Form and Format

 I’ve been thinking a lot about book formats recently. For many, many years, I’ve been wanting to scale down, and do something smaller. I even made a video about it 10 years ago (back before the rebrand and with the old logo). 

There was something about those first Traveller ‘little black books’ - the simplicity of design, and how you could afford to get a new book on what was basically ‘pocket money’ costs. And they were just cool. Probably more complicated rules-wise than I’m used to now, but Traveller has always stuck with me. It was the first RPG I ever played (as covered in a very old blogpost here) and those little books seem to have been seared onto my mind. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love those big core rulebooks, with their glossy pages, colour artwork, and robust hardcovers, but as I get older and lazier, the prospect of something smaller and easier is certainly appealing. 

Hip to Be Square

Of course, the smaller little booklets were not the only thing to constantly bug my mind when it comes to book formats. There is also the lovely square book, a fascination that started with the complete opposite of Traveller’s ‘little black books’ - Nobilis’ ‘big white book’. 

Cover for 2nd Edition Nobilis - aka “the big white book”

Again, I wrote a blogpost about square books here, but before I even started working on the game system for WILD: Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming, I knew I wanted the book to be square. Nobilis had sown a seed of interest in square books, and I couldn’t shake it. The idea that you could have text as normal, but have space in the extra-wide margins (thanks to the square format) for additional guidance and notes… 

Example of page layout from Nobilis, showing the two column layout in the centre of the page, but space in the wide margins on either side for additional notes.

Awesome. Special thanks should go out to Stoo at we_evolve who published WILD for me and ran the Kickstarter, for letting me stick to my guns and go with a square book. (Click that link and you can buy WILD, Aegean, Action Potential, and more…)

Square books are no longer a weird or strange thing – the award winning and incredibly popular Slugblaster RPG is square, as is the recent Sleepy Hollow RPG that uses the Year Zero Engine. 

But I’m getting off track. We were talking about smaller books…

The Mothership Lode

With the recent resurgence of smaller ‘zine’ sized RPGs, it was inevitable that someone would also be inspired by the ‘little black books’ of Traveller, and the most popular of those would be Mothership. 

Same A5 format, same sized box, with a heap of books within - player’s guide, GM’s book, one filled with creatures, one for spaceships, and an adventure… and that’s not all (as Brian Butterfield would say). It also includes dice, a GM screen, a map, and standees. 

So much damn stuff in there! Stoo bought a copy at Tabletop Scotland and I read through the contents with my mind racing about how this was the future. This was what I wanted to do – “remember you always wanted to do Traveller sized books” said the voice in my head. Notebooks were filled, so many ideas for little books in a new range that I can’t really produce at the moment. 

But, I’m planning for the future…

All of this planning has been going in a notebook. A sketchbook actually as I’m doodling artwork at the same time as working on the game and the system. However, the sketchbook is one of my new favourite pieces of stationery, and it’s making me think… or rather, rethink…

A5 Sketchbook next to a copy of original Traveller (book 1)

I mean, that photo makes it look like it’s bigger than Traveller, but it isn’t (it’s just that the sketchbook is chunky - 92 pages of 140gsm loveliness. I may have got a little hooked on buying them from Hobbycraft. They were in a multi buy at the time, so don’t give me that look. 

But it did get me thinking - the idea I have, it would work nicely with a small hardback that size, with smaller booklets like Traveller as supplements or player only guides (the bigger book would be for the GM). You could even bind all the little supplements together to make another hardcover…

…and then along came the Shadowdark RPG Kickstarter. Which does just that. Over a million $1 and it collects six ‘zine’ sized supplements into a book the same size as the core book. 

Well, it’s all a while off. I can’t do anything about it at the moment, but I can make notes and plan for the future.

So what format RPG books do you like at the moment? Are you a traditional D&D hardback sized fan, or are you really into your zines at the moment? 

Comment if you like, I’d be interested to hear what you think.

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Meanwhile, if you get chance, check out this Kickstarter by one of my former work colleagues, Emmet Byrne. He’s put together a rather gorgeous looking 5e setting based on traditional Irish mythology. Looks glorious!! 

Beyond the Woods 5e

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Until next time, stay safe and stay multi-classy.

Remembering Alex

[Warning: This post is about grief, so if you’d rather not read it, please just delete this from your inbox. I know this is a tough topic.]

This week, we said our farewells to Alex Guttridge. I know a lot of you won’t know who I mean, but that’s what this post is about - at his ‘Celebration of Life’ this week, as we said our final farewells, the subject of keeping his memory alive came up multiple times. And, if you know me, or the stuff I’ve worked on, you probably know a little of Alex just by association. So this is me, spreading the word of Alex Guttridge.

