but I think Mu had reached such a level of buzz that it ended up being a smooth marketing move.  (Maybe having an online purchase system up immediately after Gen Con would've been a good idea, but I don't think Mu was hurt at all by not having one up before.)

[Luke]

a correction and a question:

I didn't say I was going to do the layout. I made my help on the project conditional on my doing the layout. I wasn't working on it unless I could lay it out!

And Judd, for all that beautiful noise, you've never told your reasons for making it a dictionary. Sure, a dictionary made it easier on you and all that. But why a dictionary, man?!

-L

[Robert Bohl]

OCD.  It's terrible.  You should see what happens when you eat your meal in the "wrong" order.  It's a half hour of doorway tapping. Sad.

[Judd]

And Judd, for all that beautiful noise, you've never told your reasons for making it a dictionary. Sure, a dictionary made it easier on you and all that. But why a dictionary, man?!

-L

Someone has mentioned that there was another dictionary game supplement, Everway, I think but I had never seen it nor heard of it when I worked on the Dictionary of Mu.

Did Ron suggest it early in a PM or e-mail that is long since thrown away?

Did Oghma son of Oghma demand it?

I have no idea; it just isn't clear to me at all how that came about.  I will look over old e-mails and see what I can uncover.  But honestly, a large chunk of that book was written so late at night that it was actually early int he morning, when I was driving a cab, graveyard shift.  I'm not trying to be spooky but there are bits that I do not remember writing.

A friend of mine described his character, a pre-made, during a playtest and I gagged at how gross it was and he held the character sheet up, "Dude, you WROTE it."

Luckily, there were years of polishing between those late night writing sessions what with Ron, Luke and Rich, not even to mention a few friends who gave early friendly edits early on in the process that trimmed the frantic text into something manageable and most importantly, playable.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

As I recall, Judd arrived at the dictionary-idea on his own, and his first draft was in that format. After reading it, I told him about Spherewalker, the Everway supplement by Greg Stolze, which had utilized the idea in the mid-90s.

Best, Ron