Second editions are *hard*
Second editions are hard.
Something I didn’t realize until I had to do it is that writing the second edition of an RPG is hard. The first edition was shiny and new – I wrote that thing by working for a month straight, nearly every day. One of the reasons I was able to is I had no idea that the work I thought I had to do was only ten percent of the work I really had to do: typography, pdf work, Index and ToC, headers and footers, manual pagination, and much, much more.
This time around it isn’t a new game system, but a (much-needed) update of an existing one. This time around I know what I am getting into. This time I have existing text to edit instead of blank pages to fill – which you would think would make it easier, but somehow it doesn’t.
This time around my actual income-producing job is much more active compared to last time – a good thing, I suppose from the standpoint of my bills (and my significant other), but a devil of an energy sapper. It’s an observed irony to me that I have all the mechanics of DF2 worked out and pretty much solid – and it works very well, much better I feel than DF1 – but the nasty work of writing (actually, rewriting), composing, editing, type-setting – all that is daunting me. And of course I have a deadline, so each week that passes without results haunts me.
You would think that would light a fire under my ass. *Sigh*
I’ll get it done. I still have several demons haunting me that won’t let me not get it done:
- I have a con coming up by which this edition needs to be done
- I feel it’s unacceptable to have improved DF1 so much and yet not have those improvements in the hands of the gamers and the world at large
- I need to finish what I started, and DF2 is, I think, the conclusion of the Dream Factory journey
- And the big one: I have a really really interesting idea for the next RPG system I will be developing – and I can’t move forward on that until I get this done
So fret not, DF2 is coming – and soon – months, not years. But <grin>, lord is it not easy.