I met Alex when I started my day-job in retail working at The Television and Movie Store in Norwich. It was the location of the former BBC Shop, and the owner of a company that supplied the BBC Shop with Daleks saw the empty unit as an opportunity to open a shop mostly dedicated to Doctor Who.

This business owner advertised on the well-known Doctor Who message boards, Gallifrey Base, and that’s where I heard of the opportunity. We had interviews, and the core team of the shop was defined. My boss, Si. Me as assistant manager, and two employees who would go on to become great friends and collaborators on many projects - Will Brooks, who did the covers for the Second Edition Doctor Who Roleplaying Game books, and Alex Guttridge. 

Alex Guttridge (l), Nicholas Courtney (aka, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart) (centre), and Will Brooks (r) circa 2008

With our regular ‘consultant’ Andrew, we set up the shop, painted the walls, worked out the stock control system, and filled the shelves with as much cool and nerdy stuff as we could get our hands on. Working long hours to get the shop ready, we’d chat about everything - Doctor Who (of course), Star Wars, Star Trek, Gerry Anderson, BBC comedies, Ghostbusters, Muppets, you name it, we talked about it for days and days. 

We worked together at the shop for many years – some of my fondest memories of working there was when Alex and I had to do the late night opening shift on Thursdays. Being the old BBC shop, we had a couple of screens behind the counter left over from when the BBC used to screen the news all day when they were open. We had this hooked up to a DVD player to promote some stuff we were selling, and hardly had any customers on those late shifts, so ended up sitting behind the counter watching DVDs of the 70s ‘Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries’. (Love that series).

Of course, both Alex and Will knew their Doctor Who. Hooo boy, do they know their Doctor Who. The very first boxed set for the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game (or Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space as it was then) had come out, and I was starting work on the first couple of supplements. Obviously, Alex and Will were the first people I turned to for help. Their knowledge poured into the Aliens and Creatures supplement, and they were instrumental to the writing of Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook, working out a solution to the UNIT dating controversy and defining how the book would work. [His most recent contribution to the Doctor Who RPG was developing the overarching storyline for the recent A Stitch In Time campaign book of ten connected adventures.]

But it wasn’t the limit to our friendship. Alex joined us for video game nights, LAN parties for Halo, and becoming suitably addicted to Rock Band just as we were. When I foolishly joined with like-minded gaming nerds and started recording short comedy videos and a web series, Alex was there in one of the most dramatic and serious roles. He joined us for our 8-hour charity fundraising Rockathon playing Rock Band 2 non-stop for 100 songs to get the ‘Bladder of Steel’ achievement, bashing the heck out of that Rock Band drum kit. I remember him constantly complaining that there wasn’t any Boney M on Rock Band, and how he wanted to do the drum parts for the Nightflight to Venus/Rasputin tracks off of the album.

He left the shop for another retailer, but didn’t stay away for long, returning to TVM – I guess we all just got along so well, it was difficult to capture that relationship in another store. Everyone in TVM got on really well, and we’re all there for each other. 

Never has this been more apparent than this week. 

My wife and I were on a train crossing the border into Scotland when we heard the news that Alex had died on his way in to work. He was only in his early 40s, and it just didn’t feel real. Hell, it doesn’t feel real now. This week saw Alex’s funeral and celebration of life, and I’ve not seen such a large turnout at a funeral before – a testament to not only how young he was, but also how loved he was by his family, friends, and work colleagues. It was tough – there have been far too many funerals recently, and this one was a real punch in guts at times. 

It still doesn’t feel real, but as I said before, the take away message from the funeral was to keep talking about Alex, so he is never forgotten. Alex had teamed up with fellow former TVM employees on a couple of podcasts which I highly recommend. 

The first is the Talk Toy To Me Podcast he was working on with Ben Allen, where Alex and Ben would talk about collecting toys and action figures. 

Highly recommended if you want to find out about all kinds of toys, from Ninja Turtles to Transformers. 

The other podcast is the Oh Rabbits! podcast he was working on with Nick Mellish, and the aforementioned Will Brooks.

Three friends working their way through the entirety of Doctor Who, a couple of episodes at a time. As I said before, Alex and Will, and Nick, certainly know their Doctor Who, and you can hear in both of these podcasts just how passionate Alex was about his interests.

Thank you Alex, for being a great friend, a valuable source of nerdy information, and be sure we’ll keep talking about you (in a good way, of course). 

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