Thread by @RTalsorianGames

How Sausage (the TTRPG) is made.

Curious about how a TTRPG company tackles the process of creating a TTRPG book?

Let's do a thread!

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First, a caveat: Every company is different. Every product is different. The steps we're about to lay out are generally accurate but will change from company to company and even product to product within the same company.

That being said, let's dive in!

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It all begins w/ concepts. Ideas are tossed around. Proposals are made. Some never get past the initial "what about?" stage. Others get full breakdowns. Someone in charge makes the final call on which ideas will make it past the concept stage.

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Next comes the planning. Who is in charge of the project? How many pages? How many words per page? How much art? Digital, physical, or both? Hardcover or softcover? Who will work on it? In house? Freelance?

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During the planning stage, we make breakdowns: how many chapters, what sections are in each chapter, how many pages/words are allotted for each section. How many pieces of art will be ordered.

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Why so much work at this stage? First, because it helps guide the project. Obviously, you remain flexible. As time goes on, you may discover sections needs to be cut, added, or expanded. But the planning stage gives you a direction.

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It also allows you to make a budget. If you know how many words, how many pieces of art, how many pages, and the product's final form, you can work out a pretty good idea of how much it will cost to make the book.

That's important. Especially if crowdfunding.

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In fact, for us, at this point the business manager is working up a budget based on this information and current industry rates for printing.

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The final part of the planning stage is all about who to hire. Will the book be written in-house? By freelancers? Or a combination of both? Assignments are offered. Contracts are made. We've got a crew. Time to begin work.

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10 tweets in and we're just getting to the "making the book" phase!

Before we go further, let's break down the difference between design and writing. Or, at least, as we define it at RTG.

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Design is mechanical stuff. Monster stats. Rules. Flowcharts for adventures. That sort of thing.

Writing is crafting the words that will ultimately see print. That's not just lore. That's also wording rules so they make sense and writing descriptive text for stat blocks.

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Depending on the product, design work can come before writing. This is often true of toybox books (gear books, spell books, etc). Sometimes it comes at the same time or even after. That can happen with adventures.

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Either way, the first part of a project is usually a combination of design and writing. This is an iterative process. Multiple drafts can be made. Work is turned into the project lead, who evaluates, makes "redlines" (required changes), and returns them to writers.

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Sometime during this stage, playtesting begins if needed. When there's enough design work to test out new mechanics, new items, new spells, and so forth, those get sent to playtest teams to get hammered on.

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Sometimes, playtesting is simple: "Run this adventure. Fill out the feedback survey". Sometimes it is boring: "Take this gun and shoot it a hundred times at this target. We want to see if it models the way the math says it will."

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Notes from playtesting go back to the designers, evaluated, and changes are made. Sometimes more playtesting happens. There's often several rounds of in-house playtesting as well. A lot of math modeling, too.

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While all this is going on, the project lead and art director are meeting and figuring out the art. At RTG, we do "art lines". I.e. we say "X% of the book will be art". If we say 20%, that means if we put all the art together it would take up 20% of the pages of the book.

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Art can be tricky. Covers have to be thought out in advance because they require the biggest, most expensive piece (usually). Some pieces are obvious and can be ordered before writing begins. Other pieces come out of the writing.

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During the design/writing phase, there's constant communication between the art director and project lead to order the art needed. The project lead (or sometimes a project writer) will create art scripts: descriptions of what they want the piece of art to look like.

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Art scripts include written descriptions but often reference images as well. Artists often work visually so being able to say "use the window style from this building but the door style from this one" helps.

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Initial layout often happens around now, too. The layout artist has to figure out trade dress and general format. What each page generally looks like and what unique elements (page borders and so forth) need to be created for it.

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Back to writing & design. After playtesting, redlining, and revisions, semi-final drafts are produced. These drafts are sent off to editors to edit. Often this is done in chunks, as chapters are completed.

At this point, freelance writers are generally done. They get paid.

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When the editor sends back their edits, the project lead evaluates and begins inputting the edits into what will be the final draft. There's usually another run through stat blocks and tables at this time, as those are the hardest things for an editor to edit.

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Once the final draft is done, it goes to the layout artist. Again, this sometimes happens piece by piece. Chapters at a time. The layout artist places the text and all available art in the document. When art isn't yet completed, a placeholder is inserted.

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The layout artist returns drafts (in PDF form) to the project lead. Changes are made as needed. Often something that felt good in a Word document looks wrong in InDesign. Sometimes unexpected holes crop up and need to be filled. Sometimes text needs cropping.

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Around this time, we pivot back to business. If the book is going to be printed, the business manager has to figure out who. They solicit quotes from printers, find the best price for the best quality, and work out contracts. 26/

The business manager is also paying everyone who needs to be paid based on their contracts. At RTG, we usually pay upon completion of work.

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All this time, publicity is happening. Development blogs are being posted. Covers are being revealed. Interviews are being set up. That sort of thing.

Don't forget to factor (and budget!) publicity into your TTRPG project plans!!!

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Once layout is done, there's a final pass. Sometimes, errors are easier to spot when the book is organized as it will be presented than they are in a flat Word document.

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If no further problems are noticed, everything is PDF'd. Cover in one file. Interior in a second. And we upload it to the printer. We now enter the preflight process.

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Preflight is the process where the printer checks the document for potential problems (RGB graphics instead of CMYK, text being in the safety margins where it might get cut off during the slicing stage, and so forth).

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Any problems found have to be corrected and new files uploaded. Often you just upload the corrected page, not an entire new interior. Once that's done, we get a proof.

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Proofs these days are often digital. Sometimes we ask for a few physical pages to be sent to us as well. This is especially good when checking to see if art looks the same on paper as it does on screen. Sometimes it prints darker than you'd expect.

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Going back a step, there's things I didn't mention. Getting an ISBN for the book. Making sure the credits are correct. That sort of thing. All needs to be done before this stage.

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Once the proofs are approved, the printer adds the book to the queue and printing begins. Pages are printed. Cut. Assembled. Binding is added. Drying happens.

And the book is shipped.

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Around this time, we're also preparing the digital sale PDF. Which isn't just "use the print file and apply different settings". There's a lot of little fiddly that needs to be done, in addition to bookmarking and hyperlinking.

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And on the business side, we're sending out solicits to distributors and retailers, letting them know the book is coming, how much it will be, and why they should buy it.

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(The truth is, the soliciting bit happens throughout the whole process but it ramps up a bit at this stage because we're more sure of when it will arrive and have more pretty to show off).

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Finally, the book hits our warehouse. We set it for sale in our own webstore and on DriveThruRPG. We upload the digital file to Bits and Mortar. And we ship copies ordered by distributors and individual retailers all over the world.

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And then comes the next stage.

Because no matter how thorough your process is, someone will find an error. No amount of playtesting or editing is a substitute for 1,000s of people reading your books or playing your games. So, we open up a log for noted changes.

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For a core book, those changes will often go through ASAP after a first printing in the form of an errata and an update to the digital version. For other books, we sometimes wait until a second printing. Updates happen with each new printing after that.

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Meanwhile, it all begins again. Because there's always another book.

We hope you enjoyed this peek behind the curtain!

Making these books is a LOT of work but a lot of people.

Please show them some love!

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Addendum: One thing we skipped - expert checks! Often we have experts look over the text to check for errors or problems. This includes sensitivity checks. That tends to happen before layout.